Status of Left Lean and Right Rich Philosophy in B/M Open Circuit Technical Diving

[rjack321]

I'm not sure it is a good idea in a cave either.

I have done SM dives with 2 stages & 1 deco gas. It was hard to push new cave with this much junk on. Mostly there are a lot of faffing around and you barely get much more time/gas than bringing giant lp120 sized SM tanks (which I have never had) and a single stage. It works, but you are rapidly getting to the point of diminishing returns.

 

[J-Vo]

I have done SM dives with 2 stages & 1 deco gas. It was hard to push new cave with this much junk on. Mostly there are a lot of faffing around and you barely get much more time/gas than bringing giant lp120 sized SM tanks (which I have never had) and a single stage. It works, but you are rapidly getting to the point of diminishing returns.

Lol, I have no plan to stop diving until I get a breather and a MOD 3 cert. You guys talk like you were born experienced hypoxic breather divers.

I just spent two weeks doing double stage dives in Ginnie. If your practiced, it's not that big a deal.

 

[rjack321]

I just spent two weeks doing double stage dives in Ginnie. If your practiced, it's not that big a deal.

You have bare hands. And Ginnie is shallow and you aren't exploring or surveying that (on OC) either. There's a giant mainline with known bottle drops.

Put on some thicker undies, dry gloves, and try doing a double stage SM exploration dive. Even in normoxic depths. You spend so much faffing around with bottles there's no time left for much of anything else.

 

[Wstern5]

I have done SM dives with 2 stages & 1 deco gas. It was hard to push new cave with this much junk on. Mostly there are a lot of faffing around and you barely get much more time/gas than bringing giant lp120 sized SM tanks (which I have never had) and a single stage. It works, but you are rapidly getting to the point of diminishing returns.

Stages on the left in SM?

 

[rjack321]

Stages on the left in SM?

For a double stage OC SM dive, normal practice is to put one on each side. Although depending on the cave and scooter situation some divers may leash stage #2 and rotate it forward when stage #1 is dropped. Some people put stages on top, some underneath the main bottles. But those would be bottom mix in this case, so not sure that's applicable to the original question of LLRR since none of them are "rich"

Having clean running stage regs for a double stage SM cave dive is a persistent challenge.

 

[flymolo]

A- If you are conducting dives that require 2 deco bottles, get a CCR
2 - Who still slings deco bottles anyway? Aside from quick carries (ie entering off a boat or taking an O2 bottle into a cave), side mount those bastards.
4- I have never carried 2 deco bottles for OC. Because I have a CCR. But I do carry my BO LLRR and sidemounted.

I would imagine most backmount people sling deco gasses and stages. Much easier to just go with standard stage bottle rigging than to mess around trimming sidemount bottles, especially if you are borrowing a bottle from a shop or a buddy. A set of doubles and 2 deco gasses is also pretty much the standard configuration for a normoxic dive, nothing wrong with that at all.

 

[DiveClimbRide]

Got nothing to add to this conversation except if you don't have an option to view the poll other than voting people are going to vote just to see the results and skew the data

 

[Bierstadt]

They exist in the Great Lakes and I saw one once in North Carolina. A captain I know in the great lakes just bought a new boat with a lift. He said it's becoming one of the more commonly asked for things by his tech diving customers.

What charter? I'm going!

 

[tbone1004]

A 4 bottle cave dive?

so a stage and a deco bottle?

what’s your better solution?

I was thinking two stage as the deco botlle is only on for a short amount of time.

If the dive calls for sidemount, there isn't a better one.
Deco bottles don't count IMO in a cave because I just nose clip them or leash them. I accept that it is hideously ugly for the 3 minutes on the way in, but in the words of Lewis Black, toughski shitski. Even in backmount I usually just nose clip them.
I can't stand 3 bottles on one side in sidemount, so 2 stages is my personal limit and it is one on each side. If I have a 4+ total bottle dive, then the deco bottle is on a leash, usually with a 4lb clip weight on it. When I get back to deco, I shed the stage bottles and DPV for deco, then pick up the leash for final ascent.