Video from a Training Dive with John Chatterton
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they don't know what they don't know. This is literally the most famous wreck instructor and wreck diver in the world talking about his philosophy and honestly I would expect more new divers looking for wreck training to believe this instructor over virtually any other(s).
It might appeal to the truly advanced prospective Advanced Wreck Diving student who is already accustomed to doing things the way they are taught by the three-letter agencies and is now interested in alternatives. This kind of training may have its place. Unfortunately, the course doesn't draw only that kind of student.
You guys may disagree with his philosophy, that's totally fair. I myself use a long hose when diving OC. But you should really post the whole article, rather than clipping out one passage like that.
Chris, I know that you are more experienced than just about anyone here, and I'm not trying to dismiss the points that you are making. I respect you and admire you. But I think that it's not fair to edit the article just to make JC look bad.
The basic idea is that he rejects the concept of team diving for deep OC dives. Not to put words in his mouth, but my understanding is that he feels that it adds more risks than it eliminates. If you are planning your gas and your gear around the contingency of getting two significantly saturated tech divers to the surface on one person's gas, something has to give. His feeling is that you shouldn't do that, you should each plan on carrying what you need to make it to the surface safely on your own, even with reasonably anticipated failures.
Are there scenarios where a buddy could be a net asset in that type of diving? Sure. Do they outweigh the risks? It's hard to calculate risks vs. benefits with those limited data sets.
Is he right? I dunno. I don't do that kind of diving. But it's not a ridiculous position to take. Maybe he was a bit colorful in his text, but I think that you know what he was trying to say.
Chris, I know that you are more experienced than just about anyone here, and I'm not trying to dismiss the points that you are making. I respect you and admire you. But I think that it's not fair to edit the article just to make JC look bad.
The basic idea is that he rejects the concept of team diving for deep OC dives. Not to put words in his mouth, but my understanding is that he feels that it adds more risks than it eliminates. If you are planning your gas and your gear around the contingency of getting two significantly saturated tech divers to the surface on one person's gas, something has to give. His feeling is that you shouldn't do that, you should each plan on carrying what you need to make it to the surface safely on your own, even with reasonably anticipated failures.
Are there scenarios where a buddy could be a net asset in that type of diving? Sure. Do they outweigh the risks? It's hard to calculate risks vs. benefits with those limited data sets.
Is he right? I dunno. I don't do that kind of diving. But it's not a ridiculous position to take. Maybe he was a bit colorful in his text, but I think that you know what he was trying to say.
I think it is foolish to think that buddy separation can never happen. Teams do break down, even with GUE divers (there was an incident in my area with I believe two T2 divers that was a mess of separation and entanglements). So when teams do break down, that must be addressed in my opinion. My gas planning for open water technical diving (don't have the training for advanced wreck or cave) is always under the assumption that I can meet my deco obligations and make it to the surface with catastrophic gas loss of any one cylinder.
But I'd still like to hear from @ChuckP if/how JC teaches gas sharing to get out of a wreck if students don't have a long hose. I'm not interested in hearing what others who haven't taken the course think what JC does. Just because he emphasizes self reliance doesn't mean he doesn't teach air sharing. Only the people who have taken his course can answer that, not the people in the peanut gallery.
Degenerate
Contributor
I understand that it might be for divers looking for an alternative.
What I can't buy is someone fighting a diver in distress to keep them off their own gas.
Even when I am solo diving I am very conservative with my gas planning, you never know what or who you will come across during a dive.
No matter how small the chance is that I will come across a diver who will die if he can't get my help (or I get stuck or face another problem) I'll still be conservative enough that I can offer some level of help (rather than offering a fist or something else).
I get that this is a guy who is all about being self reliant, and that's a good thing if the people you dive with have the same mindset.
I will rather bring a little bit more gas, than risk ending up in a situation where I have to fight someone until they sod off and die or surface and suffer DCS.
I don't agree with the mindset myself, but I suppose that's because I subscribe to one of the three-letter agencies.
To each their own I suppose.
I only clipped out the part that addressed the specific thing being discussed, long hose, and provided the link so that folks can go read the entire article as well. Not in any way trying to edit to make him look bad.
