ajduplessis
Contributor
Even though I am at least a hundred of dives away from solo diving, I have been thinking about solo configurations recently. I'm mostly interested in solo diving up to 60ft (20m) in warm or almost warm water (with a wetsuit), with a light nitrox gas (32 or 36) and no decompression stops, for dives up to 2 hours.
This is what I came up with :
- steel twin tanks, with a closed manifold and a suitable wing
- an aluminium tank, neutrally or slightly positively buoyant
- the usual gear...
The purpose of the closed manifold is that, in case of a reg or o-ring failure, you can just forget about valves and take your time to surface without stress.
The purpose of the aluminium tank is that, in case of a wing failure and inability to swim your way to the surface, you can just get rid of the twin tanks and surface with the aluminium tank
I think that a closed manifold may be better than independent tanks because you can open it from time to time underwater to make sure that there is the same amount of gas in both tanks, and close it immediately afterwards.
Please let me know what you think about it
Firstly, I don't know if any o-ring failures on manifolds ever!!!! Valve drills are easy and this skill should remove any doubt your might have.
Secondly your thought process in managing wing failure by doffing the twins and surface with ALI is EXTREMELY dangerous. The buoyancy swift will be too great, only way to compensate is more lead that will cause more problems. dive a second wing or drysuit, no more worries.
Lastly, you should be proficient with valve drills as mention in my first comment. I dive with my manifold valve 1/4 turn open from fully closed, thus a single turn to close valve is needed and takes 2 seconds max.
Fundamentally I am most concerned about your overall thought processes for this kind of diving which should have been addresses in formal training.
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