This horse is definitely dead...
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
Vie:Using a steel tank for single tank diving is not a good idea, IMHO.
DA Aquamaster:I also really want to hear the rationale for the blanket statement of why diving with a single steel tank is considered unsafe.
It does not matter what you dive for tanks as long as you can achieve neutral bouyancy at the end of the dive and can swim them up to the surface on your own in the event of a BC/wing failure and/or have a source for redundant bouyancy. The only situation where I can forsee a potential problem with a single steel tank is with a tropical diver in a very thin or no exposure suit diving a very negative steel tank. That does not warrant a blanket statement that steel tanks are unsafe for single tank dives.
DA Aquamaster:Let's not let this turn into some sort of weird, masochistic
and unsafe cult dedicated to the reduction of weight over all other factors.
Another option is to switch to an aluminum B/P when diving warm water with less exposure protection. That is what I do and, at least for me, it is the perfect amount of weight reduction that I need to go from either my drysuit or my 7/5 mil wetsuit to my 3 mil shorty.Vie:... IMHO (emphasis!), using a ss bp AND a steel tank could make a diver without redundant buoyancy (i.e. a drysuit) too overweight and unable to ascend with his rig in case of a wing failure, for instance...