Kevrumbo
Banned
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Kev, I'm not the one needing clarification. You continue to ignore the main point brought up. Let's say we're in a cave and you go out of air. Understood? I have air, you don't. Still with me? You should instantly start signalling an emergency. I see your emergency and extend my long hose. You swim to me, I swim to you. I give you my long hose. Do you know if I had to switch to my shorthose? HOW would you know? Most importantly, do you care? If I were the OOA diver, and I got a 2nd stage that had a breathable gas coming out of it, I wouldn't care if it was JUST in his mouth or had been in his mouth several minutes ago. I'm just glad I have air. In ALL PRACTICAL TERMS, it's the same procedure: Buddy goes OOA, you donate longhose to buddy.
The point I'm getting at and the point you (and all other proponents) have consistently avoided is: Why add the cost, complication, workload, and failure points of the "manifold" just so you can be breathing off of your longhose when your buddy goes OOA?
(Note: running totally out of air despite good planning and proper execution is attributable ONLY to manifolded tanks.)
(Note 2: I think you've made like 3 posts total without mentioning SEA/Truk/Chuuk. You might want to increase that number)
To recap once again for your understanding:
It's a solution -albeit more complex and diverging from orthodox DIR and even conventional sidemount practice- for those divers like myself who dive with mixed international UTD/GUE teams (btw -always using the metric system), and elect to keep fundamental long hose diving paradigm, technique & protocol . . . other than learning the new mechanics of QC6 connections and alternating independent tank switching & gas management, all my previous base knowledge, training and diving experience in long hose tech/deco/wreck overhead was perfectly consistent --quickly, seamlessly, and intuitively applied. . .
Fundamental long hose DIR/Hogarthian technique has you ALWAYS breathing the long hose primary regulator on bottom mix, unless you've just donated to an out-of-gas buddy. In sidemount Z-system, the virtue of the distribution block [or the new isofold/manifold] is that you never have to switch out regs as you alternate breathing off of left & right tanks --i.e. alternating between shutting down one tank valve and opening the other in Z-system sidemount diving, you are always breathing the primary long hose regulator.
Z-system integrates perfectly with my backmount team of SE Asia/Indo-Pacific Wreck Divers; we use scooters to help get down in current on the deep WWII wrecks in the South China Sea (as well as getting out of the way of the big container ships in the busy shipping lanes to Singapore) --another one of the reasons why I went with the Z-system SM is that you always breath the long hose primary in normal diving situations on bottom mix. All I have to do when alternating tanks is turn one on and shut down the other --all easily done on-the-fly & on-the-trigger while scootering in open water at depth. IOW --I don't have to swap/deploy/stow regulators if I went with a traditional/conventional independent SM set-up, which would be an inconvenient juggling act to perform on-the-fly and on trigger.
Used Z-system SM for the first time after initial training in Truk Nov 2011. Then was in Truk/Palau for Oct-Nov 2012, and Vanuatu Nov-Dec diving the SS President Coolidge transport wreck from shore --all on Z-system sidemount; Finally returned to Truk to close out 2012 diving both Z-system sidemount and conventional hogarthian/dir long-hose doubles backmount.
Just returned from Bikini Atoll (backmount only) and Truk (backmount & Z-system sidemount) this past 29June thru 20July and have decided to retain the Z-distribution block instead of upgrading to the Z-isofold (isolatable manifold) --I never did like having that isolator knob, even on a conventional backmount manifold, jabbing the back of my head & neck whenever I was looking upward. . .
So far no such "QC6 accidents" or "Distribution/Manifold Block Single-Point-Failures waiting to happen" have occurred and I didn't & still don't expect any to happen: I am confident in the training I've received to deal with such rare contingencies (btw --QC6 diluent changes are done all the time on CCR: Where are the reports & instances of major QC6 failures in that implementation???)
And no long hose trapping on Z-system sidemount with two tanks because I either tuck the excess length in my waist belt in front, or now with the larger Z-plus 23kg/50lbs wing, I just tuck the excess loop in between the Z-harness & wing on my back (AG taught these options during the training course) --and no, I have not cut the long hose yet on jagged metal sliding into engine rooms, crew-spaces and other confined areas of the WWII wrecks I've been diving on including getting momentarily stuck inside the I-169 submarine in Truk this last trip (vulnerability of the long hose is the only thing I'm really worried about on Z-system & careful in preventing).
This is practical reality --anecdotal perhaps but objective, adaptive & actual experience diving for weeks at a time with initial basic training on the Z-system, but now out there overseas on my own with minimal support diving on hazardous/in situ, sunk-in-action WWII wrecks; and not just the idle speculation or specious arguments [from VictorZamora] of worst case & unlikely scenarios like in most of the rebuttal posts & rhetoric above.