Things Scuba Instructors teach that are either bad or just wrong.

[MarkA]

The obvious solution is to put the alternate on a bungee and have it hang below your chin. You donate your primary and take the alternate, as you would with an Air II. That is standard for tech divers. I was using that for tech gear but still using the standard alternate for recreational dives when I read about a woman who drowned when she went OOA and went to her buddy for his alternate, only to find that it had come loose and was dangling somewhere behind him.

When there are incedents like this, it makes you question how things are done and the reasoning behind it. The numbers still need to add up though. What has the least, bad outcomes? Donating the primary and using the bungeed secondary, or donating/OOA diver taking the secondary (octopus)? Should there be a difference between follow the leader holiday diving and what is used in technical diving? You have made a convincing case for primary donate though.

Going back a few years. Buddy breathing stopped being taught as it was shown to have worse outcomes than donating an octopus.

 

[MarkA]

Use a longhose and bungeed necklaced backup. The longhose is in your mouth or being donated to the OOG diver; the backup is just under your chin.

Lonhose can be shorter 150cm/5ft which will go under your armpit. The full-length longhose at 7ft/210cm needs something on the waist to tuck under, traditionally an umbilical torch battery.

That configuration will be the same for single cylinder, double cylinder or sidemounted cylinders. It works *really* well; doesn't drag in the water, is far more effective for donating, you absolutely know the backup works as you *will* test it on every dive.

Looks like I need to consider my diving configuration. As a long hose and bungeed backup seems to be the way to go. Here is me in my holiday diving kit earlier this year. At least the octopus is clipped and not dangling too badly. Now to get the hoses and bungee.



Probably should get some primary donate training as I seem to remember BSAC being a little funny with this. Its been many years since taking any training so probably about time

 

[SlugLife]

When there are incedents like this, it makes you question how things are done and the reasoning behind it. The numbers still need to add up though. What has the least, bad outcomes? Donating the primary and using the bungeed secondary, or donating/OOA diver taking the secondary (octopus)? Should there be a difference between follow the leader holiday diving and what is used in technical diving? You have made a convincing case for primary donate though.

Going back a few years. Buddy breathing stopped being taught as it was shown to have worse outcomes than donating an octopus.

While there are good reasons for primary donate, I must object to citing the Air2 as a good reason for primary-donate.

The Air2 is a somewhat odd-ball piece of equipment, only used by a subset of divers, and considered problematic by many other divers. Specifically, divers may do the Air2 swap, but never practice surfacing while breathing from an Air2. Then, during a real emergency, you're having to manage an out-of-air diver, while having to breathe and manage buoyancy from the same device. I don't think that's a problem, if someone actually does practice surfacing while using their Air2, just something divers who buy the Air2 might often not realize is a challenge.

In other words, I wouldn't design best-practices in general, around a piece of equipment which maybe isn't exactly best-practices itself.

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Personally my setup is closer to secondary-donate, despite "best practices." Since it's SideMount, it's technically 2-primarys, but I always tell people to grab the brightly-colored hose (7ft), which is my right-tank. My left is always on a necklace, and therefore always easiest for me to find. If I had to, I could unclip and hand off that tank fairly easy, but in practice it's unlikely I'd actually do that and leave an OOA person behind with a tank, hah.

The 7ft hose is also tucked under bungies on the tank, which makes it effectively a short-hose, unless it needs to become a long-hose for some reason.

 

[boriss]

You don't need a class, you can learn everything you need to know on internet forums.

Actually, I'd suggest both! I can honestly say I've learned a TON on this forum; information that has corrected what I've learned by taking a class previously. Information here also enriched my learnings and advanced my knowledge past the classes I was taking, preparing for what to expect in the future and so on. Having a diversity of thought/opinion is never a bad thing.

The issue with this is the O-rings will be stressed when you then turn the gauge the right way up -- you may cause them to leak.

