Handing Off a Pony Bottle

[uncfnp]

Why would you plan like that? That doesn't make sense.

Pony bottles exist for one reason, to get someone to the surface in the event of an OOA situation. This situation occurs for one of two reasons, your buddy ran out of gas, or you ran out of gas, either for being an idiot and literally just running out of gas, or a failure. Either way you have a redundant source of breathing gas for an emergency. No discussions of inflators because you're going up, you're dumping gas, and frankly if the other guy is incapable of orally inflating their bc, and you are also incapable of orally inflating theirs, you deserve to die, literally that simple.

You plan for them the same way you plan rock bottom, you need a bottle big enough to get whoever is breathing on it to the surface as fast as possible. Minimum SAC planning of 1.0, 30fpm ascent rate, 5 minutes at 20ft, plus up to 5 minutes at depth to resolve an issue. Plan accordingly.

In an OOA situation you have three options. Ignore the bottle except in a true emergency *stupid*, hand off the bottle *only feasible if the other diver is competent, usually a diver is LOA or you have a good diver who had a regulator failure*, or you breathe off of your bottle. You are proposing option 1, BUT you are now risking both of your lives because if you are diving a similar sized tank, odds are your tank is already low, so why run the added risk of waiting until you deem the gas to be too low before switching over? If you planned your gas in the pony properly, why not give the OOA diver your primary, switch to your octopus, and once everything is figured out, switch over to your pony bottle so there is no risk of both of you being OOA?

I first heard about Rock Bottom when I started reading SB. I remember thinking "What a fascinating idea!" and starting running through different calculations, equal and mismatched tanks etc. It was/is an interesting exploration of gas management and truly a useful insight into diving. Now, just how useful was it too me IRL? Purely theoretical. 75 percent of my diving is drift diving. I have found no use for RB drifting. 24% is Bonaire shore diving. RB no help there either (1% newly found cave and 1/6ths or 1/3rds there).

And the really scary part is that I understood exactly what DD was saying.

 

[tbone1004]

not diving rock bottom is stupid, relying on ability to ditch weights is also stupid, many are still here obviously but that doesn't mean it is smart. Practice orally inflating, it's good for you and could save your life. Dive Rock Bottom, the only reason not to is if you have a more conservative way of scheduling your ascent pressures, which are usually calculated by doing rock bottom at a deeper depth than what you'll be diving at.

If you are shore or drift diving you are still planning a modified rock bottom, but since your dive isn't being conducted at one depth for most of the dive it is very different. You always have rock bottom when you're at your current depth and that is what matters.

 

[azmodan50]

It's a set up for a joke right? Oh here it is...



I tend to dive a little differently. I like to remain aware of my resources so that I don't have "oh s%&t" moments.

On those occasions that I do dive with someone else they are welcome to any of the regulators I carry. That is because I have access to the remaining ones and every source has enough gas to get us to the surface due to proper planning and monitoring. I can surface on either my back gas or pony so I don't favor either and neither do I deny either to a buddy. That simply does not make sense and is a red flag to me that the diver suggesting it does not fully understand or trust their gear or procedures. Sorry if that sounds harsh but there are some concepts that should not be supported in team diving and denying a gas source to an OOA diver in the recreational setting is one of them.

No, it's not a joke. Please tell me what skill you could possibly have, other then seeing into the future, that would allow you to 100% guarantee that you won't have an equipment failure at depth?

And that doesn't sound harsh because I can see that you have reading comprehension problems. I never said that I wouldn't share my air. I've said many times that I would follow the same air sharing procedure as someone without a pony bottle. I really can't make it much clearer then that. And I still stand behind my statement that I would never hand off my pony bottle. There is no need. None. Zilch. Nada.

Also, this isn't about poor gas management as far as I'm concerned. It's about catastrophic equipment failure. I have my gear serviced all the time too, that doesn't mean that something can't still break. And thinking that you have some special power that would allow you to prevent this is laughable.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

not diving rock bottom is stupid, relying on ability to ditch weights is also stupid, many are still here obviously but that doesn't mean it is smart. Practice orally inflating, it's good for you and could save your life. Dive Rock Bottom, the only reason not to is if you have a more conservative way of scheduling your ascent pressures, which are usually calculated by doing rock bottom at a deeper depth than what you'll be diving at.

