Stupid idea??

[seattlepaul1975]

Being I am now diving an Atomic SS1 I would donate my primary and not the SS1. I do not want a diver to grab the ss1 and hit the button and inflate or deflate the BC as it would be key in making sure the 2 of us are safe on ascent.

 

[flots am]

Being I am now diving an Atomic SS1 I would donate my primary and not the SS1. I do not want a diver to grab the ss1 and hit the button and inflate or deflate the BC as it would be key in making sure the 2 of us are safe on ascent.

It's not a big risk, since you can't actually donate an SS1. It's for you, not the victim.

flots.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

That's solving a skills problem with equipment.

Not really ... you still have to know how to deploy properly. I'd put it more in the personal preference category.

If you use the long hose, you just grab the primary regulator by the hose/swivel, extend your hand up over your head, out towards the diver and twist your wrist while extending out and you'll hand the other diver the known working regulator in the correct orientation every single time. Your hand won't be covering the second stage at all and they can grab it easily.

[video=youtube;8sqHa1kLLks]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sqHa1kLLks[/video]

And yes, I'm sure you know this and you probably even practice this. It's so simple and elegant and yet still not taught my the mainstream agencies to OW divers. There are millions of divers out there that if they saw this would probably say "why didn't I think of that?".

Long hose is, by your definition, also solving a skills problem with equipment. It's a configuration that was designed for swimming through restricted spaces, such as wrecks and caves, while sharing air. And while it has advantages for the open water diver, it's neither necessary nor inherently superior to other solutions in that environment. Like all gear it has advantages and drawbacks. For example, it requires a modest amount of additional training to use properly, it's easier to trap your primary hose if you're not careful, it doesn't really adapt well to use with a lot of recreational BCDs, and if you manage to put your necklace on over the long hose, donating the primary can become problematic. It's not taught by the mainstream agencies to OW divers because the majority of the world's OW divers will never see this configuration.

A related tale ... when I went to Lembeh Straits in 2008, the manager at KBR saw my rig and immediately asked me if I knew Lynne (TSandM). Now, keep in mind, she had no way of knowing that I was even from the same part of the USA as Lynne, much less that we'd know each other. She was basing her question purely on the fact that the last time she'd seen a BP/W and longhose rig was when Lynne and Peter had been there nearly a year and a half previous to my visit, and she assumed that it was some weird local configuration ... therefore we must know each other.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)