Bail Out?

[UWSojourner]

Thanks all.

Someone, I think Mike, talked about "hedging your bet" and suggested that some systematic survey of accidents might be valuable. I like that as a good starting point to help define the scenarios that cause trouble. I ordered Dan's 2002 edition of the rec SCUBA accidents. If anyone knows other sources of info let me know. I've read a bunch through the Dan Alert's already, but haven't really tried to digest things into a "dive plan".

We plan to dive 40 dives or so this year. I'm thinking some type of systematic practice program might help (rather than just sightseeing). I'll contact our instructor and see if he can put together an "exercise" program for safety. Sounds like the DIR-F will be great, but we're blocked until next year unfortunately.

Not convinced on redundant air yet. For me, spare air is out. If I come to the conclusion redundancy is needed, I'll get a full pony system of some type.

I like the idea of the exercise program. It'll add a little bit of goal orientation to our dive trips. Some just fun, but some "lets get better" dives.

BTW Someone asked about what kind of diving and setup etc we used. She dives an Eclipse, currently I'm on a SQ Balance, but just ordered an Oxycheq wing. We thought we should get used to the BP/Wing for DIR-F. We both are Nitrox rated through TDI and have DC trilam suits. Most diving will be in WA and BC, although we were lucky enough to do trips to Maui in Feb! and did Sunset House in GC last year.

Your discussions were thought provoking. Thanks.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Maybe the reports don't show support for it because of the presentence of the pony bottle, there wasn't an accident to report.

What I was getting at is that we don't see divers without pony bottles getting hurt because they don't have one.

Not everyone can or wants to dive doubles.

And not every one needs to. However, with equipment and techniques that are well suited for the dive there just isn't much use for a pony bottle.

Getting seperated from your buddy happens.

I keep hearing this but to be honest I think this is one of the problems we should be going after. I've had a few buddy seperations but they were all back when I was trying to learn how to ascend, descend and dive while paying attention to a buddy. Mostly it's new divers or divers who haven't developed buddy skills who get seperated. Skills again. If you get seperated, what are you going to do and why would you need the pony?

Other things happen. Why not have a pony bottle with you just in case.

What other things? Lets identify them and talk about how we might handle it. Have a pony in case of what? In case we magically run out of air? Can't find our buddy and decide to keep diving anyway? What?

I do not understand the aguments against having one. It just doesn't make since to me.

Anything that you add to your configuration that's not needed can't possibly do any good and might cause a problem. It might not but since you don't need it, why bother?

In the case of a back mounted pony bottle. I'm assuming back mounted because we're talking about a 15 year old who's a fairly knew diver so I'm assuming they weren't planning on slinging it. Anyway...from an earlier post...

Can you reach the valve?
Do you have a SPG on it and if you do where do you keep it?
Where are you going to have that third reg?

If you don't have that SPG the thing could have leaked down from a seeping reg or whatever and you have no way of knowing. If you do need gas are you going to the empty pony or your buddy? Empty pony or ESA? If your buddy's lost are you going to end the dive or keep diving and rely on the pony that might be empty?

It complicates pre-dive checks, equipment configuration and emergency responses. The last thing we want to do is to complicate an emergency procedure that already works.

Assuming that Dad a daughter aren't diving really deep or in overheads, and assuming propper gas management, the vast majority of equipment failure modes would still allow the diver to make it to the surface breathing their own gas. If not, there's the buddy. If the buddy's lost they're most likely going to take a quick look around and then meet them at the surface. Right?

Where's the need for the pony?

Try filling in the gaps instead of telling us what is wrong.

I'm trying. You can't do a good job of controlling risks that you don't understand. Is running air at the top of the list? If so, why?

Read this board, the DAN report, the yahoo accident forum. There are lots of things we should be looking at to improve safety I just don't see that a pony bottle falls in there anyplace. It looks to me like it's the very most basic things that cause accidents and proficiency in the very most basic skills that prevents them. Not pony bottles.

Before talking about a pony bottle as a solution, lets identify a specific problem that we're trying to solve and see if a pony bottle looks like a good solution.

 

[NEWreckDiver]

Thanks all.

Someone, I think Mike, talked about "hedging your bet" and suggested that some systematic survey of accidents might be valuable. I like that as a good starting point to help define the scenarios that cause trouble. I ordered Dan's 2002 edition of the rec SCUBA accidents. If anyone knows other sources of info let me know. I've read a bunch through the Dan Alert's already, but haven't really tried to digest things into a "dive plan".

