PSD Equipment Advice

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tbzep

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Messages
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Location
TN
My fire dept is in the process of starting a dive team. I am the only FF with experience (YMCA open water and SLAM...yes, I'm getting old). It's been a little over 10 years since I've been active recreationally, but I have still been given the task to put together a proposal for the city bean counters. I have been told to purchase quality equipment, however, we do not have a local dive shop to work with. I have contacted several PSD companies for recommendations. I understand that each dept. may have different needs, therefore what they have may not be what we need, but it's a start. I am in a "chicken or the egg" situation. We can't get approval without first submitting quotes for specific gear, yet we don't know exactly what we need. Most advice I've seen online is to go to advance training before deciding on gear, but we will not be sent to school unless a dive team is approved.

I'm listing what has been recommended to us and have a few questions. My dive experience is limited to older simple sport diving gear. Our operations will include a man-made 1000 acre lake, small private ponds and lakes etc. with mud bottoms and low to no visibility. Based on needs of the last few years, we will only be called for a body recovery once every year or two and assist police/sherriff with evidence searches or recovering vehicles slightly more often. We are located about 8 minutes from the 1000 acre lake, so we do not expect we will have much of a chance for rescue unless it's in the dead of winter. We will be spending much more time training than working.

Zeagle 911 BC
80cf aluminum tanks (DIN)
Guardian full face mask
Zeagle Flathead 7 1st stage (DIN)
Zeagle 20cf Pony system
Liquivision Kaon computer
5000psi 32" hose

Enviro Com 10 Dry Suit
BARE 3mm wet suit, gloves, 6mm boots
Turtle fins
Various small stuff such as weights, Spyderco folding knife, alert markers, water recovery body bags, SCBA to DIN fill adapter, etc.

Questions:

Is the 20cf Pony system going to be too cumbersome and what is the preferred way to carry/mount it?

Any advice on this dive computer and any console recommendation for the diving conditions we will work under?

Is the Enviro Com 10 sufficient for our purpose?

Dry suit glove and boot recommendations?

Boat recommendations? There is current discussion between military surplus, civilian volunteer, etc. and no specific type or size has been discussed at this point. Right now, they are wanting us to get our gear and get training.

Any other general advice other than telling me to forget about gear until we go through the PSD courses? I have to submit before we commit.
 
Within your proposal make sure you make line items for public safety diver training. Not AOW or rescue diver, specifically PSD. Frankly the training is more important than the equipment at this point but I understand your position.

Look into easy to clean and simple bcds. My team went with the Hollis enviropros. They were comfortable and their sizes fit a wide range of people, just make sure to replace the cam buckles.

For regs anything that is sealed and simple and inexpensive to maintain. The OTS guardians are great mask, but also look at the AGA positive pressure masks too.

For our team hp 100s worked out well, you will appreciate the extra weight they provide not to mention air.

19cuft pony bottles using a bracket to the main tank works for us and keeps the bottles out of the way and out of the mud.

We use the lgs weight harness system that attaches to our harnesses. Those have worked out very well. I removed all the weight pockets from the system and prefilled them with weight and have them ready to load on our dive truck. Makes suiting up much quicker than looking for weight belts and the right amount of weight.
 
Within your proposal make sure you make line items for public safety diver training. Not AOW or rescue diver, specifically PSD. Frankly the training is more important than the equipment at this point but I understand your position.
Training will be first on the proposal. Everyone will do PSD courses after they take open water and advanced open water classes. It's been long enough since I've done any diving that I plan to go through at least the AOW with them before advancing to the PSD courses.

Thanks
 
In order

I'd go with a BP/W system, it will save you from having to carry lead and will be easier to adapt to changing diver sizes. You can go with a comfy harness system like the Transplate if you want, but I would still go with steel plates over a soft system. It is easier to maintain and keep clean.

Tanks, I'd try to get a bulk deal on HP100's if possible over the AL80's, or even LP95's or something, but definitely steel to save weight on the belts.

I'd move away from Zeagle and go with either HOG or DiveRite for regulators. Reason being is that someone on your team can become certified to do all of the regulator servicing which saves quite a bit of money and effort.

Pony system
Not entirely sure you'd ever need that, especially with HP100s or lp95's. You don't mention regular masks, so you need to add that to the list because you can't bailout of a FFM without one *you obviously can, but most PSD teams are full of questionable divers so my confidence in their ability to breathe without a mask on is minimal*

Computer
That computer is way too damn expensive for what it is. Buy a bunch of Suunto Zoops or DiveRite Nitek Q's and you'll be in for half the amount of money.

Drysuit
that's a personal decision and needs to be made based off of the diving conditions you expect to be in. That suit is a borderline hazmat suit, and if you are just diving in a lake with no real environmental concerns, you'd be better off with the SAR Fusion. You don't mention location so that makes it harder because you probably don't need drygloves unless you're planning on diving under the ice and even then, you can do a pretty good dive in neoprene gloves.

I don't like turtle fins, they're too heavy and too flimsy, Jet fins ftw


I'm not sure where you are, but call DiveRightinScuba, they outfit a lot of PSD teams, and will help you get the best bang for your buck with the beancounters to get the equipment you need. They are also very familiar with cold water/ice diving so can help you out if that is on your docket and they do ERDI training up through instructor so it may be worth having one of them fly out to do your training since they are quite good at what they do.
 
You absolutely need a redundant air source as a psd. Even with the larger capacity tanks. The pony is where you would bail out to incase if FFM failure or primary tank failure.
 
Our team uses Zeagle Rangers, which I do not like because of the weight system. Having gone over that in a recent thread here, I won't repeat it here. I definitely agree with tbone on going with the bp/w. In addition to his reasons, they are easier to adapt/resize to a new member.

For drysuits, I'd consider DUI. Their suits tend to fit differently sized divers a little better, and with zip seals, they are easily reissued.

We do not dive with computers. Honestly, I don't see much value in them for our work. We do charts.

When considering communications, I would shy away from the wireless systems. Personally, I'd go with a wired Buddyphone.

---------- Post added August 20th, 2014 at 09:50 AM ----------

You absolutely need a redundant air source as a psd. Even with the larger capacity tanks. The pony is where you would bail out to incase if FFM failure or primary tank failure.

This is an OSHA requirement, I believe.
 
if that is an OSHA requirement, then I would hard mount the pony bottle to the main tank to keep it out of the way and use an AL30 over an AL20.

Whites Fusions are also quite a bit more forgiving for changing diver sizes and zip seals or si-tech rings can be put on them at purchase time for changing neck and wrist seals.
 
I agree with tbone, at least an al30 for rescue pony.
 
Thanks for all replies. I will look at each recommendation before submitting.

Masks are going to be in the proposal. I will look at Jet fins. I have a personal mask and fins, so if I hate whatever is procured, I can fall back on them until I find something more useful. I live in the mid-south around 36 degrees lattitude. We won't get much ice except on smaller streams and lakes/ponds. We had quite a few weeks of single digit highs and some sub zero lows, but don't normally see that much of those temps every winter. One of the other potential members has started reaching out to other dive teams in the region to look at their gear, training, etc., however they deal with some drastically different water conditions than we will face.
 
you may need to think about fast water rescue training and surface suits as well. A portion of your tone outs may not include actual submersion and would require different gear and training. Make sure that the bean counters are prepared for the team to grow and expand your capabilities, as well as to have the need to service and replace gear. Even though your number of calls may be few your training time will take a toll on gear.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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