I agree, it's about philosophy, and really it's also about where the rubber meets the road. JC is teaching based on his significantly successful and hard earned experience and I have no reason to believe that he isn't doing so to help make folks better divers. In fact I assume he is teaching with the best intentions, and that he is a wealth of information. I don't agree on some of the conclusions he seems to take, and that's OK. In fact, I would encourage anyone that wants to get serious about this stuff to try and learn different POV and techniques from as many experienced folks as possible, then rack up the experience to discern what made sense and even add to. Penetration wreck is like cave. You can get the cards and be a gold line, artificial wreck type and have great fun with moderate risk offset by training, or you can get off the gold and/or explore wrecks that are more challenging, either one the risk is exponential to just "wreck" or just "cave". . Regardless, sign up for an agency standard progression course in either and the instructor has an obligation to teach to the standards. If the agency standards don't align with your experience and philosophy as an instructor, the instructor has an obligation to find another agency to teach for or just don't offer an agency card with your instruction.
I can think of more than a few deaths in tech diving where the narrative doesn't jibe up and there are team failures in execution where a diver ends up dead. Some of them I am pretty certain the diver that lived employed the philosophy that JC talks about. From a strictly survival of the fittest perspective, well...he has a point.
I can also think of more than a few deaths where a buddy team both died with one trying everything they could to save the other. If it was a loved one I was diving with, I would die before leaving, all else, not so much.
Every diver is going to have to make their own call where they sit on that, and hopefully they will let those they dive with know as well.
My take is that you do everything you can in planning and dive execution, including gear selection that gives you the most options. I dive a long hose even solo, because why change my gear and it is streamlined.. heck, it's even useful in no mount cave and wreck on occasion, that for whatever reason I most find myself doing when diving solo. If everything goes bad and I at the place that my team mate is OOG and an air share is feasible without killing us both, gonna try. If it's so bad that I am at the point of no return such as at absolute min gas to exit myself and can't help someone else, then isolating the long hose and cutting it away while getting clear of the OOG diver may be the only survival option for me. This is most likely to occur with entanglement or getting lost inside somewhere. Both can be mitigated to a degree but Murphy can dive.
OK, maybe you didn't edit it with the intent of making him look bad, but judging from the response that you got, I think that was the effect. Again, people who are interested in this should read the whole article.
His point - I think - is that you shouldn't PLAN a deep technical OC dive with sharing gas as part of the plan. Despite his colorful imagery, I doubt that he would watch someone drown for lack of shared gas on a recreational dive. The point is that if the two of you are deep and saturated, and sharing gas means that one or both of you has a significant chance of surfacing bent or dead, he's not going to let that happen, and he's not going to plan a dive where that might happen either.
Now many may say that you shouldn't have to make that choice, that we do team diving and we plan for the team to carry enough gas to get everyone safely to the surface. That's fine, but it's a different philosophy. It's one that most divers these days follow, but it's not the only way of diving. It's not solo deep OC diving - again, read the actual article for a better description of this topic.
Finally, I know that this sentence is likely to cause a lot of concern: "Breathe your own damn gas, any gas, even the wrong gas"
He's not trivializing breathing the wrong gas. The point that he made in class was that ox tox is exposure and time. So if for some reason your bottom gas is completely unavailable, breathing a richer mix while you make a fairly rapid ascent to the MOD for that gas may be safer than a CESA from depth. Can you get away with that? There is a lot of individual variation in tox thresholds. EAN100 at 240 FSW? Maybe not. EAN50 at 140 FSW? Maybe so...
His point - I think - is that you shouldn't PLAN a deep technical OC dive with sharing gas as part of the plan. Despite his colorful imagery, I doubt that he would watch someone drown for lack of shared gas on a recreational dive. The point is that if the two of you are deep and saturated, and sharing gas means that one or both of you has a significant chance of surfacing bent or dead, he's not going to let that happen, and he's not going to plan a dive where that might happen either.
Now many may say that you shouldn't have to make that choice, that we do team diving and we plan for the team to carry enough gas to get everyone safely to the surface. That's fine, but it's a different philosophy. It's one that most divers these days follow, but it's not the only way of diving. It's not solo deep OC diving - again, read the actual article for a better description of this topic.
Finally, I know that this sentence is likely to cause a lot of concern: "Breathe your own damn gas, any gas, even the wrong gas"
He's not trivializing breathing the wrong gas. The point that he made in class was that ox tox is exposure and time. So if for some reason your bottom gas is completely unavailable, breathing a richer mix while you make a fairly rapid ascent to the MOD for that gas may be safer than a CESA from depth. Can you get away with that? There is a lot of individual variation in tox thresholds. EAN100 at 240 FSW? Maybe not. EAN50 at 140 FSW? Maybe so...
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