Threesomes - yea or nay? And why?

[Storker]

Not wanting to derail this thread, I decided to open a new thread relevant to the question in the thread title.

From quite a few of the posts in that thread, and also from posts I've read in other threads, I understand that there's a general reluctance towards diving in threes. Now, in my club threesomes are not uncommon. A group of people agree to meet for an informal outing, either in the afternoon after work, or for a few hours sometime in the weekend. Quite often we have an odd number of people showing up, and that's when we set up one of the buddy teams as a threesome. Because of this practice, I've found myself being buddied up with another club member in addition to my regular buddy on a number of occasions.

Bear in mind, though, that we are usually diving unorganized, without any guide, without a paid DM, and every diver is expected to be competent enough to plan and execute a simple recreational dive without having someone holding his/her hand. We - at least the buddy teams I've been a member of - plan our dive with approximate depth profile, directions, max depth, turnaround pressure and all that jazz, and we follow that plan quite well. We also go through the standard buddy check and familiarize ourselves with each others' gear and agree on who's taking center position and thus is leading the dive. And I haven't really thought of a threesome being a problem. Now, that may be because the guys I dive with usually are quite disciplined, and we stick to the plan within reason. Only one occasion caused me some concern: my regular buddy wanted to end the dive, I concurred, turned to the third guy and signaled that we were surfacing. He just signaled OK and that he'd be continuing the dive. Not being comfortable with solo diving, I didn't have a good feeling about that, but on the other hand, he was rather experienced and AFAIK had been diving solo on a number of previous occasions. He also had a redundant gas supply with a double set with an isolation manifold. I couldn't reasonably drag him to the surface, so we just surfaced and kept an eye out for his bubbles during our SI.

Since other people here obviously don't like diving in threes, I'd really like to hear why. I've been racking my mind, and frankly, I can't think of any huge objections to a practice like the one I've described here.

 

[Doppler]

Most experienced divers I know and respect understand that a three-person team is the optimal. ONLY in open water training do we work with a two-person buddy team because the assumption is that situational awareness is do bad in a new diver that he/she is unable to keep track of more than one buddy... an assumption I believe firmly is ill-founded.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

In my experience the people who have the most prejudice against three person teams have trouble with buddy skills in general. They often are lousy buddies in two person teams. Some of it goes back to their initial training where the buddy system was given lip service in the classroom by the instructor and then glossed over or ignored entirely in the water. Both during pool sessions and especially in open water. If you dive using proper procedures for a two person team it is no big deal to add a third if that extra person also understands what it means to be a buddy or teammate. If not then it's not going to work so well. When new divers are not buddied up for all pool sessions and then led single file on checkouts you have the recipe for a diver who has no idea what it means to be a buddy. And this is likely because the instructor who trained them has no idea either.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mustard Dave]

There is nothing wrong with threesomes or moresomes; team diving has many benefits if executed properly.

The problem is we are not taught how to do this at an early stage, with some instructors even saying it is bad. After certification, a group of four divers, comprising two buddy pairs, arrange a dive. One of the divers doesn't show up. Does the buddy pair go in together and leave the other diver on the cat park? No - they dive as a threesome. In the water, they are disorganised and it is less team and more like a buddy pair with somebody tagging along.

Team diving is popular in techie circles but why should those who only want to stay within recreational limits not benefit? I think team diving should be introduced at an earlier stage - it is going to happen to most divers at some point in their diving career, so why not teach people how to do it properly?

 

[Phil_C]

I agree the objections often seem to come from one particular camp.

I will often dive as a 'third' person with a buddy pair, usually when I am diving with the club in Cyprus because if my regular dive buddy is not around then I have no-one to dive with otherwise unless there is an odd number of divers. More often though now I am being used to DM/accompany dives so will be in the water effectively on my own anyway. I think if you are competent and take a disciplined approach to the dive then a group of three is no problem on a recreational dive. But the same lack of buddy skills will wreck a group of three just as quick as it will ALSO wreck a buddy pair of two.

So I think it is whether the divers have the skills or not that counts, not the number in the buddy 'team'.

Phil

 

[BUDMANOK]

are we talking a dedicated three or more person buddy team that trains as such or one that is thrown together due to lack of divers?

 

[ajduplessis]

3 or more should not be an issue when diving in open water. I stick to 3 or less when cave diving, but that is not for this topic. Even tech OW dives (300ft) can be done with teams 4-6.

 

[Storker]

After certification, a group of four divers, comprising two buddy pairs, arrange a dive. One of the divers doesn't show up. Does the buddy pair go in together and leave the other diver on the cat park? No - they dive as a threesome. In the water, they are disorganised and it is less team and more like a buddy pair with somebody tagging along.

