Diving with a steel tank and a wetsuit??? A dangerous idea?

[somewhereinla]

An interesting story happened to me today and I really would like to get the DIR/tech divers opinion on the subject.

I have been needing a float for my L.A County ADP class and found a very good one at a good price on craig's list. I called the guy, we agreed on the price and I drove to his home. The guy is obviously an experience diver and a tech. diver as well. We start talking and I tell him I dive with a steel tank and a wetsuit. As soon as I tell him that, he starts telling me how dangerous it is, that I am a fool, that he would never dive with someone like me... well you get the point it actually started to get really awkward...
The reason he says that diving with a steel tank is dangerous it that if your BC fails, the negative buoyancy of the steel tank would make it impossible to go back up on a deep dive. I then told him that I could use a safety sausage or a lift bag to lift me back up should my BC fail, then he said if that failed too I wouldn't be able to go back up. He then went on saying that you should only dive with a steel tank if using a drysuit. And added again how much of a fool I was :shakehead

Is there any truth to that? Is it that dangerous to dive steel with a wetsuit? All the UICC instructors dive wetsuit and steel, actually most instructors or experience divers I ever see diving have steel tanks. Can so many people be wrong?

 

[amascuba]

It really depends on how negatively buoyant that you are going to be at depth, when your wetsuit is compressed, your tank is full, and your bcd gives out. A typical person can only easily swim up with about 10 pounds of negative buoyancy. Any more than that then the diver will struggle and possibly not make it. It's all apart of the balanced rig thing that is preached in DIR.

 

[somewhereinla]

Thanks, I am starting to feel a bit better... Again this was a very awkward, very bizarre situation. This man was in his sixties, seemed very experienced by looking at his equipment (doubles, deco bottle etc...) and was, well pretty insulting and almost angry toward me. It really got me thinking on my way back home...

I dive with a 7mm suit, a steel back plate and have to add 14 pounds of weight.

 

[TSandM]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

I have deleted almost all of the posts in this thread because of the forum in which it was posted. The OP appears, at least, to be asking the thought process behind the DIR proscription against diving steels tanks and wetsuits. Answers should address this issue.

If the OP wants a broader range of opinions on the subject, it should be reposted elsewhere.

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[David Watson]

This guy is an idiot. The only thing that matters is whether or not you can swim your tanks to the surface without the help of a buoyancy compensator. I can easily swim any steel single tank to the surface with a wet suit. Dump your weight belt and have at it.

David

 

[somewhereinla]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

I have deleted almost all of the posts in this thread because of the forum in which it was posted. The OP appears, at least, to be asking the thought process behind the DIR proscription against diving steels tanks and wetsuits. Answers should address this issue.

If the OP wants a broader range of opinions on the subject, it should be reposted elsewhere.

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I very much wish you had PM me before deleting anything as to what my thoughts were. Or at the very least repost it under another broader forum. I am quiet stunned...why in the world would you do something like that? :shakehead The spirit of this post is about a possible safety issue, raised by someone with obvious experience in the field of technical diving. I don't think that any posts with answers about safety issues should be deleted.

Why don't you re-post it under the general tech diving forum instead?

so much for the free circulation of ideas.

 

[Tanked Monkey]

I think the true issue here is being able to swim up your rig from depth. It is commonly accepted that you can swim up a single ST tank, but not double ST tanks. GUE divers dive a balance rig, right?

In your example the guy said that "if the wing failed..." and "if the sausage failed too..." There's a line we all must draw between reasonable contingency planning and what borders on rediculousness. We can plan for failures, but the likelyhood of multiple rare occurrances are statistically insignificant. Such as: if there's 1/1,000 chance of a reg failure, then it's 1/1,000 x 1/1,000 chance of 2 reg failures. That goes from 1 in 1 thousand for one reg failure to 1 in 10 million chance for 2 regs to fail. Sorry, but I'm not going to completely change everything I'm doing for a 1 in 10 million chance. That's what my teammates are for: the rare, unexpected, blindsided situation.

Mike

 

[somewhereinla]

Agreed, I should make clear that the comment was directed toward a single tank diving situation.

 

[xiSkiGuy]

I very much wish you had PM me before deleting anything as to what my thoughts were. Or at the very least repost it under another broader forum. I am quiet stunned...why in the world would you do something like that? :shakehead The spirit of this post is about a possible safety issue, raised by someone with obvious experience in the field of technical diving. I don't think that any posts with answers about safety issues should be deleted.

Why don't you re-post it under the general tech diving forum instead?

so much for the free circulation of ideas.

Perhaps you should have read the DIR forum rules before posting. Then you might understand what type of answers you were going to get and what types of posts would be deleted. Try the search feature if you are curious about other points of view. There are many threads on this very topic.

 

[AndrewJD]

I've always like this post regarding the issue of steel vs. aluminum for wetsuit diving...



Jonathan