Odd doubles set up

[citykid]

Here is a picture of a set of divers who are searching the South Korea Ferry disaster. Look at their tanks. They are wearing doubles but only one first stage (on the right side). Both have the same set up. Having the manifold is pretty much useless this way.

 

[rongoodman]

It looks like they just slapped a single tank regulator on a set of doubles to extend their bottom time.

 

[Scared Silly]

The divers are working in less than 30m of water, probably more like 20m at best, and given the strong currents they are probably blowing through gas. The diver on left looks to have his reg upside down and is using a DIN to Yoke adapter. Not exactly how I would rig my gear for a wreck penetration.

 

[nimoh]

Here is a picture of a set of divers who are searching the South Korea Ferry disaster. Look at their tanks. They are wearing doubles but only one first stage (on the right side). Both have the same set up. Having the manifold is pretty much useless this way.

The manifold crossover still provides access to the gas in the left tank, so not as useless as this configuration would be without the manifold.

Essentially they are doing single tank dives, with double the capacity (assuming the crossover is open). The manifold does add an extra failure point over normal single tanks configurations, but it is minimal. I wouldn't dive this way, since I think if you are going to go to the trouble of carrying around double tanks, might as well take advantage of the redundancy. I'm not sure of their reasoning for doing this, perhaps doubles were all that was available since there are so many divers in the water?

 

[kensuf]

The issue here is a valve without a reg on it can be opened inadvertently, causing quite a bit of gas to vent.

 

[nimoh]

The issue here is a valve without a reg on it can be opened inadvertently, causing quite a bit of gas to vent.

that's a good point, especially if they are going inside the ferry. At least it is the left post which won't roll when moving forward, but still an issue.

 

[PfcAJ]

The issue here is a valve without a reg on it can be opened inadvertently, causing quite a bit of gas to vent.

Bingo.

At least the divers put the reg on the right post, I guess.

 

[Subcooled]

It looks like they just slapped a single tank regulator on a set of doubles to extend their bottom time.

Zero visibility dive inside a wreck full of floating material and half open doors,
without a redundant setup?

So many have died already that one dead diver would not change the statistics?

 

[kensuf]

that's a good point, especially if they are going inside the ferry. At least it is the left post which won't roll when moving forward, but still an issue.

But can roll open when backing out.

 

[DaleC]

How are you guys so sure what the diver is doing on that dive?

I've used doubles this way when I'm shallow and just want more air. For me it was situations where I did not have dedicated reg sets yet and did not want to break down my single set to create a double set. Maybe there are a lot of divers like someone said and just ran out of dedicated regs. Perhaps these guys are doing exterior surveys or light penetration and I could see not wanting to even go into the water with only a single tank - too short of a working time.