Simultaneous solo diving or team bailout?

[northernone]

I was taught team bailout, mathematically it sounds nice... I've been questioning if it's simply an extension of the buddy system with the same basic flaw... you have to insure a functional buddy is involved.

Practically that is beyond my risk tolerance. I dive with a buddy as a bonus, not a necessity. At the end of the day an al80 fits most places a 30 does. Same goes for multiples. I've had dives where I'm happy a pair of cave filled lp131s were involved, even when my back complained getting them out of the water after. Why do we often try to keep the absolute minimum reserves possible?

In the extreme... If I'm unable to return to the surface I don't want my buddy to also risk death because he wasn't willing to strip my corpse of the bailout required to safely finish his dive in the case of cascading failures.

Diver separation is a reality in all levels of diving, particularly reading accident reports. Planning like it doesn't happen (even though it shouldn't) seems unnecessarily risky.

For those of you comfortable with team bailout, what factors have you accepting it's risks?

Regards,
Cameron

 

[tbone1004]

we have team bailout for two things in caves
scooters
buddy bottles

The scooters are more of a practicality thing because towing is still possible, etc. but the buddy bottles are taken in outside of the actual requirements that we need to get home. They're more of a "if sh!t REALLY hit the fan" they'd be nice to have mentally, but there should be no reason to ever touch them.

In OW, it's fully self sufficient in my book except for extra hang bottles on the deco line that function similar to buddy bottles

 

[LiteHedded]

I was taught team bailout, mathematically it sounds nice... I've been questioning if it's simply an extension of the buddy system with the same basic flaw... you have to insure a functional buddy is involved.

Practically that is beyond my risk tolerance. I dive with a buddy as a bonus, not a necessity. At the end of the day an al80 fits most places a 30 does. Same goes for multiples. I've had dives where I'm happy a pair of cave filled lp131s were involved, even when my back complained getting them out of the water after. Why do we often try to keep the absolute minimum reserves possible?

In the extreme... If I'm unable to return to the surface I don't want my buddy to also risk death because he wasn't willing to strip my corpse of the bailout required to safely finish his dive in the case of cascading failures.

Diver separation is a reality in all levels of diving, particularly reading accident reports. Planning like it doesn't happen (even though it shouldn't) seems unnecessarily risky.

For those of you comfortable with team bailout, what factors have you accepting it's risks?

Regards,
Cameron

In what scenarios were you taught to consider splitting up your bailout as an option?

 

[northernone]

Was introduced pragmatically during an recreational ccr class I sat in on.... 3 person team, 2/3 of individual bailout each. Individual RBT calcalculations needed 60 cube and there happened to only be 3x 40 cube tanks available. Don't lose your team and you'll be fine, rather than replan the dive or carry bigger tanks. It was not my finest instructor interaction but was what was taught and we did. Sounded logical at the time because it would need two cascading failures to become an issue.

 

[tbone1004]

Was introduced pragmatically during an recreational ccr class I sat in on.... 3 person team, 2/3 of individual bailout each. Individual RBT calcalculations needed 60 cube and there happened to only be 3x 40 cube tanks available. Don't lose your team and you'll be fine, rather than replan the dive or carry bigger tanks. It was not my finest instructor interaction but was what was taught and we did. Sounded logical at the time because it would need two cascading failures to become an issue.

at least in a technical world, we plan for two catastrophic failures, and pray that there isn't a third when practical.
In the case of 60cf each required, you carry either dual 40's and go to SCR mode if the electronics and one bottle go to sh!t, or you carry a single 80 and stay with your buddy. You can't plan for more, but you have to at least plan for 2.
If I was in OW in that scenario, I'd take a pair of 40's for myself, or ideally lp45's/50's

 

[northernone]

at least in a technical world, we plan for two catastrophic failures, and pray that there isn't a third when practical.
In the case of 60cf each required, you carry either dual 40's and go to SCR mode if the electronics and one bottle go to sh!t, or you carry a single 80 and stay with your buddy. You can't plan for more, but you have to at least plan for 2.
If I was in OW in that scenario, I'd take a pair of 40's for myself, or ideally lp45's/50's

Sounds sensible to me.. realized as soon I posted where I was 'taught' by one person wasn't applicable in a tech context. Sufficient individual bailout has been emphasised by my proper tech instructors/mentors/ friends. Perhaps I did the rec guy a disservice in characterizing his class as applicable to the tech context.

Perhaps team bailout as defined by insufficient individual bailout isn't a practiced behavior anymore? Similar to alpinest tech divers?

Regards,
Cameron

 

[LiteHedded]

Sounds sensible to me.. realized as soon I posted where I was 'taught' by one person wasn't applicable in a tech context. Sufficient individual bailout has been emphasised by my proper tech instructors/mentors/ friends. Perhaps I did the rec guy a disservice in characterizing his class as applicable to the tech context.

Perhaps team bailout as defined by insufficient individual bailout isn't a practiced behavior anymore? Similar to alpinest tech divers?

Regards,
Cameron

highly recommend to carry enough gas to get you to the surface, breathing, without your teammates.

 

[tbone1004]

Sounds sensible to me.. realized as soon I posted where I was 'taught' by one person wasn't applicable in a tech context. Sufficient individual bailout has been emphasised by my proper tech instructors/mentors/ friends. Perhaps I did the rec guy a disservice in characterizing his class as applicable to the tech context.

Perhaps team bailout as defined by insufficient individual bailout isn't a practiced behavior anymore? Similar to alpinest tech divers?

Regards,
Cameron

it's still taught, and still practiced. Frowned upon by most of us, but it's still done... Scary to see how often you see it in caves

 

[MegDiver792]

My dive buddy and I dive each with full bailout for the dive. The only time we flip to team bailout, is for 4 hour dives, where we each carry an additional 40 of deco gas, but know with 1.5 hours of deco, individually we dont have enough BO gas in 2 80's.

 

[PfcAJ]

My dive buddy and I dive each with full bailout for the dive. The only time we flip to team bailout, is for 4 hour dives, where we each carry an additional 40 of deco gas, but know with 1.5 hours of deco, individually we dont have enough BO gas in 2 80's.

You can’t carry enough gas for a 1.5hr deco? Really?