Diving in Threes?

Diving in threes: yay or nay?

Why?

Why not?

Good/bad experiences?

I've done it before several times and wasn't terribly enthused but it wasn't awful either and I was wondering whether or not I'd do it in the future.

Two are buddies; three is a team.
Three is optimum for many type dives, and perfectly acceptable on most. But to optimize the advantages, teamwork is required - and planning - the typical "buddies with a tag-along" arrangement isn't it.
Rick

Hmmm... I guess
"Whenever there was an important job to be done, Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

When Nobody did it, Everybody got angry because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Nobody would do it.

So consequently Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done in the first place." ?

Gio.

dive in threes a lot...needs a bit more attention, but works just fine..can be better in some circumstances..

Three works. Like any dive objectives need to match or be recognized before getting wet. You need a leader and followers.

When it goes to 4 I insist on declared buddy pairs and if the pairs get separated the pairs dive on.

Pete

Gidds:

Diving in threes: yay or nay?

Why?

Why not?

Good/bad experiences?

I've done it before several times and wasn't terribly enthused but it wasn't awful either and I was wondering whether or not I'd do it in the future.

Click to expand...

I've always liked threesomes, but that's a story for another day...

Actually, I have a ready-made buddy, so I rarely dive in threes, but the main drawback that I understand is if a buddy has an equipment malfunction, and as it is being remedied, a second buddy also has a malfunction. Now, there are two malfunctions and only one bailout.

My most recent experience with diving in threes was on a Lake Michigan charter. Ms. Gangrel and I were paired with a stray on the boat. Foreign, and quiet, but told us of very high experience level. Plan was to go to the bouy, give the ok, then drop to the wreck. Swimming out to the bouy, Ms. Gangrel ran into a slight problem with her mask and needed to fix it. Fixed rather easily, and we turn to the bouy. No third buddy. Figured he dropped to the wreck and was waiting, so we descended. No buddy. Knowing he ditched us to go solo, we safely proceeded with our dive and surfaced. DM on the boat was asking where our third was. We informed him that he ditched us. 10 min later, he surfaced. DM wasn't planning to get wet that day, but wound up suiting up for the second dive because he knew this guy was going to try to go solo again.

I guess you wouldn't run into that problem if diving in threes with people you already know, though...

Rick Murchison:

Two are buddies; three is a team.
Three is optimum for many type dives, and perfectly acceptable on most. But to optimize the advantages, teamwork is required - and planning - the typical "buddies with a tag-along" arrangement isn't it.
Rick

Click to expand...

Rick is exactly right, IMHO.

A team of three is a safer way to perform many dives in overhead environments, provided that the divers have trained together and function well as a team. Team resources may be spread-loaded among the divers, and response to 'issues' can often be better facilitated by having more resources (and cool heads) at hand. But it all depends on the divers individually being committed, long before the dive itself, to the team concept, team training, and team diving. [For example, it can be more difficult to maintain three-scooter-diver team cohesion because the divers are moving more quickly, are somewhat further apart, and light signals (outside caves - e.g. in open ocean) may not be as effective. Preplanning and situational awareness need to be cranked up to be optimally effective...]

Three divers thrown together one afternoon for a rec dive as a threesome is often a recipe for disaster.

YMMV.

Doc

We dive in threes fairly often though usually with familiar buddies. When we go on vacation my husband and I prefer not to dive as a threesome but we generally don't turn down a diver if we are the only three on the boat. Experience has ranged from just OK to fantastic. I tend to talk to the diver quite a bit to get some dive history and figure out if its going to be more baby-sitting job than fun dive. We were recently pleasantly surprised at Tobermory by a diver who only had 47 dives and had never dove there. His air consumption stayed right with ours and he stayed close to us and monitored us as much as we monitored him. He even noticed when I told my husband who was above me on the ascent line that I had a reverse block. Hubby knew I would be ascending slowly and this diver stayed right beside me and mentioned on the surface he had seen I was having problems and wanted to stay close in case I needed help. We had so much fun with him we all booked the afternoon charter and went out again.

It can be a good thing if everyone is paying attention and a good pre-dive discussion is used to determine skill levels, procedures and expectations for the dive.
Ber :lilbunny:

I dived in a team of nine a few weeks ago!! Worked great, I was very impressed. Drift dive with only 3 of us who had done it before.

I have dove in threesomes several times and have found them to be much more stressful than buddies. The chances of seperation increase quite a bit as often the divers on the wings will get too far apart, necessitating that the one in the middle keep track of both of them. it is for this reason that DAN discourages it. In a Diveralert magazine article a few months ago they discussed this in detail and their conclusion was that it was "generally" a bad practice. The article favored either buddies or a team of four, basically two buddy teams.

I specifically put "generally" in quotes, because as has been stated by Doc Intrepid and Ric, it can be done well. However, I would stress their point on team work. You have to have three divers who are team oriented, have a shared goal, and understand implicitly what is expected of each of them. In SAR diving, teams of three are the standard, however, they are not all in the water at once. In the military, teams of three are common. I can not speak to cave diving, but will defer to the experience of others on that one.