Is it really worth the risk?

[tomfcrist]

Holy crap!!!!!

That is the watered down version Dan. I don't know how that shop's owner can freaking sleep at night knowing what a scumbag he/she is.

 

[HIGHwing]

Hmm... Just three courses will get you to 300ft on CCR, i.e. Mod 1, 2, 3. For around $3000 USD, minimal gas cost, and a keg of scrubber you can have all the training you need for dives from a 15 foot reef dive to an hour long 100-Meter tour of an ocean trench. With OC Tec, the training companies have configured the training offerings requiring you to take a half dozen gas intensive courses. For example, PADI Tec/Rec; Beginning from say AOW w/Deep Diver you'll take Tec 40, Tec 45, Tec 50, Tec 65, Tec Trimix. These courses require more time to complete, i.e. longer hotel stays, additional boat fees, and a copious amount of expensive breathing gas, and add the fact they are more time intensive in terms of annual leave from work as compared to the CCR offerings.

The CCR purchase is not all about sunk cost and gone. CCRs do depreciate, but there is a strong resale market with popular units often selling in two to four weeks. Often CCRs are easier to resell than OC as a kit, because you need the whole rebreather. It isn't like you'll have OC folks nickel and diming you for the set of bands and manifold off your doubles. If starting from zero it's not hard to spend the same amount or more on a quality OC kit versus a CCR. Most often OC guys will say, yeah but I already have all this OC stuff I can use. Sure enough, and then about three weeks after the training they find themselves on DiveGearExpress.com building up configurations. This rationalization suddenly slips into your head, this is a headache to swap hoses and nothing ever seems exactly as it was before. Safer to have dedicated gear for this type of diving. You'll click "Submit" to the fantasy shopping cart you've built eventually. But now you have dedicated Tec Gear, and Recreational gear. The two Shearwater's have a purpose in both environments, backup on the Tec Dives, and wifey can use one during the recreational dives. You click "Submit" on the shopping cart, yet again...

A Prism 2 with tanks can be had brand new for under $8k and let's not discount that gets you essentially two Shearwater computers, backplate, wing, and harness. All you need is a mask, fins, and exposure protection to go diving. But you already have the personal essentials anyway, so no problem there.

Assuming everything goes to plan, the 300ft CCR dive is SO much EASIER. Turn on CCR, place loop in mouth, pre-breathe. Jump. My setpoint is configured to adjust up on the descent, so I literally never touch a button until I reboard the boat to turn off the unit. The CCR experience is in stark contrast to diving OC to 300'. The OC diver must make the gas switches to the right gas supply or it will be a bad day.

I went CCR Tec first, and then went back and did all the OC Tec training mentioned. I did it mostly because everyone convinced me there was some merit in having really strong OC Tec skills when diving a rebreather. I'm not convinced it requires dedicated OC Tec Training, but there is probably some merit in there somewhere. The only skill you need to master is bottle placement/rigging which will be extensively covered in your CCR Tec Courses, and develop an adherance to the NOTOX method of gas switching. Realistically, the CCR Courses are about equipment assembly/maintenance, planning dives, i.e. plan the bailout, and bailing out! For me, it is my opinion the OC Tec training was somewhat of a waste of money with the exception that I met some nice like-minded people (other students) and we continue to Tec dive together to this day. But I drag the CCR along, and we dive harmoniously.

I listen to OC Tec divers tell tales about how they have much less setup time, and much less breakdown time. But it's all a false economy, they don't factor the time required to drive to LDS, wait on someone to fill 10/50, 32/10, 50, & 100 or the time spent driving home. I've had my share of $250 gas fills for a :90 minute dive. I have multiple sets of doubles because of the eventuality that you need two complete sets of tanks to reliably dive back to back days in many locations. I can come out of the water from a 300ft CCR Dive and often be ready to go again the next day with a scrubber change and a loop rinse. I also find that if I don't brag about my gas use, my dive buddies will usually let me transfill a little of that left over Trimix into my Dil bottle for a beer.

I guess it comes down to it's all what you rationalize.

 

[dreamdive]

There was a recent thread on ScubaBoard that began with a former customer of a dive shop in California lodging a complaint. She had gone into the dive shop expressing an interest in learning to dive. The owner sat down with her and, over a couple of glasses of wine, convinced her that she would be best served if she bought all her gear ahead of time. She did. It didn't work out well for her. She only lasted a pool session or two and never got certified. The shop refused to take back any of the equipment she had purchased, because all of it was used in the pool sessions--including the rebreather.

That's why it makes sense to NOT buy a rebreather but just to take the class. At places like AddHelium, you can rent a variety of rebreathers instead of putting a lot of money in one. After a new prospective rebreather diver has taken the course, he/she has a much better idea if:
1. he/she likes it
2. what questions to ask for an ultimate decision on which rebreather to buy.

I remember when I got started, I had to shell out for a new unit, with steel and alu tanks, and storm case, and.......stuff I never needed. Turned out that my initial rebreather was not optimal for me. It's a wonder or my stubbornness that I stuck with it until I finally met another instructor.

