Kinking over hose to stop freeflow?

[shurite7]

Being able to reach back and turn the tank valve, suggested above, is a more reliable option.

The other option is to get with your buddy, call the dive and be ready to donate / receive if need be. When you reach the surface the free-flowing diver inflates his/her BCD while the buddy closes the tank valve.

 

[uncfnp]

Slowed it down but did not stop it.

 

[TMHeimer]

I would be very surprised if that can stop free flow.
Try it. Worst could happen is a rupture hose.

That was my thought. I had a hose break once when I inadvertently had the tank bottom on it and pulled it somehow while gearing up.
It would seem maybe difficult to "feather" it while also ascending at a safe rate, etc. Those are hard rubber hoses.

 

[grf88]

With a 1st. stage freeflow you could cause the octopus to start freeflowing and under some conditions the inflator could start to flow; that might get you to the surface faster but hardly desirable.

 

[CT-Rich]

• If it's a first stage freeflow then this won't work at all - it will just force air out the next easiest outlet which could be a secondary reg, or worse a bcd or drysuit inflator.
  
• Occupies a hand, or requires tying something around the kinked hose.

What you are describing here is a catastrophic first stage failure where the first stage IP goes up. If it did it on your primary it would do it on your secondary also. I doubt it would occur on your BCD or Drysuit (they use a completely different mechanism). I have had my Air II bleed during a dive because the first stage needed an overhaul. Most free flows are going to occur because of a failure in the second stage.

Hoses aren’t made to be kinked, so I wouldn’t try this on anything other than a hose you are going to retire anyways.

 

[grf88]

What you are describing here is a catastrophic first stage failure where the first stage IP goes up. If it did it on your primary it would do it on your secondary also. I doubt it would occur on your BCD or Drysuit (they use a completely different mechanism). I have had my Air II bleed during a dive because the first stage needed an overhaul. Most free flows are going to occur because of a failure in the second stage.

Hoses aren’t made to be kinked, so I wouldn’t try this on anything other than a hose you are going to retire anyways.

Some years ago Phil Ellis a member here conducted an experiment to see if the inflator would free-flow under those conditions

I posted this information on a DecoStop thread several months ago, but I am unable to locate the thread. I will repeat what we found when we tested an Apeks regulator.

We took an ATX-200, with an Apeks ATX100 safe second installed, and put it on our test bench. The second stage was "normally" tuned and the regulator was performing as would be expected for normal diving. The diver-adjustable cracking effort knob was turned one full turn from the easiest opening position, and the opening effort was measured at 1.2 iniches of water. We installed one of the industry standard inflators (ours came from a Dive Rite wing)
to determine the level of safety (or lack of safety) of having high intermediate pressure on a balanced second stage. The results were something like the following.

We increased the intermediate pressure in increments of 25 pounds. We moved the pressure up to 275 psi before the inflator began to "auto fill". At that point, we removed the inflator to determine when the Apeks second stage would open. At 400 PSI, I decided to terminate the test due to other unknown possible safety concerns with the test. At the time of termination, the Apeks second stage had still not opened and provided relief for the pressure. I repeated the same test with an inflator from a ScubaPro jacket. That inflator opened at a pressure of about 250 psi.

Our conclusion was that a diver, using an Apeks regulator set-up, should certainly have some sort of provision for high-pressure seat failure. Our conclusion was that a spring-tension, non-adjustable OPV would be the best solution. These types of OPVs present very little actual practical potential of failure, are extremely low profile, and are not terribly expensive. Of course, you could also use an un-balanced second stage, of some other make and model, as a back-up regulator to accomplish the same thing.

The risk of an inflator "runaway", all of the training and reaction to problems of this sort aside, is much too large, in my opinion, to dive these units without an OPV. There will clearly be some dispute from many with regard to our conclusions, and that is OK. We also represent a fairly intelligent group of divers here at our store, and my IMMEDIATE reaction was to put OPVs on ALL of our personal Apeks first stages. The link below will take you to the type of OPV we used and the type we most often sell.

OPV Valve - 200 PSI Pre-Set Pressure Relief

Go to the bottom of this page for the OPV.
Thanks,

Phil Ellis

 

[rick00001967]

The other option is to get with your buddy, call the dive and be ready to donate / receive if need be. When you reach the surface the free-flowing diver inflates his/her BCD while the buddy closes the tank valve.

seeing as this is the basic scuba forum, the above is what should be done. you may even have your buddy close the tank valve before or during your controlled ascent. then treat it as an oog situation.

does any agency teach feathering a single tank bm to new divers ? i know i sure don't. i do not think that is a very practical solution.

 

[Ayisha]

...you may even have your buddy close the tank valve before or during your controlled ascent. then treat it as an oog situation...

Having a buddy close a tank valve while sharing air during a freeflow might be fairly common in some areas, but it can pose a risk to the OOG victim if the two might separate for some reason, if the victim can't or doesn't turn their own gas back on.

If a buddy team is going to use that protocol, it should be agreed upon in advance, and each buddy should be able to manipulate their own valve.

 

[CuzzA]

Five years later the hose I kinked is still going strong.

I think we overthink things. I'm sure all my hoses have been kinked numerous times while transporting my gear. Our gear is tough. It needs to be to survive the rigors of diving.

 

[shurite7]

seeing as this is the basic scuba forum, the above is what should be done. you may even have your buddy close the tank valve before or during your controlled ascent. then treat it as an oog situation.

This certainly can be done. Is there a agency that has this skill in standards or the instructor guide? In PADI and NAUI there is no such thing. The vast majority of people learn to breathe from a free flowing reg, but none actually learn what to do when it happens. What I don’t like about the above option is, if two people breathing off a single air source then there is a chance of causing the the donor’s reg to free flow. So, it is preferable to the initial diver to continue breathing off his/her reg while making the ascent.

Earlier this week I just read an article about an incident that took place with this scenario - neither diver did not make it.

does any agency teach feathering a single tank bm to new divers ? i know i sure don't. i do not think that is a very practical solution.

I can only answer for NAUI and PADI and that is no. Feathering from a BM would be impractical for many divers, unless one practiced a lot at it, but who does that.