Why do you dive .... vintage?

[scubapro50]

Diving with the vintage stuff can draw a lot of comments. I remember diving with my Dacor R-4 doublehose and hearing several people ask how old it was. I like to reply to the newbies that it's older than they are and I'll probably still be using it when their kids grow up and start take diving leasons. Another diver once commented on my Voit Titan II J regulator and said it was too old and dangerous to use. He had just purchase a new Tusa regulator and I should really think about getting newer stuff ( a comment I hear a lot) because that old junk may break down and cause problems while diving. After we surface I notice the diver had a problem with his new rig. His regulator had started free flowing badly durning the dive and he had to come up early. I pointed out that even thou my Voit was 25 years old it was made of Brass and chrome plated steel unlike that fancy "plastic" Tusa he had and I doubt his rig would last 25 years ...... hell ..... it didn't even make it through it's 1st dive.

 

[duckbill]

"Does my 20 year old MK10 count as vintage"?

My opinion and just that:
1. No

N

Just my opinion, but to be more accurate I would say:
1. Not yet

Eventually everything will become "vintage", including myself!

Isn't it funny how the latest and the greatest is usually viewed as ultimate. Then something newer comes along and people scoff at those very same items as "old and unsafe, antiquated junk", when nothing has really changed all that much?!

I dive vintage because the gear is simple, durable, functional and historical. I enjoy the feeling of knowing that I am diving as the pioneers did. I dive mostly double-hose lungs, sometimes vintage single-tubers. I use my one-and-only modern rig only under certain circumstances which are becoming fewer and further between.

 

[james croft]

I dive modern tech gear when I am working. I carry it in a new Chevy Tahoe, When I am diving for fun, I use my classic regs and other vintage accessories. I haul that gear in a lovingly restored 71 VW camper. It is a state of mind and helps you get away from the rat race. My mom may have thrown out my baseball cards, but she missed my regulators.

 

[Nemrod]

James, glad to hear I am not the only one whose mom threw out all their "old junk"--lol.

"Not yet"

Well, maybe but I tend to think of it as a fixed period of time like the "Muscle Car" era or such as that. It refers to a specific time period and will never encompass gear of more recent times. If you were a Civil War buff or a fan of WWI memorbilia (say in 2050) then you would not be seen with a Glock or a kevlar vest even if that stuff were to be very old itself.
Nah, in my little time capsule universe, vintage will never be anything beyond 1975.

VW vans are so cool, I have thought of getting another and rebuilding it (number three if I were to undertake the mission), competition for Gomez and the Manta Van.
N

 

[Luis H]

"Not yet"

Well, maybe but I tend to think of it as a fixed period of time like the "Muscle Car" era or such as that. It refers to a specific time period and will never encompass gear of more recent times. If you were a Civil War buff or a fan of WWI memorbilia (say in 2050) then you would not be seen with a Glock or a kevlar vest even if that stuff were to be very old itself.
Nah, in my little time capsule universe, vintage will never be anything beyond 1975.

Well, I think that at some point in the future we are going to have to quit using the term "vintage" and use a more descriptive term like lets say "the double hose era".

Just like your example "Muscle Car" era, a more specific name will probably be required in the future for others to know what period you are referring about. Terms like "vintage", "antique", etc. have definitions that may not always fit the time period you are describing.
That is just my opinion, but then what do I know, English is not even my first language.

 

[Walter]

I checked my log book. It was a brand new Dacor (not US Divers) double hose (I didn't record the model). It was in August of 1986.

 

[Turtleguy9]

Aloha All
I like to dive my vintage gear, because it reminds me that it is a day off work for me.
Most times I get about 4 dives a day, leading dive tours or teaching classes, 6 days a week. When I dive Vintage its for fun. When I got married underwater last year, my wife and I did the ceremony in vintage gear also. There is also a historical part of it for me, as I love the vintage gear and keeping them running.
Aloha Turtleguy9

 

[Thalassamania]

As I was telling Dee earlier today:

I don't need no stinkin' meets. On my days off, just to freak out the nubies (and that's everybody except my buddy and the instructors at the site who know me from old ITCs), I pull on a no-zip, skin 2-side, hood attached, farmer john pant, Rubatex GN231 N suit that I made myself, throw my Fenzy over my neck, strap my Randall dive knife to the inside of my left calf, throw my steel 71.2 with a no-octo, no-SPG Voit/Swimaster MR-12 on it over my head, pull my Swimaster Wide-View mask (with its attached farallon snorkel)down around my neck, and with my USD Duckfeet wade out into one of the local dive sites. It's a scream! (I do make a hidden concession to the SPG, don't tell anyone, it's a hoseless transmitter to an Oceanic Atom computer that is hidden by a flap on the instrument sleeve that goes over my left arm and holds my Scubapro helium depth gauge, Suunto compass and DOXA dive watch).

Why? Because I can!

 

[dilligaf368]

I too started diving in the mid-sixty's using Double hose regs. and throughout the Navy I used double hose regs. There were a few single hose around but still very rough.
The new gear is certanly much better that that old gear but it is still fun to use. The Old Mk5 heavy gear was much more comfortable than a lot of the new diving helmets but again, technology has improved and is much safer.
We are communicating with Computers and not letters. Things have improved with time.
The old "Duck feet" fins still work but the new split fins are much easier to use. B-

 

[Thalassamania]

Sure, diving a Superlight-17 beats the crap out of a MK-5 any day of the week, but even the MK-5 knife is much cooler than the weighted coveralls<G>.