Buddy breathing is still taught at various levels for different agencies. I learned it in OW class in 2001 (YMCA) and afaik it's still an OW skill with SEI classes.
It's also a mandatory in-water skill for NAUI Master Diver and DM training.
That's your problem, Kevin ... you're unwilling to admit that there are things about dive training about which you're completely ignorant. You make assumptions based on nothing more than your own personal biases.
Gee Bob . . .I learned Buddy-breathing back way in 1997 in my BOW NAUI Class; as far as I know it's not taught in NAUI or PADI at the beginner level anymore and I don't know anything about SEI. But you're an Instructor Bob, and you know better about trivial administrative minutiae than I do.
If you knew the least thing about gas management and basic dive planning in overheads, you'd know the answer to that question. You plan for a catastrophic gas loss of one tank as part of your basic gas planning contingencies. Shut down the tank and get the heck out using the methods you've trained and practiced for. If a second catastrophic failure occurs, then by all means feather. That's a one in a million possibility.
Gee Bob maybe if you knew anything about overhead gas planning (in metric) in technical wreck diving, you should have contributed your expertise to this thread about a year ago:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/t2...ssure-lost-buddy-search-spg-calculations.html
Planning Modified Thirds and contingency execution on-the-fly is a lot more comprehensive --as I wrote & explicated in the link above-- rather than you just qualitatively stating the patently obvious consequence of "a single catastrophic loss of one tank". I can quantitatively apply my gas plan on-the-fly during a dive faster than you Bob, sitting at your laptop and going through your quaint tank & fill pressure tables.
Here's another one on fundamental gas planning (including Rock Bottom, Tank Matching and Rule-of-Halves):
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...-blind-rote-air-management-5.html#post7098699
And in any case, worst-case gas loss scenarios in an overhead have absolutely nothing to do with what you would do in basic open water situations ... the risk management strategies are just too different, and there are far simpler and more effective solutions available.
Applying overhead rules to open water diving may be applicable in some cases, but generally speaking you want to use the simplest, most reliable strategies to get you to the surface. Yours doesn't pass muster in that respect. The reason you had to do it in the example you keep citing is because you were a dumb-ass, solo diving without planning your contingencies properly ... and therefore had to resort to something that was less optimal because you didn't plan for the more optimal solution of having a redundant air source available.
My solution to that problem is simple ... don't do that.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
The simplest, most compelling and vital motivating ethos to learn Valve Feathering is again to never ever waste usable gas for yourself and/or your teammate, even on a non-fixable free-flow on single tank. If you as a novice OW diver don't have the ability to perform the technique --and are separated from your buddy-- then do the standard procedure of breathing the free-flowing reg while ascending to the surface.
Again to reiterate for you Bob: It's never really been discussed as a viable option for single tank diving because of its radical application as a solution, coming from advanced overhead & tech diving. But it makes sense looking at from an advanced diver perspective, and that's about as much as I'll concede with regards to the BOW argument and including Valve Feathering as a mandatory skill in any current agency's beginning Scuba course.
But hey it worked for me in a moment of graceful insight without ever practicing it before, figuring out the technique "OTJ" first time for real. My hope is for others who want to add this skill to their toolset, that they drill & practice it first getting the vital coordination down, before ever having to apply it for real.
---------- Post added May 8th, 2014 at 11:51 AM ----------
... and those who have no rational ability to defend their position turn to gratuitous insult ... even when they have to reach for something way off-topic like "moderators" ...
Your method doesn't pass the "effectively problem solve" test ... and yes, it's way above the OW level ... that's what we've been trying to tell you ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Gee Bob I did it for real & survived . . . and by that fact it must have objectively passed the "effectively problem solve" test. I'm here alive writing about it and have been for the past 8 years since the incident. I can do it, why can't you??
---------- Post added May 8th, 2014 at 11:52 AM ----------
... wrong part of the anatomy ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Yeah . . .you guys think & talk with scat rhetoric like that which comes out of what you sit on.
---------- Post added May 8th, 2014 at 08:50 PM ----------
. . . Slurping AG and parroting what you think he said just makes you look worse and worse, Kev.
Gee PfcAJ --then tell us by putting words in AG's mouth explaining exactly what he meant. Oh yeah, I remember correctly --you weren't in that Advanced Wreck Class in 2005 with Instructor Andrew Georgitsis.
