Diving in Threes?

[String]

I dont like 3s really. If its all divers i know then i can live with it, usually end up with most experienced diver following the pairing of the lesser experienced 2.

If its divers ive never met before 3 is a pain in the neck. Separation as a 3 as well gets an issue if not careful.

For divers who train and practice with each other regulary a 3 is fine, for random buddy assignments its not as nice.

 

[pearl4diving]

As most have responded, I think diving in a team of 3 is great. No reason not to really. Just make sure to discuss your dive strategy and plan.

"Plan your dive and dive your plan"! And you'll have an enjoyable dive with an additional person to share the experience with.

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

...but the main drawback that I understand is if a buddy has an equipment malfunction, and as it is being remedied, a second buddy also has a malfunction. Now, there are two malfunctions and only one bailout.

I don't follow the logic here. How would that be worse than the same malfunctions with two divers?

 

[roakey]

The search function is your friend, folks:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=85858&highlight=threes

Many, many replies there. No need to rehash it here.

Roak

 

[piikki]

At this moment, two weeks smarter, I will not be diving in threesome unless the third person is a) my instructor b) passed particular written, oral and visual inspections (estimated taking up to two weeks per individual)
Reason: At this level one buddy is enough of a challenge for me, and I’d rather my buddy could concentrate on one person too if something hairy started going on.

 

[dlndavid]

Hmmm... I guess
"Whenever there was an important job to be done, Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

When Nobody did it, Everybody got angry because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Nobody would do it.

So consequently Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done in the first place." ?

Gio.

Hey are you talking about Hurricane Katrina?

 

[mossym]

I dived in a team of nine a few weeks ago!! Worked great, I was very impressed. Drift dive with only 3 of us who had done it before.

was that a team or a guided dive following a dm? 9 isn't a team...it should be 3 or 4 groups swimming together...if it breaks up you better know who you're supposed to be with, and make sure you're with them

 

[gangrel441]

I don't follow the logic here. How would that be worse than the same malfunctions with two divers?

It's not worse, but 2 out of 3 (66%) is more likely statistically than 2 out of 2 (100%). This is not my experience, but rather what I have heard from other peoples' experience. As I said, almost 100% of my diving these days is done with the same buddy and no third.

 

[gregor1234]

I dive almost exclusively in a threesome because I usually dive with two of my teenaged sons. A threesome consisting of dad and two brothers has a different dynamic than a team of three adults or 2 familiar buddies and one stranger. The dad/two brothers unit is probably more cohesive that any other threesome other than perhaps three longtime friends.

As Doc Intrepid points out a threesone it gives you more resources to use in case of emergency and we do include that in our dive planning.

On the flip side, communication is more difficult, coordinating movements or objectives can be glacial and it ia always too easy to leave someone out.

Perceptual narrowing happens all the time in diving and as it pertains to this topic, it is very easy for two of the three team members to become engrossed in one activity or problem and to forget about what or where or how the third team member is doing.

I don't believe this is just a kids/dad problem either. I believe it to be general.

It's easy for two to forget about the third and often the third may still be focused on the other two and not realize he has been forgotten or misplaced.

For those reasons we do the following:

We establish specific assignments of who will check who in the predive buddy check and post decent bubble check.

Before getting in the water we establish who will be the leader to direct the conduct of the dive underwater. The leader decides where we will go next and how long we stay before moving on to the next thing. (I'm not talking about dive objective planning or air or NDL limits which are discussed by all of us pre-dive but here I'm simply talking in terms of terms of "OK, so now lets go look at that fish over there.")

The leader must also be recognized as the acting "wrangler" continually ensuring that the threesome is moving as a group with no members separated further than safety should allow.

Together with this, it is a convenience for threesomes to establish predive the distance that will be considered safe buddy separation for the particular dive being undertaken.

It is easy for a buddy to signal "closer together." It is much harder for the leader of a threesome to get the idea of a specific distance across to both other members of the team while underwater.

Now this seems like a lot of stuff to go through just to jump in for a quick dip on the reef but I've found that it works out much better than not doing it.

My sons and I trade-off being leader but in practice, I'm always in the role of "backup wrangler".

 

[HowardE]

Diving in threes: yay or nay?

Why?

Why not?

Good/bad experiences?

I've done it before several times and wasn't terribly enthused but it wasn't awful either and I was wondering whether or not I'd do it in the future.

Diving in threes: yay or nay?
We dive in 3's quite a bit... sometimes even 4's.

Why?
Why not? Sometimes on our boat, there are only 3 or 4 people diving, so we all just go together. We just decide first who gets to tow the flag.

Good/bad experiences?
Good experiences. Usually, we're all experienced on the reef where we go, and it makes for more eyes for finding little creatures, etc... Let me say that we usually dive in 50' viz, so it's easy to keep track of 3 or more people. I don't know if it would be as good in 10' viz.