PADI-Sipping Air Free Flow?

[Diver0001]

In My Real-Life Objective Opinion, and coming from an experienced overhead environment -I know that Valve Modulation it's a valuable skill to practice and develop with confidence & competence especially with a non-fixable free-flow, in a worst case buddy separation/poor visibility situation.

Again the motivation is to NOT let breathing gas waste away if you have the ability to take breaths by modulating/ feathering the tank valve. [As an aside, I believe this an easier more viable option in Sidemount and should be taught within this specialty as well].

Kev,

You are also one of the few divers on this board head strong enough to ignore best practices and dream up your own way of doing things, getting seriously bent in the process.

I'm sure there are quite a few divers on this board who have had free flows of one type or another over the years, and I'm pretty sure you're the only one I know of who would recommend doing pretty much everything the REC agencies tell students NOT to do.

- leave your buddy
- go OOA alone somewhere else
- make an emergency ascent when one may not be called for

If it works for you, fine. But don't endanger people by telling them that your way is the best way. Few divers are even trained to feather a broken reg and I tell YOU from experience that trying to figure out something like that in the middle of what could very quickly escalate into an OOA emergency with loss of buddy contact and potentially complicating buoyancy issues is bad advice.

Sure, if you have advanced training, you've seen feathering a broken reg before and you think you'd like to try it, then who am I to tell you not to, but you're not thinking out of the context of the typical recreational diver. These divers will not be in an overhead and what they need is to end the dive safely, either by ascending and breathing off the broken reg or with sharing air from their buddy. Saving gas is a low priority in that case.

R..

 

[Altamira]

Yes, because in real life the free flow is usually caused by the FIRST stage freezing up, so it causes both 2nd stages to free-flow.

I can buy that logic for a cold water dive, but, barring a critical failure of a first stage component, I would think freeze up an unlikely or unrealistic occurrence in a warm water dive situation?


[

and you are completely wasting the gas vs. at least using some of it for breathing while surfacing....

As far as I am concerned, any full breath of air I can get into my lungs from a working 2nd stage regulator is hardly a waste of gas. With a full breath of air, I know for sure that I can do a CESA from at least 60', and probably a lot deeper than that if my life was depending on it. Air going out a free flowing regulator that I can only sip from when another reg might be working fine is the waste.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Kev,

You are also one of the few divers on this board head strong enough to ignore best practices and dream up your own way of doing things, getting seriously bent in the process.

I'm sure there are quite a few divers on this board who have had free flows of one type or another over the years, and I'm pretty sure you're the only one I know of who would recommend doing pretty much everything the REC agencies tell students NOT to do.

- leave your buddy
- go OOA alone somewhere else
- make an emergency ascent when one may not be called for
. . .

Diver0001, you are obfuscating my post (I never said or implied what you claim in your above dash points):

"With no buddy in sight-- and you have the option & ability to successfully make a calm effort in conserving as much free-flowing gas by the valve modulation/feathering breathing technique, what you gain is time --time for the Buddy to find you and gas share." If not, then perform a "modified" Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) while taking breaths as needed by the valve modulation technique as described below, and if possible with remaining gas & skilled enough to hold depth, do a safety stop. . ."

If it works for you, fine. But don't endanger people by telling them that your way is the best way. Few divers are even trained to feather a broken reg and I tell YOU from experience that trying to figure out something like that in the middle of what could very quickly escalate into an OOA emergency with loss of buddy contact and potentially complicating buoyancy issues is bad advice.

Sure, if you have advanced training, you've seen feathering a broken reg before and you think you'd like to try it, then who am I to tell you not to, but you're not thinking out of the context of the typical recreational diver. These divers will not be in an overhead and what they need is to end the dive safely, either by ascending and breathing off the broken reg or with sharing air from their buddy. Saving gas is a low priority in that case.

R..

If someone has the opportunity to apply this advanced technique by practicing it first while supervised in a pool (especially in Sidemount) and developing it as a vital skill, then why not achieve to learn and know about it??? If you can't do it then use the "sipping technique" as taught in basic open water. Doesn't that make more objective sense instead of your censure rant above? I never claimed it was the "best way" for this contingency as you say, only that it makes better sense to conserve the remaining gas you have left instead of uselessly letting it bleed away . . .if you are able to perform Valve Modulation/Feathering.

Argue for your own limitations Diver0001 --they are all just yours and not necessarily everyone else's. . .

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

You folks have me thinking. If a diver is in a backmounted single, most people will not be able to reach back and feather their valve.

However, if the diver was trained to take off their BCD and wear it backwards and ascend, learning to feather it, that might work.

Thoughts? This just popped into my head, so I haven't thought much about it.

