Single tank DIR - 5' or 7' long hose

[AK47Diver]

I have a 7 on a single and it is no harder to manage than the 5. As others above mentioned, its a lot more convenient for air shares whether in practice or for real. When my buddy had an OOA incident the 7 worked just fine.

 

[Peter Guy]

blueb wrote

The OOA diver has been trained to have a death grip on your BCD while using your air so I don't see the point in having 7' of hose in the way unless in you cave dive.

While true, this is perhaps irrelevant to the OP. IF the OP is OW diving with like minded/like trained buddies, he may find that using the 5' or 7' hose is a good way to "equalize gas" between divers with significantly different SAC rates -- something my wife and I do quite often when diving on AL80's.

Also, as this IS the "DIR" forum, perhaps the not unreasonable suggestion to use a 36 or 40 inch hose does not fit the "DIR" restrictions.

(For what it's worth, I'm the husband mentioned above that sometimes has a 5' hose on my singles reg -- especially if I'm not using a can light because I find that stuffing the hose in my belt is not only a rule 6 violation, it sometimes doesn't stay there and then REALLY becomes a rule 6 violation. I also, cough, cough, have a 40" hose on my pool setup -- which is SO not DIR as to be in a different universe.)

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The standard length octo hose has been good enough for millions of people for years so for my tropical 17# BP/W I run a 22" hose for the necklaced octo and the stock octo length hose with a 360* swivel for the primary reg. It's a very clean setup for non-cave Caribbean diving. The OOA diver has been trained to have a death grip on your BCD while using your air so I don't see the point in having 7' of hose in the way unless in you cave dive.

...I never really got the whole 5' hose thing for single cylinder / OW dives. Quite frankly, I think the 40" hose for the primary was a better idea... In any case, I have a 7' hose on my singles rig, but that's just to standardize set ups between singles / doubles. If I was never going to go on to overhead diving, and just do OW single cylinder dives, I'd probably just stick with 40".

DIR or not DIR is not the issue, it is a good idea not because someone at GUE says it is or because it is posted in the DIR forum but rather it is a good idea because it works better even in OW.

A long hose primary solves a lot of OW problems and gives you a lot more options for basic OW - people just don't think about them. For example if your buddy notices they have 500 psi left while you have 1200 and you are still a couple hundred feet from the anchor line, you can hand him your long hose and swim normally to the anchor line, rather than surfacing where you are at and trying to swim in current back to the boat. In this case the ascent is also normal as the buddy can hand your primary back at some point and finish the dive on his own gas.

A 40" primary creates a large loop out over the shoulder and from a streamlining perspective is horrible. And even a 40" hose is short when handed to an OOA buddy who then has to form that hose into an S to get it into his mouth. That pretty much ensures are are going to be limited to a face to face immediate ascent. The "death gripon the BC" is an artifact of the buddy feeling the short hose is about to be pulled from his or her mouth and motivates the desire to keep you uncomfortably close. Much of the near panic you see in OOA divers is generated by the same near constant tug on their only remaining air supply - and if you provide them with a long hose, the panic subsides as there is no short hose constantly tugging on the reg.

I have never shared air with a short hose OW diver who did not suddenly like the idea when they discovered they could do something other than hold the reg in with one hand and hold onto you in a death grip with the other. Give an OW OOA diver the option to swim and ascend normally a couple feet from you and they will like it every time.

Just because something has been "good enough for millions of people for years" does not mean it is the best solution or that it is not time to get over it and move on into the 21rst century.

 

[Rainer]

You route the 40" hose UNDER your right arm, not over your shoulder. It's actually cleaner than a 5' or 7' hose.

While a longer hose does give more options (especially for travel under water), for MOST divers, an OOG emergency *is* going to mean a direct ascent. In that case, face to face at arms length really isn't a big deal. In fact, if a non-teammate were to come up to me OOG, I would *not* deploy my entire hose length and would indeed stay in touch contact. I'm not going to let an unknown diver stay 7' from me. For most dives where I *have* to reach the anchor line before ascending, I'd be in doubles, not singles anyway.

Again, I use a 7' hose even with singles in OW, but can undestand why some don't want to bother.

DIR or not DIR is not the issue, it is a good idea not because someone at GUE says it is or because it is posted in the DIR forum but rather it is a good idea because it works better even in OW.

A long hose primary solves a lot of OW problems and gives you a lot more options for basic OW - people just don't think about them. For example if your buddy notices they have 500 psi left while you have 1200 and you are still a couple hundred feet from the anchor line, you can hand him your long hose and swim normally to the anchor line, rather than surfacing where you are at and trying to swim in current back to the boat. In this case the ascent is also normal as the buddy can hand your primary back at some point and finish the dive on his own gas.

A 40" primary creates a large loop out over the shoulder and from a streamlining perspective is horrible. And even a 40" hose is short when handed to an OOA buddy who then has to form that hose into an S to get it into his mouth. That pretty much ensures are are going to be limited to a face to face immediate ascent. The "death gripon the BC" is an artifact of the buddy feeling the short hose is about to be pulled from his or her mouth and motivates the desire to keep you uncomfortably close. Much of the near panic you see in OOA divers is generated by the same near constant tug on their only remaining air supply - and if you provide them with a long hose, the panic subsides as there is no short hose constantly tugging on the reg.

I have never shared air with a short hose OW diver who did not suddenly like the idea when they discovered they could do something other than hold the reg in with one hand and hold onto you in a death grip with the other. Give an OW OOA diver the option to swim and ascend normally a couple feet from you and they will like it every time.

