7 ft hose

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drglnc

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I have heard of divers using a 7ft hose instead of the standerd reg hose. What is the purpose and is it recommended?
 
The use of a 7 ft "long hose" originated in technical diving circles. The idea was to allow air sharing while swimming for a significant distance along the bottom to an ascent line or exit point and even more critically out of a wreck or cave where two divers may not be able to swim side by side. A 7 ft hose allows the OOA diver to swim behind the donating diver.

Long hose use clearly calls for donating the primary in an OOA situation. So it's use in recreational diving is a bit controversial as most recreational agencies teach divers to keep their primary regulator and donate an octopus. In the real world however a semi-panicky OOA diver is far more likely to skip the air share signal business and is more likely to just grab their buddy's primary as it is making bubbles and they want their own bubble making capacity right now. Panic aside, from a practical standpoint, it also makes sense to donate the primary as it is in operation and at worst will only need to be cleared of water rather than potentially sand, gravel, or plant matter.

The traditional recreational agency argument for donating the octo is that it is almost always on a longer hose than the primary (36" compared to 22 to 26") and allows a bit more freedom of movement in ascent. This argument is obviously no longer valid when the diver is using a 5 to 7 ft long hose primary. But there is a lot of institutional inertia involved and instructors and training agencies are slow to change long established practices.

Divers tend to be more open minded though, and in my experience, every recreational diver with whom I have practiced an air share on a long hose was very impressed with the ease it adds to that particular procedure and thought it was a great idea. In tech training, I have found it allows essentially normal activity and have shared with a buddy for extended periods of time to the point where you practically forget they are there.

"Long" hose lenght is also more variable for recreatioanl divers. A 7 ft hose allows the hose to be routed under a hip mounted cannister light, making it the lenght of preference for most technical divers. However the extra lenght can be a problem for recreational divers so they may go with a shorter long hose of 5 ft or 6 ft in lenght. A 5 ft hose routes nicely under the arm on a smaller diver while a 6 ft hose may be needed for a larger diver. A 7 ft hose can also still be used and can be tucked under a waist strap or weight belt if a back inflate BC is used, but is a bit more problematic with a regular jacket style BC.

You can do a search for long hose threads as well as for threads debating the "dontate the primary versus octo" debate for more information and potentially differing opinions.
 
DA Aquamaster:
A 7 ft hose allows the OOA diver to swim behind the donating diver.
.

Actually, I was taught the OOA diver exits first. If the one with the air exits & the OOA is behind him & drops the reg, he could be in deep trouble. If the OOA diver is in front, you can't lose him.
 
DA Aquamaster:
The use of a 7 ft "long hose" originated in technical diving circles. The idea was to allow air sharing while swimming for a significant distance along the bottom to an ascent line or exit point and even more critically out of a wreck or cave where two divers may not be able to swim side by side. A 7 ft hose allows the OOA diver to swim behind the donating diver.

Long hose use clearly calls for donating the primary in an OOA situation. So it's use in recreational diving is a bit controversial as most recreational agencies teach divers to keep their primary regulator and donate an octopus. In the real world however a semi-panicky OOA diver is far more likely to skip the air share signal business and is more likely to just grab their buddy's primary as it is making bubbles and they want their own bubble making capacity right now. Panic aside, from a practical standpoint, it also makes sense to donate the primary as it is in operation and at worst will only need to be cleared of water rather than potentially sand, gravel, or plant matter.

The traditional recreational agency argument for donating the octo is that it is almost always on a longer hose than the primary (36" compared to 22 to 26") and allows a bit more freedom of movement in ascent. This argument is obviously no longer valid when the diver is using a 5 to 7 ft long hose primary. But there is a lot of institutional inertia involved and instructors and training agencies are slow to change long established practices.

Divers tend to be more open minded though, and in my experience, every recreational diver with whom I have practiced an air share on a long hose was very impressed with the ease it adds to that particular procedure and thought it was a great idea. In tech training, I have found it allows essentially normal activity and have shared with a buddy for extended periods of time to the point where you practically forget they are there.

"Long" hose lenght is also more variable for recreatioanl divers. A 7 ft hose allows the hose to be routed under a hip mounted cannister light, making it the lenght of preference for most technical divers. However the extra lenght can be a problem for recreational divers so they may go with a shorter long hose of 5 ft or 6 ft in lenght. A 5 ft hose routes nicely under the arm on a smaller diver while a 6 ft hose may be needed for a larger diver. A 7 ft hose can also still be used and can be tucked under a waist strap or weight belt if a back inflate BC is used, but is a bit more problematic with a regular jacket style BC.

