St. Lawrence + 7mm wetsuit = how long a season?

[pufferfish]

I guess the jury is still out on this one. Anybody have much experience with jumping in the hot tub post dive? I have never had a problem with a real hot shower, but that is often an hour or two after the dive.

I guess getting in the suana would be definitely out of the question to warm up.

Hot tubs to warm up

 

[Groundhog246]

pufferfish once bubbled...
Argon and Diving see page 3

I recall reading the article/study they're talking about (now if I could remember which magazine published and where I put it, I think it was "Dive Training") on page 3. It was double blind, six divers. They had both surface (skin) and core (rectal) thermometers. Each diver did 2 dives, one air, one argon. Neither the diver, nor the people supervising knew which dive was which gas (that was controlled by a 3rd person, thus the "double" blind). I don't remember the water temp, wasn't extreme, but was cool. Each diver spent an hour on the bottom with minimal activity (moving muscles create heat).
Only one diver did not complete one of his dives due to being too cold. As it happened that was his argon dive. There was no measureable difference in heat loss between argon and air used to inflate the drysuits. One factor mentioned was that over 40% of heat loss on open circuit is the breathing gas. Thus the exposure suit chosen has less effect on heat loss, than one might anticipate.

One error in the newsletter review of the article concerns diving with tri-mix. The original article did in fact say that using tri-mix to inflate a drysuit would likely cause higher heat loss. However, rather than rigging an argon bottle, or other air source, it recommended inflating from an air or nitrox stage bottle. The author of the original article thought that the possible risks of someone hooking up a small argon bottle to a reg set as a bailout bottle (it has apparently happened with fatal consequences) far outweigh any possible heat saving, as well as the added benefit of one less system (argon bottle/reg/hose) to deal with, thus one less complication and one less failure point.

Thread hijack in progress
With the DIR emphasis on "points of failure", is an argon bottle, which adds additional points of failure DIR compliant? I am serious in this, not trying to raise an argument. With the strong emphasis placed on simplicity, minimalism and safety (eg properly rigged doubles with, if I have it right, suit whip on one 1st and BC/wing whip on the other) is there a position on argon?

 

[Dan MacKay]

An argon or air bottle is always used by DIR divers that are using helium. I do not care to get into an arguement over the pros and cons of argon. Suffice it to say I use it and it is warmer. When David Sawatski was asked if he would give up using argon his reply was just not no but hell no.

For those of you who have never spent a couple of hours in deco in cold water I guess it is not an issue but I use it most of the time simply because it is convienient ( just walk out to the fill shed), rigged properly so unobtrusive and if nothing else physcologically warming. My blankie so to speak.

Safe dives,

Dan

 

[Col.Cluster]

Groundhog246 once bubbled...

Thread hijack in progress
With the DIR emphasis on "points of failure", is an argon bottle, which adds additional points of failure DIR compliant? I am serious in this, not trying to raise an argument. With the strong emphasis placed on simplicity, minimalism and safety (eg properly rigged doubles with, if I have it right, suit whip on one 1st and BC/wing whip on the other) is there a position on argon?

You only have part of it correct. For more details on argon rigging go to www.gue.com
DIR is a complete and holistic system.

Personal point, I have done the dives with argon and without. I can do approx 60mins comfortably in 33f water before the chill starts to set in. I can do approx 90mins with argon. This is in line with gue’s thinking that argon has a heat transfer capacity of approx 66% that of compressed air. This is in line with results from the wkpp with divers using air or argon on the same dives.

It is only empirical evidence. I am not going to debate the use of argon. If you do not want it do not take it. It means little to me either way.

The articles quoted are the previous posts also lose sight of the whole picture. Extra underwear restricts movement, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

All the best
James

 

[Col.Cluster]

opps

 

[pufferfish]

nt

 

[pufferfish]

technical problems still with this board.

 

[pufferfish]

Col.Cluster once bubbled...
opps

Oops he says and tries to desperately delete. If I didn't just choke on my coffee I'd go and pull up ALL those quotes where Colonel Cluster was having lunch with JP, or Colonel Cluster just got off the phone with JP to donate the photos to Doppler, and a bunch more. It was obvious anyhow 'yeah baby' from the day JP disappeared. Made for a good laugh must say.

Someone call Marvintpa for that score card on scuba-induced multiple personality disorder ut:

 

[Col.Cluster]

Pufferfish

I just had to pull this one on you. I wondered how long it would take you to bite on this one. You have just demonstrated better then I or anyone else could ever put into words what is wrong with everything you post to the board. A small description of which follows:

If you find it posted on the internet and it is what you want to believe then you jump all over it and claim it has true, regardless of the real life experience of the many divers around you. As far as diving goes you are of some reading, but little if any real experience. These two posts are prime example. You could not even find the time to check the times I posted or edited the last 2 posts. They were put up with 2 minutes of each other. If the board had not gone down, I believe I would have won the pot on ‘how long it would take you to jump all over the name james’. I had you in the 1 to 2 hour range.

You are far too predictable and I will leave it at that.

All the best
CC

ROFLMAO :stupid:

 

[Tom R]

ROTFLMAO here,

The Col is with us in Kingston and JP is in Toronto with a cold, but you know what they say about assumptions.

Tom