We plan to dive 40 dives or so this year. I'm thinking some type of systematic practice program might help (rather than just sightseeing). I'll contact our instructor and see if he can put together an "exercise" program for safety. Sounds like the DIR-F will be great, but we're blocked until next year unfortunately.

Not convinced on redundant air yet. For me, spare air is out. If I come to the conclusion redundancy is needed, I'll get a full pony system of some type.

I like the idea of the exercise program. It'll add a little bit of goal orientation to our dive trips. Some just fun, but some "lets get better" dives.

BTW Someone asked about what kind of diving and setup etc we used. She dives an Eclipse, currently I'm on a SQ Balance, but just ordered an Oxycheq wing. We thought we should get used to the BP/Wing for DIR-F. We both are Nitrox rated through TDI and have DC trilam suits. Most diving will be in WA and BC, although we were lucky enough to do trips to Maui in Feb! and did Sunset House in GC last year.

Your discussions were thought provoking. Thanks.

Good Luck to you on your quest.

 

[SamDiver14]

This is a good point in case. As a mechanical engineering student I learned that there is always a risk of catastrophic equipment failure in any situation and circumstance. A pony bottle gives a completely redundant air source. Is it possible to have two completely catastrophic failures on one dive? Of course, but after the first you should not continue the dive. Secondly, if you have two first stage regulators fail on a single dive it is probably just your time. Sometimes, all the precautions in the world can't save your tail. However, we can keep the risks to the absolute minimum. Lets face it to eliminate the risks means staying out of the water. But, a pony bottle increases the odds of surviving a catastrophic first stage failure. There is no excuse for proper training and air management. But, no one gets in the water planning to have an accident. The pony bottle is only an added measure of safety. Like many of the things we do as divers we never really need it. I have never needed the octopus on my regulator. That doesn't mean I am not going to continue to keep it as part of my working dive equipment. I do have a pony bottle and a completely redundant air source and the truth is that most of the time it is an added hassle. But if I ever need it and if it ever saves my life, every bit of that hassle will be worth it. Accident prevention doesn't occur when an accident happens but is something that is taken care of before you ever get in the water. Shoud you count on the air in a pony bottle? No, absolutely not. Will you be glad it is there should you ever need it? Yes, abslolutely.

 

[jagfish]

Here is a freaky regulator or tank valve failure that was posted in incidents/accidents last week:
http://www.scubaboard.com/t37780.html

Most cases of pony bashing I see on this forum are related to using all your air. Granted, the above was a solo dive. However, the issue of dedundant air source seems to attract about as much resistance in the solo context on this forum as well.

If I were motivated to carry a pony all the time (which I don't) I would likely be thinking about the situations that I could not reasonably anticipate or imagine, like the above situation. Not the obvious forum target of, "gee, I wasn't watching my guages and just ran out of air."

JAG

 

[dc4bs]

Here's a situation I was a witness to once...

A relatively new diver wearing a pony for the first time.

A long surface swim (for a new diver) to the descent point.

She dropped her primary reg during the surface swim while swimming on her back.

She recovered her primary (actualy her pony reg) and descended with the group.

Because the pony reg looked very similar to the primary, the diver proceded to breath down the pony tank to empty. She immediately grabbed her "pony" (really her primary tank reg) and breath off that. When she saw the guage from her pony read ZERO PSI her eyes got REALY big! She grabbed another divers octopus and that was the end of the dive...

Like mike said, it's yet another extra piece of equipment to deal with that can cause unexpected problems during a dive.

If you do decide to add a pony to yours and/or your daughters 'kit', make sure the pony regs 2nd stage is easily distinguishable from the primary and octo stages to help prevent mistakes like this one.

 

[Bretagne]

I am still a fairly novice diver (30 dives), and i know I would feel very umconfortable with a pony, I do not want to ad extra stuff to my gear, it is already bulky enough for my taste.

Before adding a pony bottle, I would consider using a bottle with double output and using a full regulator (1st and 2nd stage) as backup, instead of an octopus. Here it is compulsory for the dive master, and I think for people who dive in autinomy -still with a buddy-below 20m (at least strongly recommended).

 

[Hemlon]

I agree with Scubaroo and Snowbear. If you're going the DIR route there are better ways to safeguard your and your daughter's safety.

Ben

What is "DIR"?

 

[gj62]

What is "DIR"?

Stands for "Doing it Right" - a diving system created by folks who do primarily technical diving and deep cave penetrations. Check out the evolution of DIR by the man who invented it by reading here:

http://www.gue.com/equipment/jj-hogarth.shtml

It is also a subject that will create the most heated debate on this board, at least from what I've seen...

 

[Hemlon]

Thanks, gj62!