Why give primary instead of alternate regulator?

[Storker]

Your alternate is usually colored yellow. In my opinion it is bright colored for a reason. It is a high visibility hose for your dive partner to be able to identify and is readily seen and recognized as an alternate hose. Me personally when I have to use buddy air will be going after the yellow hose as it is readily recognizable.

I've got a yellow long hose, and my primary reg's cover is yellow. My secondary, which is tucked away under my chin, has a black cover and hangs on a black hose.

My buddy either implicitly understands which reg I'll donate because they're familiar with a long hose setup, or has been clearly told so during our pre-dive chat. If they for any reason should have forgotten that, they can still look for the yellow reg on a yellow hose.

 

[Edward3c]

...
I am deeply sceptical of people that say ‘take the one from my mouth’ and sometimes I am tempted to randomly mug them mid dive to see how they do. However I would risk drowning them if I was right and I am not sure how that would go down with the judge.
...

To reenforce the above.

There is in our area a diver, ex military, commercial etc, who if told “take my primary if you need air” will during the dive do just that. To date none of his buddies have been able to access their secondary regs as it been pinned to their chest by the primary’s hose. After 20 seconds or so he hands them his secondary reg. Without exception, all these buddies have gone back to normal length hoses

 

[Storker]

To reenforce the above.

There is in our area a diver, ex military, commercial etc, who if told “take my primary if you need air” will during the dive do just that. To date none of his buddies have been able to access their secondary regs as it been pinned to their chest by the primary’s hose. After 20 seconds or so he hands them his secondary reg. Without exception, all these buddies have gone back to normal length hoses

Someone seems not to have the slightest idea about proper primary donate:
1: With right hand, grasp hose close to reg
2a: Spit out reg, nod slightly to let the hose slide over your head, and give reg to buddy
2b: Simultaneously, with left hand, put necklaced reg in own mouth, clear reg
3: Check that buddy has gas, exchange "OK" signs
4: Now that both buddies have gas, take your time to check if everything looks good and make sure your buddy has a firm hold of your hose close to the reg s/he's breathing from
5: Prepare for ascent

 

[chillyinCanada]

Someone seems not to have the slightest idea about proper primary donate:
1: With right hand, grasp hose close to reg
2a: Spit out reg, nod slightly to let the hose slide over your head, and give reg to buddy
2b: Simultaneously, with left hand, put necklaced reg in own mouth, clear reg
3: Check that buddy has gas, exchange "OK" signs
4: Now that both buddies have gas, take your time to check if everything looks good and make sure your buddy has a firm hold of your hose close to the reg s/he's breathing from
5: Prepare for ascent

That's the way a practice session turns out. How does a true panicked OOG grabber situation work out?

 

[Storker]

That's the way a practice session turns out. How does a true panicked OOG grabber situation work out?

I have no idea, since I've never had to do with "a true panicked OOG grabber". And as I've said upthread I believe those situations are only marginally more common than hen's teeth. Especially with the type of diving I'm used to: independent buddy pairs only occasionally seeing other divers during the dive.

But I guess that as long as I have the wits to nod my head to let the hose slip over it, there shouldn't be much difference. Except for the ridicule the grabber would be subjected to post-dive for not monitoring their gas properly.

 

[Jcp2]

What you described is not how most people dive. Think sunny warm vacation divers who are underwater for a couple of hours, maybe as part of a groupon deal.

 

[AJ]

What you described is not how most people dive. Think sunny warm vacation divers who are underwater for a couple of hours, maybe as part of a groupon deal.

Maybe there lies the whole problem, lack of skills? Maybe they should not even be diving with these skills? If these kind of divers are the norm, I rather go diving solo or not at all. No chance of grabbing my primary. Until now none of my over 100 buddies has ever grabbed my primary. I concur with Storker on this, looking for a solution when the problem should not exist and maybe not even does not exist.

How many of you have ever had to deal with a panicked buddy you did not nortice panicking and had a primary grabbed? I'am not talking about ex military that are challenged

 

[KenGordon]

Someone seems not to have the slightest idea about proper primary donate:
1: With right hand, grasp hose close to reg
2a: Spit out reg, nod slightly to let the hose slide over your head, and give reg to buddy
2b: Simultaneously, with left hand, put necklaced reg in own mouth, clear reg
3: Check that buddy has gas, exchange "OK" signs
4: Now that both buddies have gas, take your time to check if everything looks good and make sure your buddy has a firm hold of your hose close to the reg s/he's breathing from
5: Prepare for ascent

Edward is talking about people saying to TAKE a primary. That is not proper primary donate already. I am not sure how the secondary is trapped in Edward's example but I know I have to take care not to trap the primary in various ways. That is part of the test deployment and being taught by a real person.

We get onto the primary take thing as mugging is commonly used as a justification for primary donate, especially amount the short (1m) host primary donate crowd. I think that is a bit feeble as the storage thing seems like a plenty good enough reason on its own. Some of the other reasons are either generally not applicable (eg known good mix) or just spurious, for example if a person cannot control an octopus why should they be able to control a secondary?

 

[Glenn Williams]

I do understand your reasoning, however I don't think one size fits all here. For recreational diving the yellow alternate is a fine solution. For more advanced diving it is not.

The most important to me is to consider which solution works best for you and your buddy. If it's the yellow alternate, fine go for it. If you want to do caves or wrecks, think about what you really need to dive safe. Maybe a long hose will work better in those cases. In the end, diving safe is what we want to achieve. It does not really matter how we do that as long as we understand our gear and know how to use it.

Thanks for the response. That is why I stated “recreational” diving. I’m well aware tech diving is a whole different animal. Thanks again

Glenn

 

[Diving Dubai]

What strike me here, is that a lot of people are assuming that simply briefing someone on the surface, pre-dive, means that they will continue to remember that brief the moment their head slips below the surface.

IRL it just doesn't happen for the most part. If you are diving with regular buddies and know tier strengths and weaknesses, then its easier, but strangers, not so much

Any dive Pro will tell you that you can brief a scenario or skill at the surface, then as soon as you attempt it underwater it goes to hell. when you ask why at teh surface, you're met with blank stares or people saying that they forgot. Its human nature.

The less experienced the diver, then the greater their bandwidth is occupied just by diving. In a real incident people will revert to instinct or their (hopefully) remembered basic training. So if you're diving LH (with someone who dives a conventional set up) you'd better keep your eyes peeled and be always on top of the situation.

No one knows how they themselves will react to a sticky situation underwater until they've had one or three, so trust me in saying it's impossible to predict how an unknown diver will react. They could have a logbook full of dives, and certs to their armpit, but might still lose it underwater.

The successful resolution to an incident isn't the gear config, its the mental preparations before hand and actual abilities under pressure of the divers involved