Recreational OW diving with long hoses (or the 'usual' r/h hose routing) ...

[Thalassamania]

Okay sorry, that wasn't put well - what I was meaning was that it was the last resort for air (and I meant as in 'for getting some air' as opposed to a CESA). A misunderstanding which boils down to: I'm agreeing with you there.




Well, um ... when major scuba agencies start asking me for my opinion on curriculum changes I'll be sure to raise all kinds of personal suggestions, but until then ...

Clearly time isn't the issue - they removed it for other reasons.

I was taught BB and don't remember it being such a big stress. In my experience I often see students (even pretty nervous ones) coping without a regulator for about the same length of time when removing and recovering a regulator - BB's actually less stressful than that since the reg's not 'missing' and needing to be recovered from somewhere out of sight while they're without it.
I doubt it would be more stressful than, say, swimming without a mask, or mask removal and replace (in cold water especially) which seem to generally be the most 'out of comfot zone' to new divers in my experience, so it does seem like an odd thing to pull out.
My guess is that the agencies that decided to drop BB figured they were buying into the 'two regs' philosophy 100% and assume that people would be disciplined enough to always make sure that option was going to work correctly (and yes, that seems like a naive assumption, but that'd be my guess). I doubt such a relatively straightforward skill was dropped because it was causing too much of a drop in revenue. Do you know anyone who failed to qualify with an agency and just gave up on the whole idea because they couldn't handle a BB drill?

All this guesswork would be better handled by a Course Director or wotnot who knows for sure what the reasoning behind dropping this was. Are there any on here we can drag into this conversation for a definitive answer?

In the meantime ... long octopuses tied in a knot? Anyone?

As one whom major training agencies and DEMA has, at least in the past, asked an opinion on curriculum changes, take my word for why BB was dropped: TOO MUCH TIME TO MASTER IF YOU'RE SHOOTING FOR A 20 HOUR COURSE and OCTOs MADE FOR AN ADDITIONAL SALE.

I believe there was a time when people used the long hose on a regulator they did not breathe, but intended to donate. The hose was doubled over and bungied to the tank. It was not a good solution, because it had some of the shortcomings of the "traditional" octo -- the donor had to FIND the regulator; he had to be able to get it free, and if one practiced the drill, the long hose had to be refolded and restowed by the buddy, because the diver couldn't do it himself.

The wrapped Hog loop solves those issues. The hose length is nicely used in the wrapping; the regulator is immediately available, since the donor is breathing it, and if you want to practice the drill, it is absolutely trivial to restow.

I would never advocate a long hose on a backup regulator. Why? The long hose on the primary works so well, and the backup is for the diver's own use.

You are quite correct. Let me add one side point: when I am teaching I dive with three second stages: a primary, a secondary and my "teaching octo" that is a sidebreather (Oceanic OMEGA II) on a 40" black hose and that either has the house doubled and threaded down through my waist strap or, when students are performing exercises, lives in my left palm.

 

[roydude]

TOO MUCH TIME TO MASTER IF YOU'RE SHOOTING FOR A 20 HOUR COURSE and OCTOs MADE FOR AN ADDITIONAL SALE.

Okay okay, no need to shout

Is this the reason they gave you? I thought octo's were mandatory kit with these agencies long before they dropped BB.

As previously mentioned, at least one of the agencies that dropped BB wouldn't care two hoots if a course took a month longer to master if they deemed the skill important to safety, and they have no financial gain to make from shorter courses, or from people buying kit. What would their motivation be?

 

[Colliam7]

In a 'recreational diving open water' situation, some of us with our own kit (and therefore our own say on how it's configured) have:
1. Hog loops,
2. Octopus on a very long hose, or
3. Octopus routed under the right arm (almost standard practice for us PADI divers).

OK, I am a little slow. What do YOU mean by 'hog loops'?

On the subject of the long hoses (hog or loooong occy hose): To me this seems to have way more risk than benefit in recreational OW. Here's why ...

If an OOA diver takes the long hose (whether that's primary or octopus) then to me this adds a serious risk. An OOA diver will usually be a tad stressed at the very least. He may just want to be on the surface as quickly as possible, regardless of training (it happens!).

I am not sure how use of a long hose differs from option 3, above. I want to be close to the OOA diver, irrespective of how long my donated / octo hose is. If I am too neutral (or the OOA diver is too positive), and s/he bolts to the surface, it won't matter whether I have a 40" hose being donated, or a 7' hose being donated, I may not be able to control the ascent. Just because I am holding onto a OOA diver doesn't mean I can control the ascent (unless I physically incapacitate the diver by knocking the crap out of him/her). Yes, it helps if I can reach their inflator, but that can be true, again irrespective of the length of my donated hose.

