Does my rig default me as a "Bad Buddy"?

[flots am]

Generally true, however your first comment looked like "if youre out of air, youre an idiot" and thats just plain wrong and insultive.
You dont need a clogged dip tube or an exploded first stage to not have a useable air supply. If your LP hose burst, your SECOND stage explide or your tank o-ring burst you may be in a world of **** faster than you may realize..
You might argue that things like a bad pressure gauge should be recognized and I think for most truely experienced divers it would be fairly easilly, but for new divers - not so much..

I know it's insulting, and quite frankly was intended that way to shake people up. Divers should not treat running out of air like it's an unavoidable random occurrence. It isn't. They also shouldn't believe that any chunk of equipment will compensate for inattention because it won't. The OP was looking for an equipment solution to a training/practice problem.

With very few exceptions, running out of air is 100% preventable, and even in those situations when it's not preventable, can be safely handled by maintaining good buddy distance, awareness and skills, using nothing more exotic than what was covered in OW class, and with the most basic of equipment.

flots.

 

[psiborg1812]

Generally true, however your first comment looked like "if youre out of air, youre an idiot" and thats just plain wrong and insultive.
You dont need a clogged dip tube or an exploded first stage to not have a useable air supply. If your LP hose burst, your SECOND stage explide or your tank o-ring burst you may be in a world of **** faster than you may realize..
You might argue that things like a bad pressure gauge should be recognized and I think for most truely experienced divers it would be fairly easilly, but for new divers - not so much..

"Exceptionally rare"? Maybe in the grand scale of the hundreds of thousands or even millions of 5-dives-a-year vacation divers out there, but I know there is more than me on this board thats seen blown o-rings under water for one.

Most of the things you mention here give warning signs before they fail. LP and HP hoses will bubble from the outer sheath, tank o-rings will not seal completely and bubble when they are getting old and dry. Tanks with stuff that will clog a dip tube will rattle. Pressure gauges will stick if they become corroded and the Bourdon tubes pitted. All these things are recognizable and treatable. If a new diver doesn't care about their LP hose bubbling or their tank rattling, then I have to question whether they should be in the water in the first place. The only thing that would catch a diver by surprise is if the pressure gauge stuck. Then yes, there is a bad situation out of the blue, and hopefully your training will save your life. However, aside from that, if you run out of air then 99.99% of the time you are not behaving the way you should. Are you an idiot? Not necessarily, but you are pretty close. I call the people who whizz by me on the roads idiots, because they are willfully disregarding safety. it could be that their accelerators are stuck, but again, 99.99% of the time they are not behaving right.

I've never heard of first or second stages exploding before, so i can't comment on that until i search the net for a bit. On the second stages did you mean free flowing instead of exploding?

 

[CT-Rich]

About decorum, the OP was asking about whether he should change his rig now that his GF was going to be his buddy. He wanted to know how he might adjust his gear to make it more safety friendly. He has never said he runs his tank dry on the bottom. He just wanted input about how to improve it. Seems to me that calling people in a tough spot idiots and dumb is not really needed here. S**t happens. Brilliant people make errors in judgement, gear doesn't operate to spec. what ever. Why someone might need to breath off a back-up is irrelevent to his question. He was willing to hear some feed back. But to talk down about people who are evaluating a rig is unneccessary. Spare airs aren't worth a damn, fine explain why it isn't. Yes you can buddy breath with a single reg, even on a short hose. I dove for several years without an octo. His question was about how to make his gear more user friendly, not how stupid he would have to be to need to the back-up.

 

[Bonairetrip]

BTW, I know everyone hates them but I'm buying a spare air for her as well. Better to have a limited amount of air than no air and it will give her time if we get separated so I can then donate and get her to the surface.

At the risk of beating the proverbial dead horse, please let me explain why I think a spare air is a poor idea.

I get the appeal -- they are small, seem easy to use and promise some air in a pinch (and some is always better than none, right?). Seems like a good investment of $250, right?

Here are my concerns.

First, it really isn't much air. My SAC is decent -- something like 0.5/min. Lets assume that it is the 1.6 Cft unit and it is all the way full (3000 PSI). Finally, assume we are at the surface. That gives me a tad over 3 minutes of air. Seems like a lot.

Now, lets assume that we are at 66 FSW, our stressed SAC is more like 1 cft/min (it can easily be much higher!) and the SA is only 75% full (you took a few test breaths since you last topped it off). So the SA has about 1.2 CFT (as it not totally full) so that gives you about 1 minute and 12 seconds at the surface. Or about 24 seconds at depth.

Or, look at the volume another way. I am playing a little fast and loose with the math but you will get the idea. Lets assume you just started your dive with a 3000 PSI 80 CFT tank. A 1.6 cft SA would be like having a reserve equal to about 60 PSI of your "main" tank. (1.6/80 means that a SA has about 2% of the volume has an 80 cft tank. 2% of 3000psi is indeed 60 PSI.

If you want to go the redundant air source idea, I would typically suggest starting with at least a 13 cft pony (equal to 8 SAs) -- and I think that is minimal. Or doubles with an iso manifold.

So this is why I would never own a SA:
a) Not enough air. You could easily have two OOA situations in one dive.
b) People tend to up their risk taking implicitly assuming they have it covered by the "safety equipment".
c) In an OOA, how much time and effort is spent recovering and using the SA to get your first breath? Would that be better used getting to your buddy (who, at least in theory, has a bunch of gas and at least one for sure working reg)?