The O-rings referred to are the itty-bitty ones in the tube that is missing from your picture. If the O-rings are dry, they may/will start to leak, as in a stream of Champaign bubbles from the connection.

Those O-rings should have some Tribolube on them, but even if dry, the whole point of having that air spool is so that you could twist the gauge. So far I've had lots of gear fail, but that spool hasn't yet. I have two extras as backup in my SAD kit.

 

[boulderjohn]

Octo had a tendency to drag in the muck? That’s diver error letting your octo drag.

Danglies are Very Bad and it’s seems a lot of instructors don’t give a flying **** from all the danglies I’ve seen at Midwestern quarry.

Diver error is too often cited as the reason for a problem in a way that dismisses alternative solutions. A common (and silly) phrase is that some piece of gear is "an equipment solution to a training problem." That kind of thinking precludes valuable innovation.

I assume every industry in existence strives to find system designs that minimize or even eliminate operator error. I think most people know the old story that certain airplane crashes due to pilot error were eliminated when airplane designers simply moved the switches involved so that the pilot would be almost certainly never make that mistake. If operator error is common, an equipment solution makes a lot of sense.

In the case of the octopus, operator error is indeed common. In the traditional setup, one goal of the design is easy access for the OOA diver, and so it is purposely made so that the alternate is easily removed from its holder. Consequently, the alternate does indeed come loose easily, so easily that it often does so on its own, often without the diver being aware of it. As an instructor in pool sessions, I had hundreds of occasions in which I had to get the students to put their alternates back in their holders so we could do an OOA drill. Once while diving with a group of scuba instructors and shop owners from New Zealand, I was warned about (and later saw) the ability of an overweight shop owner to come up behind a diver, reach around, take the octopus, and breathe off if it for a while to compensate for his poor breathing rate. The divers were not aware that he had taken it.

Seeing how easy it is for a diver to have that alternate come loose without the diver being aware of it, it makes sense to discard the "diver error" argument and look for an equipment solution. The obvious one is the bungeed necklace for the alternate. Because it is not meant to come off easily, it does not come off easily, and it is right there where it is supposed to be in the event it is needed.

 

[Bob DBF]

That configuration will be the same for single cylinder, double cylinder or sidemounted cylinders. It works *really* well; doesn't drag in the water, is far more effective for donating, you absolutely know the backup works as you *will* test it on every dive.

I was trying that configuration when I slipped and fell at the waters edge. It was a controlled fall as I knew it might happen, but I ended up on my chest with my face at the waters edge. Before I did an inventory of my condition, I took the reg in my mouth without the use of my hands in case a large wave were to come up. I have used that configuration, for that reason, ever since, except for vintage dives.

Going back a few years. Buddy breathing stopped being taught as it was shown to have worse outcomes than donating an octopus.

Buddy breathing is not effective if both divers have not been trained and practice. It's a matter of training, not the procedure.

The Air2 is a somewhat odd-ball piece of equipment, only used by a subset of divers, and considered problematic by many other divers.

That "oddball" piece of gear, and it's clones, have been used by many for 30 years. There too it is a matter of training is the key to effective use, however I doubt that you will find an inordinate number of fatalities compared to a standard configuration.


Training seems to be the key, since BSAC changed their procedure from secondary donate to secondary take, on the standard rec configuration, due to incidents and fatalities. Personally, I believe we should teach the same in OW here.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

...secondary take....

But primary take is easier for the OOG diver.

I don't see the beating the dead horse emoji, or I'd put that here.

 

[Bob DBF]

But primary take is easier for the OOG diver.

I don't see the beating the dead horse emoji, or I'd put that here.

Three out of four configurations I have used over the years involved the primary being used by the OOG diver, so I never have had a problem with it.

I believe you have to import the dead horse gif, as it would be used too much if easily available.

 

[inquis]

(scroll down further in the list, lol)

 

[Bob DBF]

(scroll down further in the list, lol)

Well I'll be...