If you are shore or drift diving you are still planning a modified rock bottom, but since your dive isn't being conducted at one depth for most of the dive it is very different. You always have rock bottom when you're at your current depth and that is what matters.

I am not sure what you just said but I am still laughing.

So I am diving Modified Rock Bottom even though I don't think I am? Or is this one of those Zen paradigm things that is only seen when I reach the top of the mountain?

"“Rock Bottom” was conceived. This is the amount of gas required by two divers to deal with the problem at hand and ascend safely while sharing gas on one tank. Both divers would need to calculate “Rock Bottom” and practice it so that if either system failed, both could rely on the working system during the ascent to the surface."

I am thinking of me and how I dive - not getting us both to the surface and with a reserve of 500psi and certainly not calculating my buddies RMV. My pony is for an emergency - I am using my air until I believe I am too close to the NDL or I need to surface with a small reserve to get back on the boat for me.
If my buddy needs more than my 19 cu ft pony - I hope they have another source of air or they skip their safety stop - because I don't have anymore air to give.

 

[tbone1004]

you don't have to calculate your buddies rmv, just estimating at 1 makes for easy numbers. Rock bottom is calculated based on your planned operating depth. If you are shore diving and going out to your depth, turning at halves or halves plus 2 or whatever, you're still diving within rock bottom limits you just haven't calculated it. If you're drift diving and have a planned gradual ascent for however long you are still diving within those limits.

Why would you not plan on using that pony in an OOA ascent? I just don't get it, that is part of your emergency planning, use it....

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Ok - I thought DIR required RB for both you and your buddy. Pony use is fine - that is why I carry it but I am not expecting to use it - I want it for my next dive too.

 

[tbone1004]

with a pony bottle you only calculate for you since you aren't planning on buddy breather and moving to buddy breathing on a pony would require a double OOA incident which isn't planned for. DIR also doesn't use pony bottles so there is that.

You don't need to know your buddies or your SAC rate for that matter because you can just set them both at 1 and call it good. The down and dirty way to calculate it is to round to the nearest atmosphere and calculate assuming both divers breathing at 1.0

i.e. 33ft is 2ata, 2x 2.0 is 4.0, one minute to fix stuff, one minute for ascent, three minutes for safety stop is 4.0*5=20cf or about 800psi in an AL80. This is very conservative because you aren't using average depth. Alternatively you can set 3 minutes at the bottom 3 minutes at 15', and use average depth and go 7 minutes total * 1.5*2.0=21cf, also about 800psi in an al80. For 99ft you do the same but use 2.5ata, so 8*2.5*2=40, so about 1500psi in an al80 which about right for an ascent. Even just ascending from 1500psi, that diver is going to use about 400psi from an al80 for normal ascent with a 5 minute safety stop, so they're coming back to the boat a little early at that depth, but it's safe. Because you're using somewhat high sac rates for calculation that is your 200 PSI reserve at the very end and odds are you won't be doing a 5 minute safety stop, or taking 3 minutes at depth.

 

[DaleC]

No, it's not a joke. Please tell me what skill you could possibly have, other then seeing into the future, that would allow you to 100% guarantee that you won't have an equipment failure at depth?...

You are playing a little slippery with your words here but let's play nice and talk ideas instead of personalities.

No one ever said they could avoid equipment failures. These things happen. What makes an equipment failure a simple problem to adjust to or a catastrophic event is mindset, proper equipment use and intelligent procedures. That is why I oppose the idea that a pony is anything other than another shared gas source. The thought that it cannot be shared because it is "special" violates one of the tenets of recreational diving that helps to keep equipment failures simple problems. Let's look at some failures to see how that works:

You go OOA. Your primary gets hard to breath and you look at your SPG and realize you have somehow breathed your backgas to zero (Palm to forehead moment). Calmly switch over to your pony and signal your buddy you need to ascend (thumbs up). On the surface apologize and buy a round of beer later on. Also review your monitoring skills if you remember (forgetful monkey).

You suffer an equipment failure. Same as You go OOA only you may or may not owe your buddy a guilty beer.