 

[Tigerman]

Most of the things you mention here give warning signs before they fail. LP and HP hoses will bubble from the outer sheath, tank o-rings will not seal completely and bubble when they are getting old and dry. Tanks with stuff that will clog a dip tube will rattle. Pressure gauges will stick if they become corroded and the Bourdon tubes pitted. All these things are recognizable and treatable. If a new diver doesn't care about their LP hose bubbling or their tank rattling, then I have to question whether they should be in the water in the first place. The only thing that would catch a diver by surprise is if the pressure gauge stuck. Then yes, there is a bad situation out of the blue, and hopefully your training will save your life. However, aside from that, if you run out of air then 99.99% of the time you are not behaving the way you should. Are you an idiot? Not necessarily, but you are pretty close. I call the people who whizz by me on the roads idiots, because they are willfully disregarding safety. it could be that their accelerators are stuck, but again, 99.99% of the time they are not behaving right.

I've never heard of first or second stages exploding before, so i can't comment on that until i search the net for a bit. On the second stages did you mean free flowing instead of exploding?

No, a tank o-ring will NOT neccesarily give you a "warning" before it blow at depth, Ive seen it and it didnt - it was my buddys yoke o-ring.
No, I didnt mean free-flowing 2nd stages, I meant EXPLODING - Ive seen videos of it happening and the scary part is that its been after service. The service people can make errors too (wich is why I wont take a newly certified reg to depth before testing it in the shallows).
Ive seen hoses blow without warning too btw, but that was a HP hose, so there really wasnt much of an issue except the extra little SI while changing the hose..

 

[flots am]

Generally true, however your first comment looked like "if youre out of air, youre an idiot" and thats just plain wrong and insultive.

NO! It's not wrong! The number of times a diver has become Out of Air because of "dumb" is so much more frequent than the contrived cases like exploding first stages (which I beleive has happened a total of maybe 10 times in all of human history and was due to improper service) that you can essentially ignore them as fringe cases with the same probability as Alien Abductions and Bigfoot attacks.

In nearly every single Open-Water Out-of-Air incident in recorded history, they have all been caused by people being dumb and not following training.

While I can appreciate that people who run out of air would find this embarrassing, this is the real world, not Lake Woebegone. All the children are not above average. "Accidentally running out of air" should rate at least the same level of embarrassment as "accidentally driving off a clean dry road into a ditch"


flots.

 

[TSandM]

I would agree with the criticisms of the Spare Air, but the biggest one is that you can put together a very functional redundant air source -- with adequate air in it -- for what one costs.

 

[fnfalman]

The OP was looking for an equipment solution to a training/practice problem.

That is the quote of the day right there.

No amount of equipment configuration will solve skills/techniques problems.

You can have Lamar Hires or Mr. GUE Himself come rig you up and it still ain't squat unless you have the training and practice to back it up.

As far as which equipment configuration is best...that's highly debatable. The equipment configuration that is best is the one that you have confidence in and practice regularly with.

 

[psiborg1812]

No, a tank o-ring will NOT necessarily give you a "warning" before it blow at depth, Ive seen it and it didn't - it was my buddy's yoke o-ring.
No, I didn't mean free-flowing 2nd stages, I meant EXPLODING - Ive seen videos of it happening and the scary part is that its been after service. The service people can make errors too (which is why I wont take a newly certified reg to depth before testing it in the shallows).
Ive seen hoses blow without warning too btw, but that was a HP hose, so there really wasn't much of an issue except the extra little SI while changing the hose..

Well, I've seen o-rings explode on their own, but not, that was when a student banged the yoke off trying to swim under something. I could see it happening if the yoke wasn't tight enough and the o-ring extruded. never seen a hose explode from out of the blue, though I have had a hose unscrew on me at depth.

I'll send all my other questions in a PM, don't want to threadjack this any further.

 

[Bonairetrip]

In nearly every single Open-Water Out-of-Air incident in recorded history, they have all been caused by people being dumb and not following training.

I think everyone agrees that it is better to avoid an OOA situation in the first place. I suspect everyone agrees that most OOA situations result from at least one mistake made by the diver. And, yes, every diver should evaluate any negative incident (OOA, rapid ascent, navigation errors, going deeper or longer than anticipated, etc., etc.) and learn what lessons you can and take them to heart.

But here is where I take issue. First, in an OOA situation it really does not matter whether it was your fault or not -- you need to be able to respond appropriately.

Second, by essentially saying that only dumb divers go OOA you can lull people into a false sense of security. I am smart. I am careful. SO it can NEVER happen to me. Being smart and careful are good things -- they improve your odds. But everyone makes mistakes at some point. They are usually minor and we rarely get slapped hard --- until they do.

A major cause of air accidents: controlled flight into terrain. There is lots of energy (warning equipment, training, etc.) put into solving the problem of people essentially driving a plane into the ground. Why? Because people do make mistakes and calling them "people being dumb" or saying "they didn't follow training" does not make them any less likely to happen.

Third, bad things do happen to good people. I have personally never had an OOA (did have a HP hose go once -- damn that about made me deaf in my left ear!) but they do happen even people are not dumb and follow all their training. Burst disks can go. Neck o-rings can go. First stages can seize. Second stages can free flow. LP hoses can break. The yoke can break. Tank o-rings can go. Gauges can be faulty. You can end up with corrosion in tank that blocks the dip tube. Yes, if you treat your gear well and inspect it before each dive, you greatly improve your odds. But still Murphy can strike.

Do you also believe that it is impossible to get DCS when diving within accepted NDL (and if hydrated and using the suggested ascent rates)?