 

[rhwestfall]

You folks have me thinking. If a diver is in a backmounted single, most people will not be able to reach back and feather their valve.

However, if the diver was trained to take off their BCD and wear it backwards and ascend, learning to feather it, that might work.

Thoughts? This just popped into my head, so I haven't thought much about it.

a 1988 YMCA "Scuba Diver" certification did include this....

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

a 1988 YMCA "Scuba Diver" certification did include this....

I'd love to go through all the training manuals of all existing and no longer existing agencies.

 

[Storker]

Argue for your own limitations Diver0001

He isn't arguing for his own limitations. He is arguing best practice as taught by all agencies for the large population of recreational divers. This best practice is based on simple, practical, proven and effective solutions. If a reg freeflows, the primary concern for a recreational diver is to reach that immense tank of breathing air called the surface, in a safe and controlled manner. Not to mess with trying to feather the valve.

Personally, I'd follow the advice of a competent instructor (Diver0001). I hope other recreational divers also do that.

 

[Diver0001]

Argue for your own limitations Diver0001 --they are all just yours and not necessarily everyone else's. . .

Well, Kev,

My limitations, as yours, are not what the sipping technique is about. I am pretty sure you have no idea about my limitations but are choosing to play the man instead of responding to the main message, which is that your advice isn't very valuable to a lot of divers and could potentially be dangerous to the novice who reads it and tries to apply it in an emergency with -- probably -- inadequate background or training.

This thread asked the question about why sipping is taught. That answer has been given but what you are missing is that agencies design the OW course--where this skill is taught--with NOVICE divers in mind. These are divers who are not engaged in the activities where saving the gas is a paramount issue.

They ARE engaged in a context in which getting to their buddy or getting to the surface IS of paramount importance.

What I'm saying is that at the OW level it makes a lot of sense to train divers to surface together with their buddy. Accident statistics support this as I mentioned before because being alone, not (entirely) in control of buoyancy control and/or OOA accounts for the triggers in, IIRC, about 75% of fatal accidents.

You say this isn't what you were trying to suggest, which is comforting, but if you read your post back again, this is actually exactly what you suggested if you connect the dots in your logic. This is also the reason I jumped on it. When people post bad advice it behooves the rest of us to correct that in the open forums so someone doesn't read it and confuse it with some kind of best practice.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

You folks have me thinking. If a diver is in a backmounted single, most people will not be able to reach back and feather their valve.

However, if the diver was trained to take off their BCD and wear it backwards and ascend, learning to feather it, that might work.

Thoughts? This just popped into my head, so I haven't thought much about it.

Actually reaching the valve to feather it is easy enough if you reach down with your left hand and lift the set up as high on your back as you can, which will put the valve over your head as opposed to behind the neck.

This, of course, would create a secondary complication in the technique that Kevin was suggesting because the diver would then be involved in a CESA with both hands occupied and the valve nearly all the way closed..... one little slip of the hand and .....

R..

 

[Neilwood]

I

Diver0001, you are obfuscating my post (I never said or implied what you claim in your above dash points):

"With no buddy in sight-- and you have the option & ability to successfully make a calm effort in conserving as much free-flowing gas by the valve modulation/feathering breathing technique, what you gain is time --time for the Buddy to find you and gas share." If not, then perform a "modified" Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) while taking breaths as needed by the valve modulation technique as described below, and if possible with remaining gas & skilled enough to hold depth, do a safety stop. . ."

If someone has the opportunity to apply this advanced technique by practicing it first while supervised in a pool (especially in Sidemount) and developing it as a vital skill, then why not achieve to learn and know about it??? If you can't do it then use the "sipping technique" as taught in basic open water. Doesn't that make more objective sense instead of your censure rant above? I never claimed it was the "best way" for this contingency as you say, only that it makes better sense to conserve the remaining gas you have left instead of uselessly letting it bleed away . . .if you are able to perform Valve Modulation/Feathering.

Argue for your own limitations Diver0001 --they are all just yours and not necessarily everyone else's. . .

Please remember this is BASIC SCUBA DISCUSSIONS where in general divers will not have a huge amount of experience and subsequent training. You appear to be suggesting that basic recreational divers (OW and AOW) apply technical diving techniques without having attended the relevant courses.

For a new diver with limited experience to try to reach their valve and try to feather it (yes I do understand the concept) while already under considerable task loading, trying to contain panic and avoid an uncontrolled ascent is asking a lot. We are also talking about a situation where the diver is fully able to ascend directly to surface (as a recreational diver they will be within NDL so stops are not mandatory).

Your suggested actions are fine for advanced divers with extra training where they might find themselves in either a soft (deco required) or hard (fixed ceiling) overheard environment. The sort of skills you suggest are beyond the scope of basic recreational diving.