Your buddy goes OOA. Your buddy swims up to you and signals they are OOA. Offer them your donation reg but really let them take what ever reg they reach for at that moment, to avoid stress. Let them calm down and begin to surface, swapping to a better reg configuration if the situation allows but don't dwell on it unduly. On the surface slap their forehead with your palm and suggest they buy the first round later on.

That's how much of a nonevent OOA's need to be if you just remember what's important and don't get fixated on which tank is especially yours or waste time clipping and unclipping stuff when you don't need to.

The only variable in the plan would be a human response (panic) which is best mitigated by practice, planning and reducing stress. The best way I can think of to exacerbate that condition is to attempt to deny someone an air source when theirs doesn't work. That's why thinking your pony is somehow special and yours only is counter productive.

I do not trivialize going OOA but I do trivialize my response to it in the moment, in terms of keeping that response as simple as possible and removing as many impediments that I can aka the KISS principle. All the gas I carry is breathable so it is breathable. Ownership is a mute point. Get on it and get to the surface.

Now, explain what breathing related catastrophic equipment failure would not fall into the above three categories or would not be resolved in those ways.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Why would you plan like that? That doesn't make sense.

Pony bottles exist for one reason, to get someone to the surface in the event of an OOA situation. This situation occurs for one of two reasons, your buddy ran out of gas, or you ran out of gas, either for being an idiot and literally just running out of gas, or a failure. Either way you have a redundant source of breathing gas for an emergency. No discussions of inflators because you're going up, you're dumping gas, and frankly if the other guy is incapable of orally inflating their bc, and you are also incapable of orally inflating theirs, you deserve to die, literally that simple.

You plan for them the same way you plan rock bottom, you need a bottle big enough to get whoever is breathing on it to the surface as fast as possible. Minimum SAC planning of 1.0, 30fpm ascent rate, 5 minutes at 20ft, plus up to 5 minutes at depth to resolve an issue. Plan accordingly.

In an OOA situation you have three options. Ignore the bottle except in a true emergency *stupid*, hand off the bottle *only feasible if the other diver is competent, usually a diver is LOA or you have a good diver who had a regulator failure*, or you breathe off of your bottle. You are proposing option 1, BUT you are now risking both of your lives because if you are diving a similar sized tank, odds are your tank is already low, so why run the added risk of waiting until you deem the gas to be too low before switching over? If you planned your gas in the pony properly, why not give the OOA diver your primary, switch to your octopus, and once everything is figured out, switch over to your pony bottle so there is no risk of both of you being OOA?

I'm not sure I agree that my plan does not make sense. But here goes.. My pony bottle is back mounted and I have no way of knowing if there is any gas in it when i am actually diving. I've never had a failure that I was unaware of in the pony, but forgetting to turn the pony bottle on before a dive is within the realm of stupid human tricks that I have actually performed.

In general, I try to play the "game" that i don't have a pony. If a diver needs to share air with me, it is pretty likely that I have enough air in the primary to get us to the surface. If I know I have enough air, then I would prefer to keep the pony in reserve and I have no risk of going to it and finding it inoperable/MT etc.

That makes sense to me. My goal in this sort of situation is to get a reg in the victims mouth and begin an ascent immediately. My plan is not to communicate, signal or do anything else other than grab them and start the ascent. I wouldn't even check my air supply until we were moving toward the surface and we put 30 feet or so between us and the bottom.

Once this is occurring, I am hopeful I could then manage the ascent with zero or near zero kicking, just relaxing and ascending. At this time, I might take a peak at my pressure gauge and if we are down below maybe 700 psi I might start thinking about the pony bottle, but why drain the pony bottle or even use it, if i can make it up on my primary tank? Also you need to realize that I will dive to 100 ft using a 6 cu-ft pony bottle.

That's my plan.

 

[Steve_C]

That makes sense to me. My goal in this sort of situation is to get a reg in the victims mouth and begin an ascent immediately. My plan is not to communicate, signal or do anything else other than grab them and start the ascent.

Unless, it is very early in a dive and they swim up signaling OOA. you let them breath on your spare reg and clam down and you find out that the problem was their mouth piece came off and they did not know they could breath it and their spare was not where it had been when they did OW the week before (at the clip). So you find their spare and switch them back on it. Make sure they are fine and you continue the dive. Actual event. Immediately heading skyward would have turned a minor incident into a more serious one.