All About Pony Bottles

[shoredivr]

Properly stow your gear. I do. Turning the valves off because you can't be bothered with stowing your gear properly is a pretty poor excuse.

Leaving a valve open for prolonged periods of time isn't that great, either. I thought that was a good example of thinking an open valve would not leak. You'll only do it once if it leaks!

We all check our tank pressure before we leave the dock. Clearly this practice should extend to the pony tank as well.

Agreed!

Yea, the DIR crowd always goes on about this. "Leave the valve off and "feather" it from time to time during the dive."

Well, Charles, I'm flattered, but wrong agency. For sure since my bio doesn't list who I trained with, who would know? I agree it's a tech diver thing, though.

Why not leave it on and not have to worry about it? It's not about whether not it's difficult to open the valve. Leaving it open is just one less thing I have to do.

Probably that's a difference between cold water rec in the land of potential freeflows/tech diving and where you are in South Carolina (assuming you dive there and in the tropics since your profile doesn't say, and you know what they say about "assuming"!)

Also, my pony is not there just for me. During the briefing if there's anyone there who hasn't dove with me I go through the same routine. I show them where my pony 2nd is clipped and instruct them if they need it to just grab it. I have no problem whatsoever with another diver grabbing my pony 2nd if they get into trouble. With the valve on, we're all good to go.

In all honesty, I can reach the valve. My pony is mounted valve down and I use the Zeagle Razor. I can reach down with my right hand and go right to it without looking. During the descent, I reach back and make sure again that the valve is fully opened.

Eh, good then. It's just not a set-up that works for me given the colder water diving I do. Things can freeflow. I asked about reaching the valve since I know folks who can't. And sometimes they dive doubles :shocked2:

I know that freeflows cause problems. Of course they would. I'm pretty sure that the odds of my primary, my octopus and my pony 2nd ALL experiencing simultaneous freeflows is ridiculously remote.

-Charles

You'll appreciate this story then. Tobermory, Ontario, May 2008, my first boat dive of the season. Water temp 43 f. Diving the wreck of the Forest City, bow at 60 ft, stern at 150 ft. One of the divers on the charter was experienced with cold water diving, having dived through the winter and for many years. He had also dived this wreck many times. He had an ALu80 plus an ALu30 pony. He got in the water first, as he was in a hurry to get to the stern (!) Now, there may be many things wrong with that plan, but what he told me on the boat later was this. When he hit 148 ft a few minutes into the dive his primary freeflowed. He didn't shut down his freeflowing reg, rendering the single valve ALu80 unbreathable. He didn't switch to his octo, using it till his ALu80 ran dry.

Instead he thought, I'll switch to my pony and ascend. He said he got to the boilers (about 120 ft) when the PONY freeflowed. He said he ran out of gas on the pony at 40 ft and made an emergency swimming ascent. He had little gas in his ALu80 when he reached the surface. Fortunately he decided not to do the second dive on the Niagara II (90ft) and had no symptoms other than more grey hair.

So, perhaps once again location and environment play a part in the decisions we should make about our gear. Or maybe once in a while, Murphy pays a visit. YMMV.

 

[frogman159]

OT, but this is the "all about ponys thread"

My SPG is on a short 27" hose and clipped to my left hip D ring. By slinging a pony, doesn't the bottom of bottle get in the way of unclipping and getting at the SPG if it is also clipped to the left hip D ring?

 

[Tortuga68]

My SPG is on a short 27" hose and clipped to my left hip D ring. By slinging a pony, doesn't the bottom of bottle get in the way of unclipping and getting at the SPG if it is also clipped to the left hip D ring?

Clip the SPG to your left chest ring. Won't interfere and easier to see (closer)

 

[Tortuga68]

Ideally, yes. And in a drill turning it on and purging is not exactly a difficult task. However, I cannot say how I will act in a true out of air emergency, and I have a feeling no matter how well I prepare my instinct may just be grab the reg and start breathing

In your first true OOA, you'll probably panic to some degree. That's pretty normal (although no less scary).

Ideal is ideal, of course that isn't always possible. But since you said you won't be solo diving, you should have the other option of your buddy's secondary too

Remember that most rec. divers only have their buddy. You're adding a pony as extra insurance, so you've got one more option than them

IMHO you're over-thinking it. Staying close to your buddy should be the first answer

 

[divestoclimb]

OT, but this is the "all about ponys thread"

My SPG is on a short 27" hose and clipped to my left hip D ring. By slinging a pony, doesn't the bottom of bottle get in the way of unclipping and getting at the SPG if it is also clipped to the left hip D ring?

Nope, you would just have to unclip the gauge to read it and make sure the gauge is clipped behind the slung bottle. I'd estimate the majority of tech divers dive this way and it works just fine for us.

If you sidemount it, though, you may have a problem with that SPG.

