Using A Long Hose Isn't Just For Tech Divers

[miketsp]

..snip...
Have any of you ever experienced an out of air situation?

Should I use a long hose?

Tim

I had a blown o-ring at 25m.
Open Water dive - had no problems using buddy's octopus with short hose.

Just to throw in my 2c. If I'm donating air to an unknown OOA that has just been through a stressful moment, I like to look them in the eyes, just in case they decide to panic and drag me up with them. IMHO just the fact that I've got a firm hold of their shoulder strap has a calming influence.

 

[novadiver]

Scenario: Open water dive. You just went down to 100' on air for 17 minutes of bottom time. You have just spent an additional 2 minutes coming up to 70'. You are still within NDL, but just barely. All of the sudden your buddy signals OOA - caused by an O-ring failure. You donate a reg and signal to go to the surface. You still have 2000 psi in an AL80
A. Do you go directly to the surface at 30' per minute?
B. Do you go to the surface and make your saftey stop or stops?

If you chose A. you would run the unnecessary risk of both divers getting bent.
If you chose B. you would still have plenty of gas to make a 3 minute stop at 15' or conservatively make 1 minute stops at 40', 30' 20' and 10'.

Now if you are making your stops where would you like your buddy?
If you chose facing you in horizontal trim with maneuvering room or to your side then having a long hose would be the prefered gear. I don't want my buddy sandwiched next to me for my stops.

If you chose going to the surface and blowing off your stops - well frankly where your buddy is ie... in front, behind or beside you is of little issue. You are both going to take a hit. Some would say better bent than dead, but under this scenario it's not necessary to get bent.

Now explain to me why using a long hose isn't beneficial.

you would be hard pressed at getting bent with these numbers unless you bolted to the surface. the ndl tables are very conservative and if your buddy is truely out of gas, he/she won't mind a short hose at all. and the afct that you acn look them in the eyes can be very calming. unlike my posts

anybody notice my clock

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

you would be hard pressed at getting bent with these numbers unless you bolted to the surface. the ndl tables are very conservative and if your buddy is truely out of gas, he/she won't mind a short hose at all. and the afct that you acn look them in the eyes can be very calming. unlike my posts

And therein lies the problem ... ascent rate.

When people ... especially recreational divers with minimal training ... ascend in a vertical position they very rarely maintain an ascent rate of 30 fpm. Oh, they mean to (most of the time) ... but they don't really understand how slow one foot per 2 seconds really is. They're finning up, and even doing so very gently will often put you into an ascent rate 2 to 3 times the recommended rate.

Coming up from 70 feet should take you almost 2-1/2 minutes. Most recreational divers would be surfacing in 30-40 seconds from that depth in an OOA situation. Unfortunately, I've seen it too often ... and following them up at a safe speed puts me on the surface a couple minutes after they get there.

That's very likely to bend you, even if you're well within NDL ...

anybody notice my clock

Yes ... but I recommend you put some effort into driving a bit more carefully. If your train wrecks start damaging the forums we may have to replace the engineer ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[novadiver]

And therein lies the problem ... ascent rate.

When people ... especially recreational divers with minimal training ... ascend in a vertical position they very rarely maintain an ascent rate of 30 fpm. Oh, they mean to (most of the time) ... but they don't really understand how slow one foot per 2 seconds really is. They're finning up, and even doing so very gently will often put you into an ascent rate 2 to 3 times the recommended rate.

Coming up from 70 feet should take you almost 2-1/2 minutes. Most recreational divers would be surfacing in 30-40 seconds from that depth in an OOA situation. Unfortunately, I've seen it too often ... and following them up at a safe speed puts me on the surface a couple minutes after they get there.

That's very likely to bend you, even if you're well within NDL ...



Yes ... but I recommend you put some effort into driving a bit more carefully. If your train wrecks start damaging the forums we may have to replace the engineer ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

replace the engineer ? that would be uncool. most train wreck are not the fault of the engineer . it's the fault of someone being on the tracks as the train rolls by. LOL

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Just to throw in my 2c. If I'm donating air to an unknown OOA that has just been through a stressful moment, I like to look them in the eyes, just in case they decide to panic and drag me up with them. IMHO just the fact that I've got a firm hold of their shoulder strap has a calming influence.

if your buddy is truely out of gas, he/she won't mind a short hose at all. and the afct that you can look them in the eyes can be very calming.

Holding on to a strap is STILL an option with a long hose, and once the diver is calm, the long hose allows you to make a normal, relaxed, controlled and essentially horizontal ascent to the surface - something that is not an option with a 36" to 40" hosed octo. Much of the "comforting" effect of holding onto a strap comes from the fact that you have to do so to prevent the OOA diver from feeling like he is about to have the octo pulled out of his mouth. With a long hose the diver can be 3-4 ft away and still feel the reg is secure.

In the real world you don't even have 36" to 40" of hose to work with since your panicked or near panicked OOA buddy just stole your primary with it's 22" to 26" hose. Now, you can try to switch regs with the diver, but that normally is a practice thatr is not well received by a panicky diver who has a death grip the reg he just stole and is in no mood to give back and trying to retreicve it certainly does not have a calming influence. So you end up by neccesity being glued to each other face to face holding straps while venting on the way to the surface and the near panicked OOA buddy is further task loaded by having to hold a reg with a very short and contorted hose in his mouth. So unless your buddy has 3 hands, not everything gets done and he/she is never comfortable on the way up.

I have donated air in 3 genuine OOA situations and one precautionary air share (buddy at 250 psi at depth) and in my real world experience, a long hose is the way to go as it gives you more options while a short hose restricts your options. And using and donating a long hose primary is much more effective given how real world air shares actually happen as opposed to how divers are trained to expect them to happen. In 2 of the 3 OOA situiations I was essentially mugged for my primary by panicky diver. There was none of the out of air/share air hand signals and ettiquette that everybody sees in training - and only in training.

 

[meisburger]

Geeze, three out of air situations! How the heck do experts end up like that? I thought you guys used DIN connectors and redundent air sources, and were very careful checking your gear every time you dive. I use crappy rental tanks, but look at the o-ring, and monitor my guages. The weird idea that tech divers are somehow not rec divers, and are great experts in everything is not borne out by the frequency of your near disasters.

By the way, I'm also from Northern Virginia...

Cheers, Tim

 

[novadiver]

Geeze, three out of air situations! How the heck do experts end up like that? I thought you guys used DIN connectors and redundent air sources, and were very careful checking your gear every time you dive. I use crappy rental tanks, but look at the o-ring, and monitor my guages. The weird idea that tech divers are somehow not rec divers, and are great experts in everything is not borne out by the frequency of your near disasters.

By the way, I'm also from Northern Virginia...

Cheers, Tim

must be something in the "water" around here, ( scuba pun)

 

[meisburger]

Ya, its flowing down from the District....

 

[The Kraken]

fftopic:

Gosh I love Shakespeare . . .
"Much Ado About Nothing"

 

[novadiver]

Ya, its flowing down from the District....

blue plains, the next great dive destination, viz is a little crappy though. LOL

this is a refferance to the wash. D.C water treatment plant.LOL again