Question Have you (or anyone you know) ever seen a yoke regulator dislodged while diving?

[James79]

In '97, when I was conducting a dive course in a hotel in the DR, twice the yoke of a fleet reg couldn't hold the pressure of the tank and the yoke screw slipped through the yoke threads with a loud bang (outside the water).
That was pretty embarrassing, because it happened at the hotel pool with lots of guests around it.
The first time I was just stunned, I didn't have much experiences with yoke fleet regs, I just put it aside, forgot about it and just used another reg.
A couple of days later it happened again with another reg, this time preparing for a dive while checking the equipment ( again outside the water).
This time I checked all our fleet regs ( Sherwood) and found out that a local 'specialist' seemed to have cleaned the threads of the yoke and yoke nut so aggressively with a steel brush that some of the yokes had real play between the nut and the yoke , so the nut could slip.
Those were very old and worn regs, so I explained my boss what had been the problem and that we would need new regs , which we receive pretty soon.
I checked all dive center reg yokes for play and used in the meanwhile only those where I was pretty sure that they wouldn't be a problem.
I had been diving only DIN regs up to then, and that incident didn't really convince me to change to use yoke regs.......

While interesting in itself, it is not the failure mode being discussed in the poll. As your story tells, it is abuse of the equipment (tech wearing out the yoke screw threads).

Respectfully,

James

 

[johndiver999]

if the oring extrudes, does that count as dislodged? I mean the metal parts are no longer really connected securely, right?

 

[JonG1]

Way back in the day a friend was using one on a stage, somehow he dislodged the yoke to the point that the o ring then fell out, which he somehow found and refitted prior to switching to it on deco.

It was a quarry so would have been tracking the bottom.

 

[James79]

if the oring extrudes, does that count as dislodged? I mean the metal parts are no longer really connected securely, right?

Caused by impact, yes. Only ones I've personally see were just ****** o-rings letting go or abused sealing faces not properly capturing the O-ring (not saying it can't happen by impact, just clarifying the difference).

Respectfully,

james

 

[johndiver999]

Caused by impact, yes. Only ones I've personally see were just ****** o-rings letting go or abused sealing faces not properly capturing the O-ring (not saying it can't happen by impact, just clarifying the difference).

Respectfully,

james

well once the oring extrudes, it is going to be damaged by the process so I am not so sure it is easy to assess the pre-extrusion condition, maybe if the whole thing is shreded, you can make some good assumptions. The very old, fat, thick orings used a long time ago, never seem to extrude, the small thin ones are much more likely to extrude, based on my personal experience, plus if an oring extrudes, it may have been related to the use of an incorrectly sized oring.

 

[Lorenzoid]

The thing about limiting the inquiry to instances in which yoke regs have dislodged by impact with something hard above the diver's head is that in the recreational diving community relatively little diving time has been spent diving below a hard surface. There just isn't enough data out there to suggest how likely or unlikely yoke regs are to dislodge from impact while diving.

It's possible that in the early days of cave diving, before everyone used DIN regs, there was more than one incident of a yoke valve being dislodged when it hit the cave ceiling, but not many of us were around back then to have firsthand knowledge. I have only heard others say that oh yes it can happen, likely based on something they heard or read rather than firsthand knowledge. Looking at the mechanical connection of a yoke reg to a valve, the logic is appealing, but that's not data.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

While I would have thought it would be a highly unlikely event, 7/54=12.9% of the respondents (to date) have either seen a yoke reg dislodged from a charged tank while diving or have had it happen to them directly. While this is just a small dataset I know, that is an unacceptably high percentage IMO for such an extreme equipment issue. I remain a believer in using DIN regs exclusively.

 

[undrwater]

hand waving

 

[Angelo Farina]

Haven’t seen one “dislodged” but the o-ring between it and the valve blew on my wife’s one time. Luckily it was at 20 feet so she shut her tank off and we did a nice little air share back around the local quarry to the deck. She switched to DIN after that, although we still use yoke when traveling sometimes.

Same. Never seen a first stage being "dislodged".
I have seen several O-ring extrusions with yoke regs.
Almost 20 or 30 on the boat and at least 4 while diving.
In all 4 cases it was not a big issue. The diver or his buddy closed the affected valve and the diver continued breathing from the alternate reg mounted on the other valve.
In our diving center all tanks had double valves with reserve and it was mandatory to have two fully independent regs.
Of course nowadays most tanks have instead a single valve, as deco dives are not anymore practiced.
But the single valve is DIN compatible, which really mimimizes the risk of O-ring extrusion.

 

[Celt]

Never seen a yoke first stage dislodged, seen them get plenty smacks overhead and if it was hard enough a burp of air would be expelled but they'd seal back up again, bailouts were yoke as the valves could take serious knocks.