Bail Out?

[roakey]

What is "DIR"?

We have a DIR forum on this board, and the second "sticky" topic is "What is DIR?" which would be a good place to start!

Roak

 

[Rick Inman]

I dive primarily with my daughter (15). As you can imagine, its rec diving. We plan on doing DIR-F when she's 16.

In a nutshell, should I be carrying a bail out option for her? I guess primarily a pony bottle is what I have in mind. You know, a "things have gone wrong, backup oxygen is needed" kind of scenario. NEVER a "let's stay a little longer" option.

Is it worth it? Or am I just being a Dad, sounder minds would focus elsewhere?

Thanks

IMHO, you are doing two things very right. First of all, you are spending time and becoming involved with your teenage daughter that will pay off big time in other areas. Second, your continued concern for her safety demonstrates your care for her that, I am sure, she sees in you.
My dad and I got certified together when I was 13, back in 1971. There were no computers or octos or power inflated BCs. There was buddy breathing (which my dad and I practiced on EVERY dive) and ESAs. That's it. Most of the time, until I had a good 50 dives, my dad would often hold my hand. We stayed TOGETHER, and we did so many out of air drills that I just assumed it was a part of every dive. When I was 16 and it really happened to a 17 year old buddy (he ran out of air) I couldn't understand why he was so freaked out and didn't know what to do.
Now it's easy, with octos and stuff. I dive with a couple of friends who have less than 20 dives, and I run out of air on them all the time (in practice, only, of course).
You don't need a pony. You've shown us all what kind of a father you are, and that is more than enough.

 

[SamDiver14]

No one really thinks that a diver should buy a new piece of equipment, ie. pony bottle and reg, and just go diving without spending pool time and OW time in an apropriate manner getting accustomed to the new equipment, right? The argument about having an extra piece of equipment that may not be necessary is valid if there is a guarantee that it will not be needed. I think we can all learn a lesson from the tech divers. Why risk needing something that you don't have? If you don't know how to properly use the new or added equipment, GET TRAINED. If you don't know any better than to grab your back up regulator before descent you should ask if you really need to be in the water at all? Certainly not in the water with that equipment. Any diver worth his or her salt would not push their limits while using new equipment not to mention most wouldn't use new equipment without spending sufficient time learning to use it.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The argument about having an extra piece of equipment that may not be necessary is valid if there is a guarantee that it will not be needed. I think we can all learn a lesson from the tech divers. Why risk needing something that you don't have?

What lesson from technical divers are you suggesting folks learn? I engage in technical diving and I have never used or needed a pony bottle. The use of a backmounted pony bottle is just the sort of dangly junk and unreliable procedures that many of us avoid.

The lesson to be learned is to match the equipment and procedures to the problem or risk.

 

[SamDiver14]

