Doing it Left

[The Chairman]

I have had both in the same class... and I teach them how to adapt. Not everyone dives the same gear configuration, and it's best to see many. In fact it is safer to know more ways and not fewer ways to do things. Heck, in the pool I dive a standard reg with short hoses on both of my secondstages and a console. When I hit the first OW dive, I am using a steel tank with an H valve and I use a long hose as well. I share air with every one of my students and they share air with each other. When I do the final two dives, I wear my doubles but with the same hose config. I don't produce "confused" divers, but ones that are well on their way to solving problems as they arise.

 

[JeffAustin]

NetDoc once bubbled...


Think about how standardized it isn't... Other than a steering wheel/brake pedal/gas pedal... there is a TREMENDOUS amount of variation. Or do you think a bus drives the same as an ultra compact, or Sport Utility handles curves like a Sports Car? How about power plant options: gas/diesel/rotary/piston/ or drive train: FWD/RWD/automatic/manual/hydraulic clutch/mechanical clutch, or the brakes... power/manual/disc/drum/antilock. And back to the steering wheel pedal config... they can either be on the right or the left side of the vehicle.

as far as operating controls are concerned, the things we manipulate while we are driving, there is not a lot of difference between any two cars. The degree of refinement is different, but they do the same thing. You operate the same controls to get a similar result. You can be taught to drive a Yugo, but then go and drive a pick up truck and be fine.

my contention is that this is not found in the sport of scuba and a lot of divers find themselves diving with someone whos set up is a lot different than theirs. I'm not just talking about BCs. I see all sorts of scary set ups coming out of the water, someones idea of a better mousetrap, it works for them, but others would need time to figure it out before they could help in an emergency, that is not being safe, IMO.

 

[The Chairman]

and you are simply wrong! :tease:

Where is the key? Hey, Saabs have them between the two front seats.

Shift or Automatic? You might learn in the second and never make the transition to the former. Then you have to learn the different gear patterns for manual. What if they put the gear selector on the steering wheel (like many pickups) and not on the floor? Oops, it might be a four wheel drive with yet another gear shift!!!

What if your car is English? Whoops... there goes your standardization. I gots to sit on the other side and all of them thar pedals are reversed!

Now how about placement of some necessities, like lights and wipers and such. Whoa! How do I toggle my brights? Is it a button on the floor or a click of the turn indicator? Hey even the stinking radios are all different! Is your trunk release on the lower left or in the glove box like in a VW or some Renaults?

Now consider all of this and the fact that many, many people drive different cars every day at high speed without an accident and you start to get the idea of how adaptive man is to his environment. Of course, if you have the wrong attitude, we will probably be burying you, even if you are driving the exact same car day in and day out.

Driving that brand spanking new Sports Utility didn't kill him... it was attempting to negotiate a 25 mph curve at 75mph during a rain storm that did him in. Standardized gearing would have made absolutely -NO- difference in that situation, now would it? Using the logic that standardizing cars would make them safer then we should all drive the same car and accidents would be a thing of the past. But, we KNOW that wouldn't be the case... accidents would be just as numerous as the bad drivers are. Just like Scuba!

 

[detroit diver]

leadweight once bubbled...
I have never (so far as I can remember) made a post against the long hose. If it became dominant I would adopt it. Does that amaze you?
.......)

Dominant? What if it was just right? Ever tried it?

 

[Former FLL Now MSP Diver]

WreckWriter once bubbled...

I'll be happy to elaborate. Within 2 years every agency will be teaching the long hose and every manufacturer will be pushing BP and wings. Hide and watch.

WW

Who taking the bets?

Marc

 

[metridium]

leadweight wrote...
There are members of this board that try to push the BP&W on every diver that strolls through here.

Nah, they're just trying to make sure newbies know there's something besides poodle jackets and trashbags.

 

[JeffAustin]

in continuing this discussion ...
Pete, you always struck me as a voice of reason.

You, sir, are way off on this one.

 

[metridium]

WreckWriter wrote...
I'll be happy to elaborate. Within 2 years every agency will be teaching the long hose...

Are you kidding?

It'd take twice that long just for one particular agency to disengage its head from its backside....

unless it smells a way to make a few extra bucks.

How could they manage that?

Optimum Long-hose Deployment Specialty?

 

[leadweight]

detroit diver once bubbled...


Dominant? What if it was just right? Ever tried it?

What if I tried it? No one would notice anyting until someone ran out of air and in an enviornment where a 1 meter hose was not long enough.

Its definitely a what if a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it question.

2 years until PADI teaches the long hose? Good luck, they might mention it in their literature so that divers that use standard hoses know what to do if diving with some clod with a bungeed octopus who does not hand them their primary in an out of air emergency, so they don't die when they grab the bungeed second.

Ever consider that having a free octo allows an out of air diver to grab that regulator from an inexperienced diver without drowning the donor? Sometimes I get tired of hearing this urban ledgend about always taking the main. Not everyone is a fully trained DIR diver.

For every argument that DIR puts forth there is another way to do it, especially in the recreational setting or if you mix DIR and non DIR divers.

Disconnect.

 

[metridium]

leadweight wrote...

Doing it Left
Dive like a fish

Halibut-style?

Or just floundering?