free flowing reg question

[Charlie99]

WileEDiver once bubbled...
Charlie,

Wouldn't you want to use up your own air for as long as possible before starting to deplete you buddy's supply? I guess the length of the dive so far might be a factor to consider (maybe not because if it's well into the dive, and you're low, then s/he's low, too), but that would be my thinking.

Unless we have grossly deviated from the dive plan, we each have enough gas for both of us to make a graceful, normal ascent.

You will save the most air by turning off the freeflow. You CAN operate your own tank valve can't you?

Another reason that I would move to my buddies octo is to reduce the confusion factor by getting the bubbles somewhere other than right in my face.

As another posted pointed out, the downside of using your buddies octo in cold water is that you now have increased the risk of putting his into freeflow --- nothing comes for free.

I have not practiced it, but you can probably extend the period for which you can breathe your own free flowing reg by cracking open the valve for a small fraction of a second, then breathing the resulting few seonds of air that will free flow out of the 2nd. Some of the original scuba systems were nothing more than a needle valve feeding an inhale counterlung --- not much better than the controlling the flow by periodic short cracking of the tank valve.

 

[Rick Inman]

6474286 once bubbled...
To All,

Having recently had a icy freeflow at 30metres, I personally decided to breath from my buddy's octopus.

It seemed like the best idea at the time, as it can be a very stressful situation.

I had the added benefit of knowing that both my buddy and I had full tanks at the start of the ascent, and I started to freeflow as soon as we got to 30Mtrs (100Ft).

However once a situation becomes stressful underwater, the stress can also become very contagious and your buddy will also start to worry, especially when it's dark, and there are bubbles just about everywhere you look.

To cut a long story short, after deciding to breath of my buddy's octopus, I ran in to an immediate problem - He was using a new Octopus Holder, one of these Velcro ones, and I couldn't free the octopus from his BCD. Because of this a normal situation, one we have all trained for became one your nightmares.

I tugged and tugged at his octopus, praying that it would come free, and somehow it did, but by the time it had come free my general stress had become an extremely stressful situation.

Not only was I extremely stressed, but my buddy was no longer thinking clearly after seeing me tugging to try and get at his octopus.

Because of the ensuing situation, we both spent 5 hours in the decompression chamber as a precaution;

We never stopped and regained control of our bad situation and we weren't ascending no matter how hard we swam up, my Buddy's stress began to show and he decided to use his BCD to get us to the surface, however our ascent rate was a lot too quick. So once we had calmed down at the surface we took a drive to the local hospital (Which has a Tank) and they decided to treat us.

To Summarise; What I am saying is - Let Your buddy know that you have a problem, signal your need to ascend and start to ascend, staying close and breathing from your free flow.

Make a safety stop if required, and breath from your buddy's octopus ONLY when you are out of air.

Then if things get worse, at least you are shallower, maybe shallow enough to do an Emergency Ascent if you really need to.

Although you have to have a good buddy and be able to read their responses to situations, you also have to be self reliant.

My mistake was not following the training. In the event of a free flow - Breath from it whilst ascending.

I hope my comments helps, the situation has definately helped me. For one, I replaced my cheap Mares Regulator set, with one designed for cold water. Also I am considering a Pony bottle for those just in cases!

Paul

=-)

Yeah, that's good. For me personally, I would alert my buddy but not request air unless I absolutly had to. Any situation that I can master without help makes me more self reliant and lowers the chance of bringing my buddy into a problem. The attitude that if something goes wrong, I immediatly go for the buddy, is not for me. Or, hopefully, my buddy. I want my buddy to count on me for help, but not depend on me. I expect my buddy to help me in any way he/she can if requested when it does not put them at grave risk, but I don't expect them to bale me out of situations I should be able to handle myself.
But then, that's just me... What do I know? (Rhetorical question!)

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I agree. The last recreational freeflow situation I was involved in went very well. My buddy informed me of the problem (pretty obvious what with bubbles spewing all over the place) and we started the ascent while he breathed off the free flowing reg. During this time, I switched to my secondary and held my primary ready to hand off to him. At about 40 ft, his tank went dry and we made the switch. He was ready, I was ready, it went smoothly, the dive ended uneventfully and everyone was happy.

This is in my opinion vastly more preferable than a buddy immediately dumping his still free flowing reg and precipitating a rapid "emergency" air sharing situation. A little time is a valuable commodity, so use it if you got it.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Epinephelus once bubbled...
Assuming you can't get the freeflow to stop...
(1) grab buddy while shutting down your own gas
(2) prepare to share air with buddy
(3) check to see if yours is a first or second stage problem - if it's a second stage problem, when you try to breathe immediately after you shut down your air supply, you'll get nothing - or near nothing, while a first stage problem will leave the intermediate hose fully charged and you'll get a full breath or two or three.
(3a) Second stage problem: put your non-freeflowing second stage in your mouth, crimp the second stage line going to the freeflowing reg, turn your air back on and breathe from the second.
(3b) First stage problem: modulate your air supply by turning on the gas until you get a little freeflow, then closing the valve while you breathe the IP down a little - with a little finesse you can set the valve for a minimum freeflow and still breathe comfortably.
(4) Keep your buddy close and at the ready to share air if required.
E.

The only modification I might make to this is to go ahead and use your buddy's air while sorting out the kind of freeflow you have and then using one of the two above methods to get the most out of your available air.
Rick

 

[divad]

Why would you not crimp your hose and breathe off your octopus?

 

[Warren_L]

Dave, that is assuming a 2nd stage free flow, I believe. If it is your first stage, crimping your hose would not help as the 2nd stage cannot handle the higher pressure of the failed first stage.

 

[El Buzo Loco]

I practice breathing off a free flow several times a year. Once you get the hang of it, it's not bad. Surprisingly, if you terminate the dive as soon as the free flow starts you may even have enough gas to make a 15' safety stop.

Had a free flow in Fiji and only missed one dive until we could fix it.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I think the question is why not keep breathing off your own regulator, even though it is free flowing?

'Good question, no definate answer. It depends...

If this were a first stage malfunction, or icing, it is possible that the air is coming out so fast that it could be difficult to continue breathing. The new, high performance regulators can push out a huge amount of air. If it's icing, then it con either be a small leak, or it can grow quite large, very quickly due to the cooling effect of the increasing amount of air coming out. But I have had a small leak and continued using it for some time without much other than irritation.

For a first stage malfunction, such as a broken seat, it can be quite high pressure air coming out, and be very difficult to breath off of without shutting down the valve. This is pretty rare, but does happen.

If it is simply some dirt or corrosion, or a scratch on the HP first stage seat, then it can be either quite violent (rare), or a slight leak (more likely). This can usually be breathed off of without problem, but still you need to heed the warning and surface.

I hope this helps.

SeaRat

 

[6474286]

Have a look at http://www.apeks.co.uk/apekshome.htm

Under Secondary Air - freeflow device

It costs about Euro 30.

Paul

 

[JimC]

I absolutly agree with this quote, to which I add that part of all of my dive plans is that my buddy and I both have enough gas reserved to accend slowely, includeing stops.

Simply there is no reason I can see to not imediatly go to your buddy as a first step. Then you have all kinds of time to decide what to do and how to do it.

Spectre once bubbled...


My apologies. I personally treat every dive as an overhead dive... I don't believe there should be any reason to alter your planned ascent profile.