So to put that another way: someone holding onto you by a 7' hose is now ascending at an unsafe speed and trying to drag you with him :shocked2: ! I can't think of a worse situation for the donor - you can't reach him to purge his bcd / calm him down / get control of the situation, all you can do is dump air and try to slow him down (hoping he doesn't rip your hose off in the process)!

He can rip your hose off irrespective of whether it is a (standard) 40" octo hose or a 7' hose. The length is irrelevant. Your control of the situation is more relevant.

I know there's an argument that a long hose gives people room to move etc..., but I route my occy from the left, over the top of my shoulder flush with my chest down the side of my LP hose with the 2nd stage attached to my bcd waistbelt (photo's to follow). I don't need to faff about moving my arm to donate it and it's the right way up for the OOA diver, giving them the full (standard) length of the hose. The OOA diver just pulls it and sticks in in their mouth. If I need it for some reason I just do the same with a little twist. The twist doesn't matter to me since the hose is coming from just behind my head and just sits in an 'C' shape on my chest. It's very easy for me to use (actually it's so comfortable that I'm considering just using it and tucking the primary away for me to switch to in case of an OOA situation).

OK, makes sense. But, what does this have to do with the scenario you mentioned before - a diver bolting to the surface? I must be missing something.

Additionally, routed like this the OOA diver and I have lots of room when facing each other and the OOA diver can very comfortably parallel swim on my left (giving them unobstructed access to their LP hose, and me reachable access to their right shoulder dump if need be). I know this, because I've done it. Very stress free, I remain in control of us, we both have lots of room and I can easily reach the OOA diver if need be.

So, fine. Why is this NOT also the case ith a 5' or 7' donated hose?

 

[Thalassamania]

Okay okay, no need to shout

Is this the reason they gave you? I thought octo's were mandatory kit with these agencies long before they dropped BB.

THEY did not GIVE me reasons in the sense you are using it. THEY argued for THEIR position whilst I argued for mine (and NAUI's at the time). Octos became required gear before BB was banned by some agencies and slightly before it was demoted.

As previously mentioned, at least one of the agencies that dropped BB wouldn't care two hoots if a course took a month longer to master if they deemed the skill important to safety, and they have no financial gain to make from shorter courses, or from people buying kit. What would their motivation be?

I really don't know, I did not work with BSAC (they being a less than marginal player on this side of the pond), so I chalk it up to the British inability to avoid standing in a queue when one is seen to form.

 

[roydude]

Hey Colliam7!

Agree with all the points you made there! I'm using 'hog loop' here really to just refer to long primary hose which is the donated air source in an OOS, as opposed to a donated octopus.

To sum up the discussion so far a nutshell ...

My OP was initially about two main things regarding alternate air source:
1. Long hoses (hog loops or just long occys) and
2. standard length occys routed under the right arm.

My concerns regarding point 1 (for hog loops at least) were addressed in part by hog loop-ers pointing out that you can control the donated length. Then Boulderjohn frankly peed all over my chips by pointing out that the hog loop approach totally removes the 'AWOL octopus' issue - you always know where the donor air source is. I waved a white flag of defeat on this issue and my concern regarding hog loops is now hiding behind the couch muttering to itself.

My long octopus hose concern hasn't had much attention, apart from TSandM (I agree with you on your response by the way TSandM - I think that's probably where it's 'evolved' from and like you I'm a bit baffled as to why anyone would choose it over a long hose primary ... unless it because they need to keep the 'traditional' setup for teaching with their center maybe, but it still shouldn't be tied in a bloomin' knot!). I guess largely this part of point 1's not had much attention because no-one on here's using this setup, but also because around this time the discussion blew a front tyre and went skidding off down the 'buddy breathing' road ... which is where we find ourselves now.

Point 2 hasn't really been addressed much in this discussion, but to be fair I think it's an argument that's been bashed about a lot over time in other discussions.

... so I chalk it up to the British inability to avoid standing in a queue when one is seen to form.

LMAO ! That's one of my favourite responses so far! I doubt it's true where BSAC's concerned (the sea will turn to cheese before BSAC do anything just 'because PADI did it'!), but I love your answer there so much that I might just agree anyway!

