Alec Pierce Scuba - Long Hose Good or Bad

[Heat Miser]

I watched the first video before he took it down .... and was a bit surprised. I watched the second video and there are three things I think are off-point. Firstly the guy donating the primary gets his auxiliary on the bungee caught in the first demonstration. Im sure Alec loves this, it is resolved in the second replay. Secondly Alec talks about the long hose wrapping around someone's neck twice. Thirdly I learnt OW with RAID and we were taught to donate the primary, so Alec, not all rec agencies agree that the yellow occy auxiliary gets donated first.

Long hoses are no longer the sole domain of Cave and Wreck Divers. I was diving last month with my 17 y.o. son. He hadn't dived for 6 months we were at 24 meter depth looking for grey nurse sharks. He signals to me that his rented air integrated computer failed. The first thing I do is hand him my primary on a long hose. The second thing I do is turn around and head for the anchor line to go up. It's going to take me 5-7 min at that depth to get him close to the surface safely. As we are heading back, I turn his computer over and see it has a functioning SPG embedded in the back of the computer housing. Less worried we stayed down another 12 min, knowing we could dive together, he had my long hose in his hand if there was a problem. We couldn't do that with a short hose because we'd be in vertical trim joined at the hip.

Finally in the classic example where an out of air diver swims up and rips the yellow occy from Alec chest, he is then entangled, vertical trim, in a death grip and Alec's shot up from 24 m (78ft) to 5 m (16ft) in the space of a minute .... you need space to move Alec! Your now in trouble locked in vertical lambada with panicked diver. What do you do?

 

[Brian G]

The video was not factual.

While the video contains plenty of Alec's useless babble, it was plenty "factual". Long hose is a feature that was developed for a specific scenario. Long hose is not a feature that a rec diver should just add to their kit without training. Secondary donate is safer for the donating diver.

There is no body of data that has appeared on Scubaboard that indicates that out-of-air divers are more likely to take the take the primary vs take/ask for the secondary, so that argument is simply speculation. If a diver does grab the primary out of your mouth, then having it wrapped around your neck and under a dummy canister/real canister or tucked into waist belt cannot be called a feature. In a rec scenario where the dive is to be terminated as soon as the out-of-air situation develops, then having a 7 ft hose is unnecessary (no overhead) and has significant potential issues. If the other diver grabs your long hose (after you unwrap it) and starts madly swimming for the surface, there might be very little you can do about it depending on size/ability.

If you want to dive a long hose because you like it, I will not argue against you. After facts, opinions are the next best thing, but opinions without a story are not really useful. Have you been in/seen a situation where a long hose was a benefit or an issue? I would love to read about that.

 

[formernuke]

I have been in a situation where the long hose was very useful pm if you want details.

 

[Brian Huff]

People sure do like to manufacture offense.

A few months ago, when I joined SB and got certified, I was all kinds of excited to learn tech skills and even thought I wanted to be a DIR guy. Made a few posts in that direction and was pretty quickly told "no, you're not. Go get some dives in first".

They were right.

Alec is CLEARLY stating "don't suggest long hose to new rec divers". He's talking to people just like me who are new and excited and want to do all the cool things the more experienced people are doing but really shouldn't until we're practiced and comfortable.

I've read so many posts here in which very experienced people poke fun of newbie rec divers that get kitted out like a tech diver with a BP/W, hog style, etc for having the equipment yet not understanding how to properly use it.

Alec is pretty much saying the same thing. Let the new rec diver practice the way they learned in OW class. If they want to go long hose, fine, go get some training and practice and have at it.

Yes, you can take some of his words and find fault in the specifics and totally miss the entire purpose of the video. Try posting up a video on YT about something people are opinionated about (hog style 2" webbing only or split fins???), people will pick it apart and manufacture offense and totally miss what your point was, it's the nature of the internet and arm-chair-commentators.