 

[divestoclimb]

Ideally, yes. And in a drill turning it on and purging is not exactly a difficult task. However, I cannot say how I will act in a true out of air emergency, and I have a feeling no matter how well I prepare my instinct may just be grab the reg and start breathing.

What makes you think you're just going to be swimming along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden not be able to get a breath from your reg? There's only three circumstances I can think of that could cause this:

• Someone maliciously turns off your tank valve (typically only seen in training classes, and I think where this mindset originates)
• Regulator first or second stage fails closed (extremely rare on modern equipment, especially during a dive)
• You forgot to monitor your pressure gauge

If this scenario truly worries you then it's unlikely you would become complacent about how much gas you have left, so the entire situation is extremely unlikely to ever occur. In any conceivable situation, not being able to breathe will not be what alerts you to there being a problem, so the switch to a pony can and should be as slow and controlled as you want it to be.

Besides, given enough experience and training problems like this don't trigger a panic response, instead they just make you think "hmm, that's odd. Now where's my buddy?"

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

In your first true OOA, you'll probably panic to some degree. That's pretty normal (although no less scary).

Ideal is ideal, of course that isn't always possible. But since you said you won't be solo diving, you should have the other option of your buddy's secondary too

Remember that most rec. divers only have their buddy. You're adding a pony as extra insurance, so you've got one more option than them

IMHO you're over-thinking it. Staying close to your buddy should be the first answer

What I'd worry about isn't so much the initial "out of air" panic, but if I grabbed my pony reg and no air comes out, then I may truly panic before grabbing my buddy's octo. Now I like to think that I'd be smart enough to turn on the valve: but you're talking to a guy who descends half the time with the snorkel in his mouth

For me, I just haven't heard any major negative against keeping the valve on for rec dives. The chance of me forgetting to turn it on though, even if it's a low chance, seems to outweigh the negatives of keeping it on (unless I start getting constant freezeups or something).

Also, I'm not sure if "most rec divers only have their buddy", at least here it seems many of the rec divers I see have some sort of pony, especially if they plan to go below 60 feet. All the courses I'm looking into (all PADI rec) recommend a pony, one (wreck) even requires it. (these are the instructors decisions, not PADIs as far as I know)

What makes you think you're just going to be swimming along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden not be able to get a breath from your reg? There's only three circumstances I can think of that could cause this:

• Someone maliciously turns off your tank valve (typically only seen in training classes, and I think where this mindset originates)
• Regulator first or second stage fails closed (extremely rare on modern equipment, especially during a dive)
• You forgot to monitor your pressure gauge

If this scenario truly worries you then it's unlikely you would become complacent about how much gas you have left, so the entire situation is extremely unlikely to ever occur. In any conceivable situation, not being able to breathe will not be what alerts you to there being a problem, so the switch to a pony can and should be as slow and controlled as you want it to be.

That's a good point, but in a sense emergency gear is for the unexpected. So far I have been very, very good at checking my PSI, but it only takes one dive where I'm not as stringent (especially when I start diving deeper and it goes down faster). I guess my big question is what is the big disadvantage to keeping it turned on? I realize for tech deco bottles there are disadvantages (if it leaks you're in trouble) but if your pony starts leaking, unless maybe solo diving, it's not exactly an emergency situation: either call the dive or just make your buddy your main backup air source. Freezeups seem to be rare in any water that isn't below 40.

Besides, given enough experience and training problems like this don't trigger a panic response, instead they just make you think "hmm, that's odd. Now where's my buddy?"

haha, "I can't breath: that's a shame"

 

[Tortuga68]

What I'd worry about isn't so much the initial "out of air" panic, but if I grabbed my pony reg and no air comes out, then I may truly panic before grabbing my buddy's octo. Now I like to think that I'd be smart enough to turn on the valve: but you're talking to a guy who descends half the time with the snorkel in his mouth

My suggestion, if you're concerned about not being experienced anough to deal with your own OOA, would be to first go for the air source that you know is working - which will be the one your buddy is currently breathing

Then once you have air again (potential panic averted), you can diagnose your problem and switch to your own octo or pony or whatever

Although you're correct that a number of rec divers posting here talk about carrying a pony, in my real world experience, the vast majority do not

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

My suggestion, if you're concerned about not being experienced anough to deal with your own OOA, would be to first go for the air source that you know is working - which will be the one your buddy is currently breathing

Then once you have air again (potential panic averted), you can diagnose your problem and switch to your own octo or pony or whatever

Although you're correct that a number of rec divers posting here talk about carrying a pony, in my real world experience, the vast majority do not

Right, but again if I just turn the pony on, then I'm confident that it's working as well. It's simply a matter of leaving the pony off seems as though it would introduce more potential problems than it solves".

 

[Tortuga68]

I understand that your real question is 'why not just leave the pony on?'

I don't have a good answer for that, other than it isn't what I was taught - maybe someone else can answer

As far as having your pony on = you know it's working; I'd still disagree, and say the reg your buddy is breathing is the best option. You know it's working for a fact, they're breathing from it