 

[Diver0001]

As previously mentioned, at least one of the agencies that dropped BB wouldn't care two hoots if a course took a month longer to master if they deemed the skill important to safety, and they have no financial gain to make from shorter courses, or from people buying kit. What would their motivation be?

Well... the way I understand it is that the WRSTC successfully lobbied (or paid off) some diplomats to get a new EU norm passed for diving instruction that more or less forces CMAS to march in lock-step with PADI's drummer.

The required skill set and even the tempo is now legislated and even though it's just a norm and not a requirement, the BSAC probably dropped the skill (as they did in other countries) for legal "cover your ass" reasons because EU norms, while not laws in the member countries until ratified, are still referenced in liability cases.

So basically, BSAC dropped that skill because PADI wanted them to drop that skill. The upshot to the new norm is that CMAS lost a lot of manoeuvring room in Europe to the Americanization of diving instruction and the only losers are consumers.

I don't know which EU brainiacs allowed themselves to be lobbied successfully for this but their children should be forced to learn how to dive under the new norm as punishment.

R..

 

[roydude]

CMAS and BSAC parted ways a while ago and are no longer affiliated, is that still the case or am I out of date on that?

After snooping around I found this from an old BSAC club notice (quick intro. in case you're not familiar with them: BSAC is the largest dive club in the world, but is focused on training UK divers in the UKs low-viz, cold water. Therefore it takes a almost fanatical stand on safety and rescue training, especially 'early on' and they constantly review their training based on the latest data possible. They have a very close working relationship with the British Royal Navy and basically keep their rescue training as sharp as possible):

... In an out of air scenario, rather than fumbling an attempt to secure an AAS or buddy breathe which requires a large number of skills to be completed perfectly while stressed which may plunge the diver deeper into the incident pit, it may be safer to immediately initiate a CESA while the diver still has some control.
...
This strengthens the argument that all divers need to learn self-rescue skills that can halp them survive an accident while diving alone---either by intention or default. In the absence of an Independent Alternate Air Source this leaves the CESA or buoyant ascent as the only options; other than drowning.

The article bases it's conclusions on statistics relating to incidents etc... (very thorough as you'd expect from BSAC).
It suggests that the reason for ditching BB in favour of going directly to CESA boils down to switching to this philosophy: If you're out of air and there's no immediately available AAS, the least risky thing to do is a CESA and basically self rescue.
Therefore the training aims at instilling the instinct to look for immediate access to an AAS. If there's none then don't mess around, just do a CESA.
This doesn't sound like a ludicrous and crazy 'spin' designed to cover up a PADI conspiracy to me.

I guess it follows the philosophy of keeping solutions to problems that arise as simple as possible.

I also found this discussion on the subject (with some input from BSAC instructors) which might be interesting if anyone's wanting to poke around a bit more:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/167648-buddy-breathing.html

 

[Diver0001]

Interesting. When did that happen? I was under the impression that the BSAC was just another CMAS variant.

So basically what they're advocating for an OOA scenario is to forgo any attempt at air sharing and just run for the surface?

R..

edit:

Never mind, I found it. June 1997. BSAC didn't leave, they were expelled. I bet the CMAS regrets that now that they've been completely outmanoeuvred by PADI and are short on friends.

 

[roydude]

To go for immediately accessible AAS, or do a CESA yes.

For the record, the BSAC dropped buddy breathing a few years before PADI did.
[EDIT: I may be confusing that with making it 'optional' ... don't quote me there until I hear back from my BSAC instructor buddies on that point.]

Okay - still waiting on word back from my BSAC buds, but as far as I can tell the BSAC were actively discouraging this in training as far back as 2006, weheras it wasn't dropped by PADI until 2010. Can any confirm this while I'm waiting?

---------- Post Merged at 12:35 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:40 AM ----------

I'd like to revisit this bit that you posted in your opening post. Could you please post the picture you promised? I'm open to changing how I teach the routing of the octopus if you've discovered something that works better than the under the arm thing.

Hey the pics are in my gallery (along with some comments) - feel free to comment them or whatever, I'd appreciate your input:
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/s...page=1&cat=5868&ppuser=&thumbcheck=0&cat=5868

 

[lamont]

Okay - still waiting on word back from my BSAC buds, but as far as I can tell the BSAC were actively discouraging this in training as far back as 2006, weheras it wasn't dropped by PADI until 2010. Can any confirm this while I'm waiting?

PADI was not teaching buddy breathing and was leaning on the CESA back in 2003.