(bolding mine)

What makes this an imperative? If all of them are disciplined, keep good buddy contact and do a pre-dive briefing WRT roles, limits etc., why would they suddenly become disorganized if they're diving as a team of three instead of as two buddy pairs?

I've dived in a guided group, as one of a single buddy pair, as one of a team of three and as one of two buddy pairs diving together "same day, same ocean", i.e. the two buddy pairs splash together and might follow each others fairly closely, but if the other buddy pair suddenly takes off out on the left field, we don't feel in any way obliged to abort our intended route and/or depths.

The only time I've felt that I've been a part of a disorganised group is when we've been following a guide like ducklings after the mother, while the guide was pointing this way and that, shaking her rattle to get our attention. That's when buddy awareness goes right out of the window for me, since keeping track of a guide - who's responsible for looking after half a dozen tourists - in addition to my buddy and my location, gives me a bigger task loading than keeping track of the other two in my ad hoc team, who feel exactly the same responsibility for keeping track of me as I feel for them.

---------- Post added October 28th, 2013 at 01:49 PM ----------

are we talking a dedicated three or more person buddy team that trains as such or one that is thrown together due to lack of divers?

From my OP:

A group of people agree to meet for an informal outing, either in the afternoon after work, or for a few hours sometime in the weekend. Quite often we have an odd number of people showing up, and that's when we set up one of the buddy teams as a threesome.

I don't know what you mean by "thrown together", though. Most of my dives are with my regular buddy, some of them are with another person in the club, and some of them are in a threesome consisting of myself, my regular buddy and a third person in the club. YMMV, but I wouldn't characterize any of those constellations as "thrown together".

---------- Post added October 28th, 2013 at 01:51 PM ----------

3 or more should not be an issue when diving in open water. I stick to 3 or less when cave diving, but that is not for this topic. Even tech OW dives (300ft) can be done with teams 4-6.

So, where's the fundamental difference between open water rec on the one side and penetration/tech on the other side that limits the number of people in an open water rec team to two while more than two is perfectly fine for penetration and/or tech?

 

[Colliam7]

From quite a few of the posts in that thread, and also from posts I've read in other threads, I understand that there's a general reluctance towards diving in threes.

I often dives in threesomes. I think there is real value in team diving. But, I guess I can understand a possible 'reluctance' to dive in threes, under certain very specific conditions - i.e. when an established buddy pair is getting ready to start a dive where they have a particular plan, objective, or mission, and they are assigned, or asked to accept, a third 'buddy-less' diver, with whom they are unfamiliar. I have seen this happen on boats (and had it happen to me, in fact). The third diver may have different skills (worse OR better), may have a different way of signaling underwater, may have a different style of being a buddy (swimming so close that s/he frequently bumps into another team member, or swimming off without any signal as to why, etc. That doesn't make the third diver a 'bad' diver, just different and possibly requires the established pair to change their plan

Some years ago, my son and I were diving on one of the three German U-boats sunk off the NC cost during WW2, and probably the most difficult one to dive, in terms of getting on the site under good conditions. We accepted a third diver as a buddy right before we splashed - someone who was part of the larger shop charter group, but with whom we had no familiarity, and who had no buddy.

We happened to hit the wreck that day under ideal conditions, with great visibility, no current, the sand not covering the wreck as it often does, etc. Our plan was to swim around the wreck first to get a big picture, then explore specific areas of interest. Before the three of us had even done one initial circumnavigation of the (small) wreck, our 'third wheel' signals that he is low on air and is going to ascend. We are at 115 feet, he shows me his gauge and he is down to 500 PSI on his AL80! My son and I had plenty of gas left in out HP 120s. What to do - signal to him to go up alone and wave bye-bye, or end the dive and ascend with him just in case he goes OOA on the ascent. It was the first day of a two-day charter that was going to take us back to the same wreck the next day, I felt uncomfortable -as a BUDDY - leaving him to his own devices and a solo ascent, given how he apparently blew through his gas supply, so I signaled my son that we would ascend with this third diver. My son gave me our established 'WTF' signal, but ascended with us. On the boat, I told my son (in private) that I felt a certain obligation to the third diver but that we would NOT dive in a threesome the next day. Of course, the next day, we were blown out, and didn't get back to the wreck. Eight years later I still have not been able to get back on that wreck.

The issue for me is NOT the number (2, 3, 4), it is the incorporation of an unknown into a known group. It isn't the end of the world, just a possible inconvenience.

 

[DevonDiver]

I personally think threesome is optimal, especially for overhead environment. It requires specific protocols and procedures though - which are sorely lacking from most agency training syllabus.