You can do a search for long hose threads as well as for threads debating the "dontate the primary versus octo" debate for more information and potentially differing opinions.

Hi DA,
Not trying to stir things up...just curious, as you may know something that I am missing or have not come across. But I instruct for PADI (and GUE), and I teach to donate the reg one is breathing for a number of reasons. But I have seen many open water instructors from most of the biggest agencies (NAUI, SSI, PADI) donate the reg they're breathing and even during my PADI IDC the course director used an AIR II and donated his primary. I can't recall anything in the standards (I haven't gotten off my lazy a-- and looked either though:wink:) that would cause me to believe that the octo is recommended, but I am curious, is there something I am missing in the RSTC standards that leans towards donating an octo? I may very well have missed something. Or is this something peculiar to another agency?
Thanks DA.
dive safe!--brando


ps...7' hose came from cave diving...as DA mentioned...for the reasons he mentioned...a lot of us use it for all of our diving for reasons that include simplicity, building comfort and familiarity w/gear/procedures by using the same config all the time and works for all of our diving environments.
 
Thanks for the in depth info. As far as giving up a reg, my padi instructor also used an air II but taught it doesnt matter what you give up aslong as you both make it to the surface breathing.
 
BCS:
Hi DA,
Not trying to stir things up...just curious, as you may know something that I am missing or have not come across. But I instruct for PADI (and GUE), and I teach to donate the reg one is breathing for a number of reasons. But I have seen many open water instructors from most of the biggest agencies (NAUI, SSI, PADI) donate the reg they're breathing and even during my PADI IDC the course director used an AIR II and donated his primary. I can't recall anything in the standards (I haven't gotten off my lazy a-- and looked either though:wink:) that would cause me to believe that the octo is recommended, but I am curious, is there something I am missing in the RSTC standards that leans towards donating an octo? I may very well have missed something. Or is this something peculiar to another agency?
Thanks DA.
dive safe!--brando
It's been 20 years since I took an OW course, about 10 years for my spouse and 6 years for my son. All three courses used the "donate the octo approach" to air sharing. 1 for the reasons listed above that Air 2's were used in the course and the other two could have been local/regional thing with PADI and SSI instructors in the area. Or it could be that the accepted norm may finally be changing. Either way it's good news to see more instuctors teaching students to donate the primary.
 
Also not to stir things up, but don't most manufacturers still color their octo's yellow? (maybe I'm behind the times on this). I was taught that the reason for that was it's easier to see by the OOA diver and the 'color coding' tells the OOA diver which one to go for.
That said - the reasons for having a long hose and donating the primary seem to have become much clearer and more mainstream acceptable over the last couple of years. I personally was introduced to the concept during the IANTD Overhead Environment course.
 
The few shops that we have around here tend to teach primary or octo donation based on the gear they're trying to peddle.

As to your question, another benefit of the 7' hose is that it lays snug against your body instead of looping out where all manner of stuff can get caught in it.
 
Rick Inman:
The few shops that we have around here tend to teach primary or octo donation based on the gear they're trying to peddle.

As to your question, another benefit of the 7' hose is that it lays snug against your body instead of looping out where all manner of stuff can get caught in it.

Which I never gave a second thought to this, till last week when my buddy's reg hose (looping out past shoulder) caught twice on my spg and got pulled out of her mouth when I went to check my pressure. After the second time I made sure she stayed on my right side so it wouldn't happen again... now she's interested in switching to a long hose routed under the arm to prevent this in the future. Like Rick pointed out, it just lies flat against your body and is quite streamlined...

I like it because I find it more comfortable in my mouth. When I had a standard short hose routed over my shoulder it constantly tugged at the regulator and I felt llike it was going to pull out of my mouth, the 7ft is much more comfortable to me in the way it routes to my mouth.

Aloha, Tim
 
The general reason I understood from my OW & AOW courses for recreational diving for donating one's octo rather than one's primary, if using a conventional octo rec rig (no Air II's, Duo-Air's etc.) is the octo is typically on a longer hose than the primary second stage, and thus is better for donating to someone further away from the first stage than the primary regulator. This of course did not include 7 foot hose considerations. Same as what DA posted.
 
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