Spotting for a valve drill

[Meng_Tze]

.. that you're not on the team then, you're watching from the sidelines. Ready to sub in, but not really in the game. He advised to get engaged with your team as soon as a teammate starts screwing up a drill. You should be right in there before they even get the long hose turned off since she skipped the purge step. Don't let your teammates foster bad muscle memory and don't let them get to the point where they need to call OOA.

I am trying to get sharp enough to catch stuff like this before it gets past the first boo boo. I'm not there yet with the awareness myself.

There is a flip side to that coin as well. That is that you can also 'train' your buddy (or yourself) the mindset that- and subconcious expectation of- a buddy always being there in the middle of your screw up. This on paper is ideal.......but in reality when it really counts, what will you do if you screw up? Wait for yourt buddy, or try to fix the stuff while your buddy tends?

It is correct that we should not let ourselves and buddies learn bad muscle memory, but we whould also be wary of creating 'buddy dependency memory'. Your buddy may not always be right there and then available. Doing it correctly is the right way do do things. the road to that requires learning.... sometimes with 'extreme learning experiences'. If you experience an OOA situation in earnest..... you will not make that mistake leading up to it again... trust me.

 

[TSandM]

I believe the GUE recommendation is valve drill BEFORE S-drill, so that the S-drill will pick up any failures to get all the valves where they ought to be before you head off to go diving.

Ryan's got a really good description of what was going on. And it wasn't that I wasn't confident that he could donate -- I wouldn't do a skills dive with somebody I didn't think could get the job done. It was just trying to make a decision of what was going to be quicker, turning the post back on or asking for my buddy's reg, and I figured I could get the post on faster because that post's really easy for me. It worked out.

I just learned a couple of things I thought I'd pass on -- ALWAYS check for the availability and function of an alternate air source before you shut down the one you're breathing (or give it up). Always watch somebody doing a valve drill closely, because if they screw it up, they're OOA and they may or may not be able to fix it quickly enough by themselves.

 

[lamont]

IAnd when someone is deliberately shutting off their air supply, the person spotting really needs to be watching everything that's going on. This is another place where I think it's possible to get too comfortable because of doing drills all the time, and I'm sure I'm guilty of not being as carefully observant as I ought to be when my very facile buddy is twiddling with his valves.

Another thing which is common is for the buddy to be trying to be a "buoyancy reference" which means that as the diver doing the valve drill floats up/down 5 feet the separation distance between the divers may increase, which is not good if the person doing the valve drill messes up like this. It is better if the buddy sticks with the diver doing the valve drill like glue and just signals to level off. The whole "visual reference off the other diver" idea doesn't really work out that well in practice and just encourages buddy separation, imo...

 

[rjack321]

There is a flip side to that coin as well. That is that you can also 'train' your buddy (or yourself) the mindset that- and subconcious expectation of- a buddy always being there in the middle of your screw up. This on paper is ideal.......but in reality when it really counts, what will you do if you screw up? Wait for yourt buddy, or try to fix the stuff while your buddy tends?

It is correct that we should not let ourselves and buddies learn bad muscle memory, but we whould also be wary of creating 'buddy dependency memory'. Your buddy may not always be right there and then available. Doing it correctly is the right way do do things. the road to that requires learning.... sometimes with 'extreme learning experiences'. If you experience an OOA situation in earnest..... you will not make that mistake leading up to it again... trust me.

I certainly agree that one should not become complacant, expecting to be corrected or fixed by your buddy every step of the way. I used to think a good way to avoid these kinds of mistakes was to shut off both your valves by accident or something along the lines of what Lynne did. Sorta a self correcting mistake.

Chris didn't agree with that philosophy, thought it was being a lazy brained buddy.

I am just trying to strike a balance, which definately must start with good eye-to-eye team communication. You probably won't have that in real life, but in real failures the communication process only starts with the light signal.

 

[rjack321]

Another thing which is common is for the buddy to be trying to be a "buoyancy reference" which means that as the diver doing the valve drill floats up/down 5 feet the separation distance between the divers may increase, which is not good if the person doing the valve drill messes up like this. It is better if the buddy sticks with the diver doing the valve drill like glue and just signals to level off. The whole "visual reference off the other diver" idea doesn't really work out that well in practice and just encourages buddy separation, imo...

Nooooooo. You gotta resist the urge to follow people up or down 5ft. After 2-3 ft you should be signalling your teammate to move up or move down. Following someone who's lost bouyancy just leads to yo-yo-ing you'll have a tough time passing Tech/Cave1 with lots of yo-yos on drills.

Communicate the loss of bouyancy to the teammate, halt the drill, correct the bouyancy, restart the drill. Everything hinges upon good bouyancy. Don't break that just for a drill. Do the drills on the bottom and get them wired before doing them sloppily mid-water.

Just my 2 psi

 

[ScubaMilo]

I believe the GUE recommendation is valve drill BEFORE S-drill, so that the S-drill will pick up any failures to get all the valves where they ought to be before you head off to go diving.

We were taught that the s drill preceded the valve drill to make sure that equipment was functioning properly and that the long hose was not trapped and was deployable.

We were taught that flow checks were to verify position of valves and remedy any valves that were out of order after the valve drill.

Milo

 

[Meng_Tze]

Do the drills on the bottom ..

you are not kneeling are you?:huh:

 

[limeyx]

We were taught that the s drill preceded the valve drill to make sure that equipment was functioning properly and that the long hose was not trapped and was deployable.

We were taught that flow checks were to verify position of valves and remedy any valves that were out of order after the valve drill.

Milo

I think GUE changed this a year ago -- valve drill is now 1st. S-drill second

 

[rjack321]

you are not kneeling are you?:huh:

Ya man! Just like on that other agencies video :mooner:

 

[rjack321]

I think GUE changed this a year ago -- valve drill is now 1st. S-drill second

DIR, DIW whatever. oops this isn't even in that forum...