Just because something has been "good enough for millions of people for years" does not mean it is the best solution or that it is not time to get over it and move on into the 21rst century.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

If you can route a 40" hose under you arm without using a swivel etc, you are the operational definition of "skinny" especially if you are in a dry suit. (Edit: Are you routing this under the right arm then directly to your mouth using a swivel?)

And sorry, I disagree. Emphatically. A face to face ascent with a short hose (defined as less than 5') places the OOA diver in a situation of having the hose come over the donating diver's right shoulder crossing between the two of you and then doing a hard 180 degree turn to the OOA diver. The OOA diver' right hand remains fully occupied holding the reg in place against the pull of the hose and their left hand is employed holding them close to the donating diver leaving their third hand free to manage buoyancy.

So yes, face to face short hose ascents work great with 3 handed divers, but they pretty much suck for the rest of them as controlling buoyancy, from the perspective of the two handed OOA diver, comes at the cost of letting go of the reg (bad because it might get pulled out) or letting go of you (also bad because if you drift away the reg might get pulled out). In the semi-panicky OOA OW diver that devolves into a general feeling of "the reg might get pulled out" and that drives a general desire to get to the surface as fast as possible.

In thinking the longer hose just lets them get away from you and bolt for the surface free of any restraint, you are largely missing the point. The 5' or 7' hose is not just a longer leash, but rather a valuable aide in helping that diver avoid panic in the first place in an OOA situation.

I have donated gas in 3 genuine real world OOA's over the years and the evolution is much smoother if you a) train to donate the primary as you will not be surprised when your primary gets taken from you and b) use a long hose as it greaty increases the comfort level.

And as you point out, you still have the option of not fully deploying the long hose - you don't have the option of making a short hose longer. Realistically an OOA diver is not going to be 7' away from you on a 7' long hose anyway - he or she will be more like 3 ft away from you with the hose comfortably running between both of you in a wide even bend.

It is great that you normally have doubles in situations where you need to swim back to an anchor line (me too, if I am in a single tank, it is because I had to fly to get there), but there are many of those dives where I see people in single tanks - often larger 120-130 cu ft singles What you or I do is not really the point, the point is that a long hose still offers substantial advantages even in a single tank.

Besides, how often do you ever practice an air share on a short hose with tour buddies? In the case of most OW divers that is seldom or never once they are out of an OW or AOW class. With a long hose, you can pass the primary to your buddy and continue swimming along the reef, then switch and continue along the reef. I have found that even OW divers with very poor buoyancy will stabilize very well just holding onto my upper arm while swiming along on my right side. If you do that a few times, the pent up anxiety induced by short hosed air sharing in training dissappears completely on about the second drill. And when air sharing becoems a "no big deal" evolution every one wins as everyone is much safer.

 

[rjack321]

One of my T2/C2 buddies uses a shorter hose on her single rig. I don't totallly know why. She has instructed in the past and actually needs to control student's bouyancy anyway so I think she likes it for that. Yes she is grabbing them, yes she is going vertical. I am not sure exactly how long it is, 40" I think. She routes it over the shoulder and yes it bows out a bit but not tremendously so. She's big, probably 6ft tall and consequently somewhat broad shouldered as women go.

At one point a 40" primary was just considered a varient. Nowadays most everyone just goes 7ft. Its simple and pretty easy. Like many divers, I tried 5ft at one time and found it lacking. They are actually too short to wrap around me in a drysuit. My petite 5'4" wife decided against a 5ft after trying it too. She uses a 7ft for everything and hooks it under her canister and under her knife to take up the slack.

I only know one diver using a 5ft hose right now. She likes it but she doesn't not have formal GUE/UTD/NAUI-tech etc training either. Maybe she will change her mind as she develops further.

 

[deepn0va]

I use a 7' hose tucked close to my waist since I do not have a can light at this time. In the 22 dives with it, I have not once had it come out or become a problem of any type. it did however take about 10-15 dives to build the memory in the hose. Works flawlessly for me.

Just my $0.02

 

[DaleC]

I dive OW without penetrations, use a 5' primary and don't have any routing issues. It lies flat and stays close in unlike the 40" before it which did bow out.

While I don't have one bad to say about a 7' I just don't need that 2 extra feet (why bring it if you aren't going to use it?).

If one is going to progress to penetration diving I can see using one (muscle memory etc...) but if one knows they are only going to be OW a 5' offers the benefits of a long hose configuration without the storage issues of a 7'.
Just my 2CW.

 

[John_B]

If one is going to progress to penetration diving I can see using one (muscle memory etc...) but if one knows they are only going to be OW a 5' offers the benefits of a long hose configuration without the storage issues of a 7'.
Just my 2CW.

I've done open water OOG drills with the 40", 5' and 7' hoses. If you are doing a side-by-side touch-contact return-to-your-entry-point drill or the standard stops (six minute ascents) on a blue water ascent, I can pretty much bet you'll want the seven footer.

I understand that some people on a minimum deco/NDL dive would do a direct ascent at a rate of 30' per minute. The 40" or even the 5 footer would work fine for that.

OTOH, (checking that this thread hasn't been moved from the DIR forum) that's not what this is about. I was trained for rock bottom gas reserves and making the standard ascents (and in trim, LOL!). You'll definitely want the seven footer for that.

 

[scubamountaingirl]

I started out with a 7' hose and was fine tucking it under my knife because I had no canister light., then i went to a 5' miflex hose thinking it would be more forgiving to make up for the lack of the two extra feet, i was wrong, I hated the hose , it had a "memory" and chinked up and would always hit me in the face. I returned it, and returned to a 7' primary hose that continue to tuck under my knife. so far its worked well and i can do all of my s drills with my other dir buddies knowing we are all on the same page....even if i am OW now, my goal is cave and i do want to know my gear inside out before i start down the road to tech.

respectfully yours,
wendy