I'm not a big Alec watcher, his video style and side-topic-rambling isn't for me, but I applaud him in admitting he made a mistake in a previous video and attempt to clarify it.

 

[formernuke]

I switched to long hose early on, but when I did so I received training on it.

It has been brought up before, it is about being trained with and being comfortable in what you are using. After that take the time to brief your buddy you get this one.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

In the time it takes me to write this post, I could probably reconfigure my rec regs to long hose, primary donate, bungeed back-up, just like my tech rig.... but I'm not going to, cos they're perfectly good the way they are. Fit for purpose. Yes, there were a couple of anomalies in the video, but the sentiment was perfectly valid.

 

[MichaelMc]

A key point on being factual: In the first video, Alec takes a bare long hose, coiled in a hoop, and drops it around his neck. He got a lot of flack for that video and took it down. After that experience, and some weeks, he makes this second video in which he twice says there are multiple loops of hose around the head. After the feedback he got the first time, it seems very hard to be confused about there being no complete loop around the neck. Much less multiple ones, setting aside what lobster divers with 15'+ hoses might do. This video was titled about long hose. Whether there is a neck loop would be a key aspect of that. Which he screwed up, twice. On the second attempt to publish a long hose video! The options include him being very uninformed on the topic despite feedback, over worked, or deliberate.

There could, and have been, good discussions about primary vs secondary donate. On whether barely (un)qualified divers can handle swapping their reg vs all decent divers needing to ascend locked chest to chest with a stressed buddy. From there moving on to if going all the way to a 7' hose is worth some extra effort. Alec did not have that discussion. The Hickory scuba video did a decent job of it.

I'm a decent non-tech diver (scientific, flat trim, tiny sidemount, tiny doubles), I've done 'sometime you will signal OOA' dives with a good (scientific) buddy, who is also a TA in our program. On his octo, we lost buoyancy control from being chest to chest with no visibility of our environment. On my long hose, we were just hovering a bit apart mid water where we started, nothing hard.

To me the difference is night and day on safety, for a qualified diver, i.e., one who can handle swapping a reg with no worries. If you want to talk about unqualified divers, that can be a different conversation.

I'm not suggesting 7' for all. But longish primary donate, 'streamlined open water' setup, has my strong vote from my experience.

 

[Bob DBF]

.... you need space to move Alec! Your now in trouble locked in vertical lambada with panicked diver. What do you do?

Control the situation, in the same manner I, and probably he, was taught back before divers used, or even had a reg port for, an alternate second. Unfortunately, there is no longer time in OW to discuss, nevermind teach, how to control a stressed diver.

A long hose is good for diver in control of himself, it only gives leverage to a diver that is near or in panic. This is a point that long hose divers who have buddies that are well trained loose sight of because they no longer have the issue.


Bob

 

[MaxBottomtime]

If a diver does grab the primary out of your mouth, then having it wrapped around your neck and under a dummy canister/real canister or tucked into waist belt cannot be called a feature.

This is precisely why the video is wrong. It spreads false information to divers who don't know any better. The long hose is never wrapped around your neck. Alec keeps repeating that false statement, causing unknowing divers to believe it as fact. To donate a long hose, you simply bow your head and the out of air diver has plenty of room to get calm and make a controlled exit without having to hold onto the donor's BC and be so close that it makes controlling an ascent of two divers difficult.

 

[W W Meixner]

Words cannot describe... I had to stop at the halfway point. Lost a lot of respect for him for that gigantic bit of misinformation.... Hoping there was something correct at the end... Oh Alec ...

Hey Bob...

Alec is my neighbour...well...local area neighbour...I see him in the post office semi-regularly...

You have to remember where his head's at...Mike Nelson...''Long may he reign''...

The Amish don't live an 1800's era life-style because they have to...but because they like it...

Having said that...you could strangle a diver just as easy with at double hose regulator as you could with ''any'' single configuration...long hose or otherwise...

W.W...