VTernovski
Contributor
Just returned from a four-day class of non-stop, 12 hour a day (at least), action-packed Recreational TriOx class with Bob Sherwood. Actually, since we had an inspiration for completing the Tech 1 class in the future, we requested that the class be conducted as a Tech 1, Part I standards with the idea to complete Part II at some time down the road. The difference lies in line work, and "air-gunning" of valve/manifold failures as opposed to "telegraphed" failures in the Recreational TriOx class. What can I say... in three letters, the whole report could be summarized as WOW. Which if looked closely, teaches a whole bunch of awareness skills in the Water, and Out of the Water.. WOW. The thinking process never stops, and this is the first class, where the basic skills and fundamentals actually start to make sense in their practical applications as we started to see what worked and what didn't work, and why.
The first day, we spent a significant amount of time out of the water, just going over the doubles, and how they are configured. Since the basic equipment configuration was familiar to us, we moved quickly, but the most valuable part was going over 9 type of possible Valve Failures on a set of doubles equipped with an isolation manifold. We covered all failure modes and emergency procedures and the operations of the manifold. Which now makes me think how the rest of the world dives doubles without a basic understanding of how a manifold works (Does that isolator valve isolates gas flow from both cylinders? the answer may surprise you), and what to do with the valves in case of failure., for every possible scenario, fixable or not fixable, etc. Then we proceeded with line drills on land, such making primary and secondary tie-offs, wraps and placements, following a line in zero viz (read: doing it with no mask), learning about traps, touch contact procedures, etc...
The dives followed the similar pattern of dry runs which included various valve/manifold failures where we would suddenly hear a stream of bubbles coming from left/right posts, then trying to identify the situation and apply an appropriate remedy to fix it, involving our buddy team, and making an appropriate decision as to what to do next.
Each dive stared with full S-Drill (out of gas drill) followed by Valve Drills at 10 feet of water (boy was it hard! I have always practiced it at 30ft, but doing it at 10ft without moving up or down is really a challenge). The drills confirm that everyone has proper hose routing and is able to donate gas in emergency out of gas situation and ensures everyone's ability to manipulate their tank valves. We now made a rule of doing full drills like that on every training dive to build in that muscle memory and make these types of responses automatic in case of emergency.
I won't go into details as to what happened exactly on each dive, as I simply can't remember the sequences.. but to summarize, we had a collection of multiple failures while being distracted and task loaded just to see what kind of decisions and reactions we would apply to any given situation. The idea was to reinforce the fact that we must keep an overview of the surroundings and really start thinking about managing all three aspects: Equipment, Environment, and the Team. At times, we were so task loaded and concentrated with one simple thing (trying to lay the line, for example), while completely ignoring and missing the other valuable and important aspects of the surrounding environment, which later resulted in an escalated snowball of "bad things". Everything, however, was in a progressive but logical order: bad trim caused silt out, which in turn caused lost of mask, followed by creating a slack in line, which caused entanglement or jammed reel., etc.. The funny part is that majority of failures were created by ourselves rather than instructors intervention. Most often, we would also forget all the available resources and other options that we could have utilized because we were so concentrated on one thing while ignoring the others.
The toolset that we got away from the class is invaluable. We now have the next level of things to work on. The things that I have never really practiced before... the idea of a team diving really shines in this class, and I can't imagine doing complex diving any other way now.
The last in-water session dealt with rescuing unconscious and toxing diver. That was a big eye opener and made me think why wasn't I ever been taught that technique before... take my Nitrox class, for example, what's the greatest risk for a Nitrox diver? - Oxygen Toxicity. yet, rescuing a toxing diver, has never crossed my mind until now. I managed to pull that off without any incident, and actually for the first time looked well on the video on both tries for toxing and unconscious diver. But there still so much more to work on. I am really excited!
Once again, thanks to Bob for giving his best when it comes to Teaching and Bob2 for the video support. So, you may ask, did we get a pass? yep, sure did! We got a pass to come back next week and try it all again...
The first day, we spent a significant amount of time out of the water, just going over the doubles, and how they are configured. Since the basic equipment configuration was familiar to us, we moved quickly, but the most valuable part was going over 9 type of possible Valve Failures on a set of doubles equipped with an isolation manifold. We covered all failure modes and emergency procedures and the operations of the manifold. Which now makes me think how the rest of the world dives doubles without a basic understanding of how a manifold works (Does that isolator valve isolates gas flow from both cylinders? the answer may surprise you), and what to do with the valves in case of failure., for every possible scenario, fixable or not fixable, etc. Then we proceeded with line drills on land, such making primary and secondary tie-offs, wraps and placements, following a line in zero viz (read: doing it with no mask), learning about traps, touch contact procedures, etc...
The dives followed the similar pattern of dry runs which included various valve/manifold failures where we would suddenly hear a stream of bubbles coming from left/right posts, then trying to identify the situation and apply an appropriate remedy to fix it, involving our buddy team, and making an appropriate decision as to what to do next.
Each dive stared with full S-Drill (out of gas drill) followed by Valve Drills at 10 feet of water (boy was it hard! I have always practiced it at 30ft, but doing it at 10ft without moving up or down is really a challenge). The drills confirm that everyone has proper hose routing and is able to donate gas in emergency out of gas situation and ensures everyone's ability to manipulate their tank valves. We now made a rule of doing full drills like that on every training dive to build in that muscle memory and make these types of responses automatic in case of emergency.
I won't go into details as to what happened exactly on each dive, as I simply can't remember the sequences.. but to summarize, we had a collection of multiple failures while being distracted and task loaded just to see what kind of decisions and reactions we would apply to any given situation. The idea was to reinforce the fact that we must keep an overview of the surroundings and really start thinking about managing all three aspects: Equipment, Environment, and the Team. At times, we were so task loaded and concentrated with one simple thing (trying to lay the line, for example), while completely ignoring and missing the other valuable and important aspects of the surrounding environment, which later resulted in an escalated snowball of "bad things". Everything, however, was in a progressive but logical order: bad trim caused silt out, which in turn caused lost of mask, followed by creating a slack in line, which caused entanglement or jammed reel., etc.. The funny part is that majority of failures were created by ourselves rather than instructors intervention. Most often, we would also forget all the available resources and other options that we could have utilized because we were so concentrated on one thing while ignoring the others.
The toolset that we got away from the class is invaluable. We now have the next level of things to work on. The things that I have never really practiced before... the idea of a team diving really shines in this class, and I can't imagine doing complex diving any other way now.
The last in-water session dealt with rescuing unconscious and toxing diver. That was a big eye opener and made me think why wasn't I ever been taught that technique before... take my Nitrox class, for example, what's the greatest risk for a Nitrox diver? - Oxygen Toxicity. yet, rescuing a toxing diver, has never crossed my mind until now. I managed to pull that off without any incident, and actually for the first time looked well on the video on both tries for toxing and unconscious diver. But there still so much more to work on. I am really excited!
Once again, thanks to Bob for giving his best when it comes to Teaching and Bob2 for the video support. So, you may ask, did we get a pass? yep, sure did! We got a pass to come back next week and try it all again...
