Rock Bottom/Turn Pressure/Rule of xths for Doubles?

[Peter Guy]

First, at least one agency demands that students demonstrate their ability to handle multiple failures on training dives.

I've been in training situations where there were multiple failures -- multiple major failures. The purpose of the multiple failures was to stress the divers to see how they would, if they would, stop, think, act -- not for the purpose of preparing them for multiple failures. At least that was my take on those scenarios.

 

[TSandM]

Well, UTD tests recreational divers on multiple failures. But I wouldn't call that mainstream. And testing on multiple failures, even in technical diving, is not because anybody realistically expects you to have to manage such a situation later on. It is, as my cave instructor told me, so that when something DOES happen, your reaction to it is, "Oh, THIS again!" (And this approach works.)

If my cave training had been realistic, I'd never dive with either of my teammates again . . . They lost posts, went out of gas, got lost, got tangled up; they were hopeless! (Of course, I swam off and left them, and let people run out of gas while I retrieved my reel, so I was pretty horrible, too )

 

[Rainer]

[A]nd let people run out of gas while I retrieved my reel, so I was pretty horrible, too )

Funny how the first few days of tech training can see you "killing" buddies to save $100 reels... BTDT.

 

[rstofer]

http://www.arcamax.com/cgi-bin/news/pic/71562/614207

Richard

 

[rstofer]

I've been in training situations where there were multiple failures -- multiple major failures. The purpose of the multiple failures was to stress the divers to see how they would, if they would, stop, think, act -- not for the purpose of preparing them for multiple failures. At least that was my take on those scenarios.

By what agency and which course? All tech divers would do something like this but recreational divers? PADI, NAUI SSI? ?A specialty course?

Richard

 

[TSandM]

We had failures in UTD Rec 2 and Rec 3, and in NAUI Helitrox, and I had them in GUE Rec Triox as well. I would consider a team with one diver with a post gone, another OOG, and a third maskless as being multiple failures.

 

[rstofer]

We had failures in UTD Rec 2 and Rec 3, and in NAUI Helitrox, and I had them in GUE Rec Triox as well. I would consider a team with one diver with a post gone, another OOG, and a third maskless as being multiple failures.

Absolutely those are multiple failures.

I do think those courses are somewhat beyond what I might consider 'recreational' diving. Still, it's good to know the courses exist. I won't be taking them but my grandson might.

Richard

 

[TSandM]

I do think those courses are somewhat beyond what I might consider 'recreational' diving.

Well, that's what caused my husband to begin using the term "techreational" diving.

I do think that dives to the deeper recreational range (100 fsw +), especially in cold water, are dives where the core idea of technical diving -- solving problems underwater -- becomes more and more pertinent. Having redundancy, and facility with emergency procedures, gets more important the further you are from the surface. I still remember the woman who dove with us on the 600 foot walls in Indonesia, who was quite sure she could not replace and clear a kicked-off mask while in the water column. With no bottom beneath us, what was she going to do if someone descended on top of her, as happened to my husband?

In my mind, what a "deep" class should teach is not only about narcosis and hang tanks, but about mask skills in the water column, handling freeflows, and doing an air-sharing ascent under good control. It's a long way from 100 feet to the surface -- We had a fatality a couple of years ago, because two divers tried to execute an air-sharing ascent from that depth, and were unable to remain calm and controlled to the surface. People just underestimate the challenges of deep diving, in my opinion.

(Off my soapbox now . . . )

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

Nothing I have written suggests that I think there is a significant possibility of multiple catastrophic failures on a dive or that I should plan for them or that I am ignorant of the fact that there are going to be some circumstances which lead to an unhappy outcome. As is often pointed out, I can't do much about the possibility of a Great White swimming up the St. Lawrence and taking residence in a wreck. Sh**ks Happen!

If you re-read my original question, it was simply:

Do you plan for having that much air even if you lose a tank, in other words, that much air in each of the two tanks? Or do you live with the possibility that if your buddy goes OOA and you also lose a tank, you don't have enough gas for both of you to get home?

The answer is, we live with the possibility that if a buddy goes OOA and we lose a tank, we don't have enough gas to get us both home. No problemo, question posed and answer given, I have zero editorial opinion about the answer.

That's all.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I do think those courses are somewhat beyond what I might consider 'recreational' diving.

And thus we have the "advanced" forum, for things which are techreational, or prosumer, or whatever goes beyond recreational without involving overheads, mandatory decompression stops, and voodoo gasses