Underwater reg swaps?

[oldschoolto]

You see how the guys / girls doing "BIGGER" dives look at the question... We can think about it in a real world view..

Jim...

 

[tphelps]

Or deep in a wreck....

Jim..

Or with a 5 hour decompression obligation

"Have you switched regs between tanks underwater?"
To me, if I "needed" to switch regulators, that would mean I already had a significant gear failure and it was time to immediately abort the dive and surface. I can't think of any really likely reason that I'd need to stay down and switch regs across tanks.

Sure we vacuum check our regulators, have them serviced routinely, but when s*** hits the fan, how do you stay alive? God forbid you bailout and have a HP seat failure in the 1st stage of you were getting ready to switch to. How do you access the gas? Feather the valve (will waste lots of gas)? Hot-lipping the tank (do-able with practice, if not you're likely to inspire water and drown)? Take off the functioning reg on the cylinder I am done with (as @Doby45 mentioned, I'd pay way more than $70 to prevent me from having a more "worse" day underwater).

 

[snowmaker]

Not the first option but I would if I had to. I've thought and discussed this with others before. Just another tool to have in your toolbox.

Your likely have to disassemble two regs, the one that failed and the one you swapped it with but that's sometime you do what you have to do.