Triox for the masses

[Bill51]

To throw another pragmatic consideration in, look at how long it took the major agencies to adopt Nitrox. I think that was partially due to agency inertia, but it also had to do with real world experience across a broad range of diver physiology. I’ll bet that a huge majority of trimix divers today have lower than average body fat, are in better physical shape, and are more skilled divers than the average recreational diver. For example, if we were to suddenly open up trimix to a broad recreational market, would we discover that what works safely for a fit diver may not be so safe for an unfit or obese diver?

 

[lamont]

It (Helium) needs to solve a problem before it is widely accepted. The majority of divers are WWW (warm water wimps) and do nice colorful reef dives. Helium really doesn't solve any problems for them.

For the rest of the recreational divers (>100ft-120ft...cold water..etc etc) , it would be hard to quantify and because of that I think it would be a hard sell. So taken as a whole, Helium for recreational depths will always be a niche market. IMO

The niche is "Tech 0" diving where divers are doing their first helium dives, and doing a little bit of mandatory decompression using only backgas. And really, either you're a recreational diver and you have no interest in this, or else you're going to wind up Tech 1 or equivalent...

 

[lamont]

To throw another pragmatic consideration in, look at how long it took the major agencies to adopt Nitrox. I think that was partially due to agency inertia, but it also had to do with real world experience across a broad range of diver physiology. I’ll bet that a huge majority of trimix divers today have lower than average body fat, are in better physical shape, and are more skilled divers than the average recreational diver. For example, if we were to suddenly open up trimix to a broad recreational market, would we discover that what works safely for a fit diver may not be so safe for an unfit or obese diver?

this assumes there are no unfit or obese technical divers diving helium?

 

[Bill51]

this assumes there are no unfit or obese technical divers diving helium?

No, it assumes that statistically there are fewer in the trimix world today.

 

[JeffG]

Most of the *regular* warm water divers I've seen (ie Bonaire) seem pretty good at not running out of gas, (although they don't tyically carry the reserves that I would nor hold smooth shallower stops.)

My apologies. I did not mean to imply that www divers run out of gas. I was making a snide remark in implying that "running out of gas" is a bigger problem than C02...narcosis...etc etc. But truthfully, that would be a bigger issue for them. I think you would find it a hard sell trying to get people doing 80ft reef dives in 80deg water to do helium.

Now...take three factors...depth, water temp, and dive complexity (ie dive complexity being wreck penetration vs a wall dive...vs a dive with a hard bottom just below you vs low vis .... etc etc)

Taking these factors into consideration you might be able to come up with some rules where helium would be a benefit (just depth doesn't do it...temp either. Its more complex than that)...and after that you would need to sell that idea to divers doing those types of dives to get "into" helium.

Some divers will...some diver won't.

 

[HarryH97]

My apologies....
Now...take three factors...depth, water temp, and dive complexity (ie dive complexity being wreck penetration vs a wall dive...vs a dive with a hard bottom just below you vs low vis .... etc etc)
Taking these factors into consideration you might be able to come up with some rules where helium would be a benefit (just depth doesn't do it...temp either. Its more complex than that)...and after that you would need to sell that idea to divers doing those types of dives to get "into" helium.
Some divers will...some diver won't.

Them divers will say Phooey! I'll dive what I've got, have fun in swimming trunks and have a couple margarita's while I'm lounging on the hammock dosing off doing the mandatory post-dive surface decompression/recovery/deep power nap!

Sounds so good, I wanna join them!

Sincerely,
H2

 

[Doc Intrepid]

I think you would find it a hard sell trying to get people doing 80ft reef dives in 80deg water to do helium....take three factors...depth, water temp, and dive complexity (ie dive complexity being wreck penetration vs a wall dive...vs a dive with a hard bottom just below you vs low vis .... etc etc)

Taking these factors into consideration you might be able to come up with some rules where helium would be a benefit (just depth doesn't do it...temp either. Its more complex than that)...and after that you would need to sell that idea to divers doing those types of dives to get "into" helium...

I'm not arguing with any of the factors that might suggest helium is of insignificant to moderate value to a recreational diver doing NDL dives to, say, 100' or so. I think that as far as physics goes, the pros and cons have been reasonably well-stated.

But if you look at the financial outlay of the average recreational diver, who often debates on whether nitrox makes sense from a cost/benefit analysis, doing average no-decompression recreational dives, I think the financial aspects of rec triox play a larger role than might be expected.

Given that an air dive to 80'-100' was entirely standard 10-12 years ago, and remains so in large parts of the planet, now tell that diver s/he must pay the cost of a triox course, plus the not-insignificant cost of the gas fills afterwards, for a benefit that is largely theoretical and beyond most human perception.....and I'm thinking that cost alone will limit the size of that market pretty severely. The benefits simply won't justify the additional cost...for most recreational no-deco divers...

JMHO...

 

[chrisch]

The devil is in the detail. What is a "recreational" use of triox? IMO the main (only?) advantage to helium in the mixture is to reduce narcosis. For most divers therefore this is dives below 35M or about 120ft. In order to get anything like a worthwhile dive at 40M/130' you need to make a decompression dive. IMO deco diving is beyond "recreational".

FWIW I use triox for 40M+ dives. I think its a great improvement on air and it also decos faster using EAN50 than the same BT on air. A 25/25 is ideal and not particularly expensive when measured against the travel costs, boat charter etc.

The IANTD Rec Trimix course is a no deco 30M/100ft course and is IMO a waste of time. However, the IANTD Advanced Rec Trimix course (which I have done) is a good solid course offering an introduction to more advanced diving. It is a 150'/45M ticket and as such very usable. The DIR use of 30/30 is I believe a training stage towards Tech1 and not an end in itself.

Chris

BTW - the gasoline will run out long before the helium...........

 

[lamont]

The IANTD Rec Trimix course is a no deco 30M/100ft course and is IMO a waste of time.

I don't really agree. I've been at 100 fsw before and blown a dive plan, gotten stressed, maybe started taking a CO2 hit and had a spiral of paranoid and anxiety before. Normally at 100 fsw I'm fine and the only real debilitating effects of narcosis are that I need to pay a little more attention to what my SPG is reading before I clip off or I'll forget what it said. There are some wreck dives up here that are 100 fsw dives, and to do those with penetration I would much rather do them on 30/30 than EAN because while most of the time I'll be fine with the narcosis its when everything goes wrong that I can do without the paranoid narc and the CO2 buildup...

 

[ShakaZulu]

I think as the long term negative effects of micro bubbling become more apparent to the recreational diver, these gasses will be become less exspensive as a result of the increased use.