 

[danvolker]

Hmm... Just three courses will get you to 300ft on CCR, i.e. Mod 1, 2, 3. For around $3000 USD, minimal gas cost, and a keg of scrubber you can have all the training you need for dives from a 15 foot reef dive to an hour long 100-Meter tour of an ocean trench. With OC Tec, the training companies have configured the training offerings requiring you to take a half dozen gas intensive courses. For example, PADI Tec/Rec; Beginning from say AOW w/Deep Diver you'll take Tec 40, Tec 45, Tec 50, Tec 65, Tec Trimix.




I guess it comes down to it's all what you rationalize.

I think you are close to a key issue....that being how a "good rebreather student" ( which is also a good OC student), can be separated from the majority of bad rebreather/OC students..... In the sense of good and bad I am using, it relates to being the person with the reflexes and the learning and processing capacity to do the most challenging tech dives, in the most traumatic conditions, and to do this easily--to find it fun. this is not "most divers"

With many advanced classes, you have time to separate the chaff from the wheat....( whatever the expression is)....you get to find out which students have catastrophic learning and doing issues, with underwater events that could not be guessed at ahead of time....

With zero to HERO in 3 classes, there is no separating out many of the students that look like they may be fine--but are harboring issues that will prove in time that they are not fine for the tech dives...or rebreather dives.

 

[fishb0y]

With many advanced classes, you have time to separate the chaff from the wheat....( whatever the expression is)....you get to find out which students have catastrophic learning and doing issues, with underwater events that could not be guessed at ahead of time....

With zero to HERO in 3 classes, there is no separating out many of the students that look like they may be fine--but are harboring issues that will prove in time that they are not fine for the tech dives...or rebreather dives.

Sorry, but any instructor worth their salt can figure that out after one class.

What other skills need to be taught in 5-10 classes that can't be covered in 3?

 

[Taliena]

instead of blowing it all for a just year's worth of training on a new CCR system.

It took me 3.5 months from mod1 to mod 3 and 400ft dives. I signed up for mod3 after just 2 weeks owning my own ccr, but I dive a lot, so I could do it. Directly after my mod3 course I did 7 dives between 330-400ft. So then it is really worth to own a ccr. I like it for such dives. All was planned in front. So I did not lost a holiday on doing shallower dives than I prefer to do.

 

[danvolker]

Sorry, but any instructor worth their salt can figure that out after one class.

What other skills need to be taught in 5-10 classes that can't be covered in 3?

sorry, but there are far to many instructors that are not worth any salt...and even for the good ones, 3 classes will not put the student through every conceivable type of stress they need to deal with.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Doc, in this example, I am in agreement. My issue is the gene pool.
There is the one of overall divers, that is a gene pool not suited to doing deco at all, or doing helium....this is the masses. The CCR would not be smart for them.

Then there is the very, very small gene pool of divers that evolve skills to tech levels, and do the dive type you just described. In this group, I would not jump into an argument about the comparative safety...and in fact I agree with you that at near 300 foot depths to 400, and with bottom times from 40 minutes to an hour, the OC needs become ridiculous with all the gas that needs to be carried....it just gets far beyond what OC is good for....In this mission type, I would be diving a rebreather.

The big BUT....Dive shops all over the US have decided that all of their wealthy divers NEED to get into rebreathers. I think this is the wrong gene pool for this

If the gene pool can't tolerate a little chlorine...

---------- Post added December 9th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ----------

There was a recent thread on ScubaBoard that began with a former customer of a dive shop in California lodging a complaint. She had gone into the dive shop expressing an interest in learning to dive. The owner sat down with her and, over a couple of glasses of wine, convinced her that she would be best served if she bought all her gear ahead of time. She did. It didn't work out well for her. She only lasted a pool session or two and never got certified. The shop refused to take back any of the equipment she had purchased, because all of it was used in the pool sessions--including the rebreather.

They started her on a rebreather?!

 

[C Dub]

Perhaps this is too off topic, but do rebreather manufacturers do demo days, similar to how DUI does them for drysuits?

While it would be fun, I see how problematic it could be, with a CO2 hit knocking you out in 2 minutes....

 

[HIGHwing]

With zero to HERO in 3 classes, there is no separating out many of the students that look like they may be fine--but are harboring issues that will prove in time that they are not fine for the tech dives...or rebreather dives.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you completely.

Also of note, the CCR classes typically have required individual experience time requirements between the first class and the second/third classes. This arrangement prevents a zero to hero.

sorry, but there are far to many instructors that are not worth any salt...and even for the good ones, 3 classes will not put the student through every conceivable type of stress they need to deal with.

Think about what you just said. By that logic we should recall every diver card below say Rescue diver. No one in the water is prepared for every eventuality. CCR divers are trained to an entirely different principle.

Only four things can happen on a rebreather dive;

1. Too much oxygen
2. Too little oxygen
3. Too much CO2
4. Catastrophic failure of the breathing loop

Wasting student brain space with other edge cases is silly and unnecessary. In each of those cases I want the student to bailout. In the even of too much oxygen I would prefer a shutdown of the oxygen bottle. But otherwise bailout, flip your computer to OC and follow the deco plan.

Why make CCR training hard? There are four possibilities and two possible workflows - but all include bailout as step one.