Octo on Left side

[Thalassamania]

Or just stop worrying about sidedness ... get a side breather.

 

[kilo_fox]

Or just stop worrying about sidedness ... get a side breather.

What is a side breather?

 

[Gerbs]

Side Breather = Poseidon, Dacor Viper or one of the flat Octopuses like the Mares MV.

They breath whatever side whichever way. This has obvious advantages.

+1 again on the long hose/bungeed secondary. The divers I know who tried it have all switched.

Gerbs

 

[DNV]

Another vote here for longhose & bungeed secondary. I switched because donating the known working reg on the long hose made more sense to me than the other way around.
I also find the configuration is a bit more streamlined ,

 

[WD8CDH]

In the over 35 years that I have been diving, I have been involved in almost a dozen OOA situations. None of them involved either myself or my buddy. They were all some unknown panicing diver comming at us like a freight train. So, I base my safety configuration on someone that I didn't do a pre-dive briefing with.

I put the longer hose on the regulator that I intend to donate.

The regulator that I intend to donate has the most noticable cover.

I route the hose of the regulator expected to be donated in the least cluttered manner whether that is left or right.

Preferably, I use a regulator that doesn't have a top or bottom as the donatable regulator. (usually a Poseidon)

You will notice that I didn't specify donating the primary or secondary regulator. That is because often my primary regulator is a doublehose (or a rebreather).

 

[DA Aquamaster]

There are one-million (to be conservative) threads talking about the long hose configuration, but you'd want pictures so look at paragraph #2 on this page and the associated pictures:

DIR Part 2

(For open water your long hose would be about 5ft, so it'd route straight under your right armpit instead of down and under the pocket like in the picture.)

I am in total agreement.

I have found that it allows gas share with a panic stricken semi-panicked diveer and will greatly help them calm down as there is no feeling that the reg is aout to be pulled from thier mouth as is the case with a 36-40 octo hose. This far more effectively addresses what is being attrempted with a left side octo position (which reduces the bend in the hose making it fuction like a slightly longer hose.)

More importantly it allows much more natural swimming and ascent which again adds safety to the dive. That normal swimming ability alos allows two divers to proactively share air to get the diver out of a shipping channel, current, back to the anchor line in a current, etc where immediate surfacing may prevent some significant problems as the divers drift away from the boat and/or are at risk of getting run down away from the dive boat.

The long hose came along in the early 1970's when Shek Exley started using a 5' hose. It pre-dated DIR by well over a decade, but DIR has popularized it, and unfortunately, highly polarized it. The DIR history of dogmatic insistence on it and the insistance on saying it is better, rather than just relying on converts to quietly spread its use has made many instructors and agencies dig in their heeels and has probably greatly delayed its adoption in mainstream diving.

Still, I susepct in 10 years the long hose octo and bungee backup will be standard through out diving, both because it works better with no downsides and because I have yet to ever share gas with any OW diver who did not then immediately want one of their own because it works so much better.

 

[InTheDrink]

+1 on the long hose and bungeed backup.

I had my first diver go OOG on me a couple of weeks ago and it was an absolutel pleasure. It would have been ok too with the traditional setup, but it is definitely a lot easier to dive with someone whilst sharing on a long hose. Worth looking into given that you're thinking about the general topic.

Re: Europeans stowing Octo on LHS as standard - hmmm, not in the Europe I live in. But admittedly I do need to get out more

Happy diving.

J

 

[BabyDuck]

Since an octo inflator set up is on the left, I see no real valid argument why you cant put the Octo on the left. Being a lefty and giving it some thought in the past, I decided to leave the octo on the right because its kinda of the standard way its trained in OOA situations.

well, you don't donate an octo/inflator combo. when you have one of these, you donate the reg in your mouth and *you* breathe off the combo.

op, play with it & see, but it sounds awkward to me. if the two of you have to swim any before coming up, you'll have a hose across your face or neck area if i'm picturing things right in my head.