Hi MikeF,
I thought I posted a response to this yesterday, but I guess something happened to the connection at the wrong time. Anyway, I would like to say that I appreciate your including me in this discussion. I have great respect for your opinions, it is obvious that you know your stuff from reading your other posts. So let me explain what I meant by including tech divers in my point of view. I would never suggest that everyone or anyone should use a bailout bottle. I am also familiar enough with tech divers to know that they don't use any small bottles strapped on their back. However, my point is that a completly redundant secondary source of air is never a bad idea. Now I do know that a spare air setup wouldn't really give anyone more than just a gulp or two before it is empty. My concern is that there exists a possibility that the first stage of a regulator will fail. Most OW recreational divers (non overhead, deco, etc.) make their dives with only one first stage regulator. Whlie the chance of that regulator failing can be small that doesn't mean that it is not concievable. I do know that TDI requires a completely redundant air source for both solo diver, and cavern courses and maybe more. I think the same reasoning that we use to justify carrying a octopus second stage regulator applies here as well. Now, I do not think it is ever a good idea for a diver to get into the water in a real life diving situation with a new piece of equipment. That is what pools are for. Swimming in a pool may be boring but it does give an opportunity to use a new piece of equipment to get familiar in a more controlled enviroment.
I am sure you are familiar with the concept of 'factor of safety'. The fully redundant air source gives a higher factor of safety than depending on one piece of equipment, ie. one first stage regulator. If someone does not like a bailout or pony bottle, great. If they would like to dive without a redundancy of their first stage, that is their business. But there is a higher factor of safety when there is first stage redundancy. I think some people get the idea that it is perfectly safe to dive in OW situations. Just like Joe Odom teaches, as long as all of the steps of preparation and safety checks are made diving is a relatively safe sport. That does not mean that safety precautions should be avoided. Tech divers use redundant air sources. I think we should learn a lesson from these divers and use redundant air sources in an OW setting.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hi MikeF,
I thought I posted a response to this yesterday, but I guess something happened to the connection at the wrong time. Anyway, I would like to say that I appreciate your including me in this discussion. I have great respect for your opinions, it is obvious that you know your stuff from reading your other posts. So let me explain what I meant by including tech divers in my point of view. I would never suggest that everyone or anyone should use a bailout bottle. I am also familiar enough with tech divers to know that they don't use any small bottles strapped on their back. However, my point is that a completly redundant secondary source of air is never a bad idea. Now I do know that a spare air setup wouldn't really give anyone more than just a gulp or two before it is empty. My concern is that there exists a possibility that the first stage of a regulator will fail. Most OW recreational divers (non overhead, deco, etc.) make their dives with only one first stage regulator. Whlie the chance of that regulator failing can be small that doesn't mean that it is not concievable. I do know that TDI requires a completely redundant air source for both solo diver, and cavern courses and maybe more. I think the same reasoning that we use to justify carrying a octopus second stage regulator applies here as well. Now, I do not think it is ever a good idea for a diver to get into the water in a real life diving situation with a new piece of equipment. That is what pools are for. Swimming in a pool may be boring but it does give an opportunity to use a new piece of equipment to get familiar in a more controlled enviroment.
I am sure you are familiar with the concept of 'factor of safety'. The fully redundant air source gives a higher factor of safety than depending on one piece of equipment, ie. one first stage regulator. If someone does not like a bailout or pony bottle, great. If they would like to dive without a redundancy of their first stage, that is their business. But there is a higher factor of safety when there is first stage redundancy. I think some people get the idea that it is perfectly safe to dive in OW situations. Just like Joe Odom teaches, as long as all of the steps of preparation and safety checks are made diving is a relatively safe sport. That does not mean that safety precautions should be avoided. Tech divers use redundant air sources. I think we should learn a lesson from these divers and use redundant air sources in an OW setting.

Good post.

I'm certainly not against redundant breathing systems and rarely dive without one myself.

I agree that a redundant gas source increases the safety factor...as long as...the additional equipment and complexity doesn't cause more problems than it solves.

In an earlier post I outlined my specific concerns regarding pony bottle, especially back mounted ones. When those complications are added, especially on a dive where we wouldn't normally consider redundancy a requirement, the question becomes did we solve a problem or add the possibility of new problems.

Another concern that I have is that often the divers I meet who have or are considering a pony are doing so because they aren't confidant on the dives they're making. They may be unsure of their buddy or maybe they're just starting to dive a little deeper. In these cases I think the pony might just be a patch for another problem that should be addressed.

That's not to say that a seperate bottle could never be used as a bail out. In the case of solo divers a buddy bottle is common. In the case of recreational diving with a buddy good gas management will leave enough gas to get safely to the surface even in the event of catastrophic gas loss, you have a buddy for a backup and have practiced ESA's for yet another backup. Is adding another reg, more hoses, more things to check really help or just confuse the issue. I sure can't make that decision for any one. All I can do is tell others how I've made that decission for myself.

In my experience sloppy equipment configurations, confusion in responding to problems and poor gas management all happen orders of magnitude more often than a reg failing in such a way as to not deliver air.

 

[SamDiver14]

MikeF,
You do make an excellent point. I tend to assume that all diver are like I am, gadget-philes. This of course, is not really true. I love equipment. I change my configuarations up all the time. But as you pointed out in your previous post, equipment cannot fix problems that a diver has that are unrelated to their equipment. My brother and I are both very mechanically oriented but we took to the water fast. I suppose in my love of diving and the underwater world I sometimes forget that many divers have issues that cause them to be less than comfortable in the water. Added complexity is not too much for me because I don't have any baggage going on the dive with me. But I could understand how the KISS method might make some peoples dives safer than added equipment. Thanks for helping me understand this a little better. Any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated.