Maybe it's time to move beyond OW Dan... then again... maybe not.
Three man buddy teams
- Thread starter MikeFerrara
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When diving with known buddies, I am equally comfortable with 2 or 3 person teams. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
If I have a known and trusted buddy, I am more than happy to have a third person join our team. It makes life interesting.
If I am diving with unknown buddies, which I often do, I am much more comfortable with a single buddy I can stay with and adapt to -- rather than going along with 2 unknown divers and dealing on the fly with whatever dynamics develop among the 3 of us.
In all cases involving unknown buddies, I insist on a dive plan which is very much within my comfort zone and with alot of room for error until I get to see how my new buddies are going to work out.
theskull
If I have a known and trusted buddy, I am more than happy to have a third person join our team. It makes life interesting.
If I am diving with unknown buddies, which I often do, I am much more comfortable with a single buddy I can stay with and adapt to -- rather than going along with 2 unknown divers and dealing on the fly with whatever dynamics develop among the 3 of us.
In all cases involving unknown buddies, I insist on a dive plan which is very much within my comfort zone and with alot of room for error until I get to see how my new buddies are going to work out.
theskull
CROCETTI
Registered
I dive three man teams all the time and so far I've had no problems. While it takes a little more effort to watch two people instead of one, I've found that it helped develop my underwater multi-tasking skills. I can keep track of my buddy, look around, watch my depth and air, navigate, etc. all at the same time.
OP
BigboyDan:
A troll or an serious response?
I'll assume a serious response. You see I have read the OW texts of a couple different agencies...and a bunch more But...I still can't figure out why "three-man diving is WRONG". Could you give more of an explaination or a maybe a reference?
I do alot of diving with "buddies of circumstance". When just a regular buddy-pair (no team here) I find that its often hard to interest my new "buddy" in pre-dive planning. That often makes for interesting dives but very seldom relaxed ones. On those dives I consider myself solo (in the respect that I don´t expect help from my "buddy"). When you end up in a BOC-threesome, I find, that there´s a lot greater willingness/interest in planning the dive and following it.
I also do "technical" dives, mostly deep wrecks. I think a 3man-team is a great asset in those situations. Task-loading is certainly less as "main responsability" for the various tasks can be shared by three instead of two and if someone is having a "bad day" that person can just signal, be relieved of whatever task he´s currently doing (like reelwork) and the dive can continue without a glitch.
If i were to do a wreck dive with a buddy and a "new buddy" that diver would be placed in the middle and so in a position were we could both help him/her as well as being the one with the least responsibilities.
I also do "technical" dives, mostly deep wrecks. I think a 3man-team is a great asset in those situations. Task-loading is certainly less as "main responsability" for the various tasks can be shared by three instead of two and if someone is having a "bad day" that person can just signal, be relieved of whatever task he´s currently doing (like reelwork) and the dive can continue without a glitch.
If i were to do a wreck dive with a buddy and a "new buddy" that diver would be placed in the middle and so in a position were we could both help him/her as well as being the one with the least responsibilities.
I've found that even a single buddy can "make or break" a dive for me. A rotten buddy that I have to spend the majority of the dive chasing down or keeping track of because s/he doesn't do their share of keeping track of me, takes a lot of the fun out the dive. On the other hand, I've had buddies I've never dove with before who ended up making for a fantastic dive.
When I took my Tech1 class, there were 3 of us. With less than 200 dives, I was the least experienced of the participants. None of us had dove together before. 2 of us "clicked" and worked well together. Because of that, we were able to "carry" the 3rd diver, who was definitely a follower, through. This 3rd diver preferred to assume the above and behind position. Not because he lacked confidence in us, but because it was the "position of comfort" due to lacking confidence in himself as to being able to hold up his role as part of the team. His former "tech" training had instilled in him the "assume you're solo if you get in trouble" mentality. We 2 who clicked made a point of making this 3rd diver a part of the team, even to the point of conspiring to force him to take leadership roles, since an important part of this particular training (and passing the class) was the teamwork aspect. Was it more work? Of course it was! But with all of the simulated failures presented to us, there was no way to get through them all (in other words, all 3 team members survive if the failures had been real :11
if, and as happened a couple times - when, the team fell apart. Hopefully he learned the importance of working together for a common goal.... I know I did.
I'm stewpid. I couldn't figure out why, nor could I find the answer in my OW text...BigboyDan:
When I took my Tech1 class, there were 3 of us. With less than 200 dives, I was the least experienced of the participants. None of us had dove together before. 2 of us "clicked" and worked well together. Because of that, we were able to "carry" the 3rd diver, who was definitely a follower, through. This 3rd diver preferred to assume the above and behind position. Not because he lacked confidence in us, but because it was the "position of comfort" due to lacking confidence in himself as to being able to hold up his role as part of the team. His former "tech" training had instilled in him the "assume you're solo if you get in trouble" mentality. We 2 who clicked made a point of making this 3rd diver a part of the team, even to the point of conspiring to force him to take leadership roles, since an important part of this particular training (and passing the class) was the teamwork aspect. Was it more work? Of course it was! But with all of the simulated failures presented to us, there was no way to get through them all (in other words, all 3 team members survive if the failures had been real :11
if, and as happened a couple times - when, the team fell apart. Hopefully he learned the importance of working together for a common goal.... I know I did.novadiver
Contributor
I haven't read that book sense 1978, could you post the reason that is stated for not diving a three man team. and how about one man and two women teamBigboyDan:
Or is that morally wrong also 
novadiver
Contributor
NWGratefulDiver:
well gratefull has hit another question, we've all had boat buddies that listen on the boat ,but as soon as they reach depth their gone. even after the team makes a plan.
Should the two left follow the origanal plan? or should they chase down the one and add lib a plan after that? either way , there are some violations of dive protocall that is going on. like " plan the dive dive the plan" and don't leave you buddy(s)
Now this has happened to me and I'll be the first to say that I left that diver to survive on there own. Does that make me a bad duddy? If it happened in a cave or inside a wreck I would say yes but it happened in 80 feet of open water. In the end we all met on the anchor line and I was very suprised that no one said anything about it during the SI.
That's just one of the reasons I went for a solo cert.
As has been said already - that's not a team.novadiver:
The plan was based on a 3 person team, right? How can 2 follow the original plan if one member abandoned the team?novadiver:
Who left who? Seems to me the one who abandoned the rest of the team was the bad buddy....novadiver:
I would have.... and have. Either the diver attempts to change their attitude, or needs to find someone else to dive with.novadiver:
OP
novadiver:
It's hard to come up with a systemn that'll work for people who don't want to follow a system. Nothing will work with some buddies of chance. If that was the only way to dive I'd do a lot more solo diving too.
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