75 ft out of air, What do YOU do?

[J.P.]

Ok Deep sea, here you go again spouting off at the mouth. Come on by our booth at DEMA and I'll set up a pool time. As for this thread I see all professional answers except for one...and I agree to most all of them. I just recieved a chart showing the amount of air a empty tank gets on ascent....I'll post it once we check it out.
Thank's, J.P.

 

[Spearo]

Originally posted by DEEP SEA
Hey, anyone ever think about diving with a Spare Air? If your in the habit of not paying attention to your air supply or you have an equipment failure, they come in handy.

JP, you going to tell us about something new you have to solve this problem? Another $100,000 challenge?

No thanks, Spare Air is in my opinion (for diving)is nothing but a toy and another way to spend the money in the wrong equipment. There was a time years ago I use to dive with an 80 and had a few close calls with the air running low in deep dives, then I began to dive with an 80 and a 19 and again in low vis./deep dives I found myself just about putting a vacum on bouth. For the last eight years now I've been diving with an 80 and a 40 or two 80's and have wounder how I ever dived with nothing less. My point here is that you can never have too much air and for the cost to buy and keep the Spear Air I would rather dive with a pony any time.

Cheers,


Spearo.

 

[Mario S Caner]

I dive with a pony as well, but let's not dismiss the functionality of having a spare air unit. I own the 1.7cuft and 2.7cuft spare airs.

The benefit is obvious. If the scope of the dive doesn't require the air a pony has, then why dive with the added weight?

It's much easier to travel with a Spare air then with a pony. Just dump the air out of the 2" diameter cylinder, screw off the reg and pack it in your luggage. They fill right off of your scuba cylinder via a cascade fill.

It's also very easy to hand off a spare air to another diver. You can literally hand it to them and then stand by if more assistance is needed.

J.P., If it's a professional responce you want, you should take a step back and think about the fact that you made some promises and bold statements throwing around dollar signs... where's the info? In all honesty you had some curiosity peaked, we started to take you seriously... but that's beginning to change now.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feather's here. You can still rectify the situation and put our doubts to rest by giving us the rest of the story.

DEMA is a very revealing place. Whether people respect you and your product or they laugh at you and dismiss your product will be dependant on your next words. If you take any advice to heart at all, I recommend you remain very diplomatic & respectful in your dealings with other divers.

Mario

 

[Warhammer]

Originally posted by Mario S Caner
They fill right off of your scuba cylinder via a cascade fill.

Mario

Just be sure you don't fill it from the one your about to dive. LOL Where's the benefit in that?

 

[Mario S Caner]

Haha, The idea is that you are taking a 80cuft cylinder with 3000 psi and grabbing 2.7cuft of it for the initial fill... not that much air when you consider it's good for about 48 breathes on the surface... or 24 breathes at 33ft... or 16 breathes at 66ft... or 12 breathes at 99ft... you see the pattern here right? Bottom line is that it's more than enough air to get you safely to the surface or to your buddy. And the way I see it, it's so quick to access when needed that it's a wonderful peice of gear to throw into your dive bag.

Mario

 

[Spearo]

Originally posted by Norm
Rick gives a good answer and lots of good follow-up by others. Just remember though, outside of entrapment or massive equipment failure there is NO EXCUSE for anyone to EVER run out of air nowadays!
Norm

Norm, there may be no excuse but divers run out of air all the time, specially when diving with single 80s or less in low vis. or when deep diving in a none familiar enviroments. Just this year I helped a diver that lost her way and was getting low at 110 fsw. Some times that line is not where you though it would be an specialy when you let that gauge get low and all you have is a single tank.

In my 30 years of diving this is the second time I find someone in panic and lost on a deep dive and both times with only an 80 on their backs, some people never learn!

Cheers,

El Spearo.

 

[Mario S Caner]

I'm assuming that the above mentioned dive wasn't an overhead environement... If not, then it just goes to prove how scary some divers skills are.

Some people just don't belong.
Mario

 

[Warhammer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see your point, you old salt, but I like arguing with you so. Tell me this, if you remove 2.7cf from your tank and put it in your spare air, then you dive that same tank, where did you gain any air? If you would have just left it in the tank, it would still be there, and you could breath it instead of having to take the little dohicky with you. LOL! Course it would benefit you if you just forgot to check your gauges and ran the tank dry, which I'm sure you'd never do, right? And it would benefit you on your next dives, since your notstealing air from those tanks.

 

[Mario S Caner]

One other scenario! What happens if you had a catostrophic air emergency such as your $.40 O-ring failing at depth? Doh! SOL huh! Not really, you grab your totally redundant air supply called a... TADAAAAAA! Spare Air and you make it up to the surface calmly. Was that worth your couple of hundred bucks? Even if you only used it once in your lifetime, it would be worth it many times over in my opinion!

Don't get me wrong here Peep's, I'm by no means a Spare Air salesman, in fact I'm not selling nor affiliated with anything. I just see the value in certain products that I can't turn my back on!

Beware I have plenty more ammo! LOL!
Mario

 

[Walter]

........when that o-ring fails, you'll have more breathable air left in your tank than in the spare air. A failed o-ring takes awhile to empty a tank. It's happened to buddies of mine twice. Both times, we had plenty of time to return to the boat underwater without sharing air. Neither time were we all that close when the o-ring blew.

Don't misunderstand me, you want to get to the boat ASAP, but that would also apply if you were using a spare air.

Walter