Goodbye ponies

[String]

But how would we know if his buddy is unpredictable?

Which is the crux of the problem - you have no way of knowing if the buddy is reliable or not under pressure until an incident happens. That's also NOT the time you want to be finding out he can't handle it.

If we are to not rely on our buddies, then why even teach a buddy system.

It offers another possible layer of getting out of trouble. For new divers who dont bother carrying redundant air sources its the ONLY method.

If a diver holds your same beliefs, then they should no doubt be diving with a pony for just peace of mind.

BDSC

Correct. I believe ALL divers should be capable of getting themselves out of any situation they're going to get themselves into and not have to blindly rely on someone else. If that means carrying a redundant gas source to get to the surface then so bed it (or if shallow if the diver is happy with their ability to bolt 'n' prey instead)

 

[DwayneJ]

There are no guarantees, but in general your suggestion is wrong. Generally, the more experienced diver will be more capable.

No worries. I'm not talking about skills or task loading, which a more experienced diver would obviously handle. I'm talking about a truly stressful emergency whether it be equipment failure, poor judgement, or physical injury.

 

[divertitch]

PONY Part ONE.
I am a great believer in having a plan B. I would say that a pony is a great asset but lots of divers carry them but cant use them to full potencial. First thing to think of is when you are going to start using it. I say when you reach you reserve pressure you should go to your pony setup, the reason is if anything has gone wrong with it like a slow leak, reg no working, not turned on or the diver no locating the reg you can still go back to beathing from your main rig. If you wait till you run out of air you have no plan B. Going to your pony should tell you that the dive must be terminated at that time dont imagin you can carry on, surface safely and you wont even feel your dive was a problem. Even if any of the problems you ask about occure you will have time to go to plan B be that a pony or a buddy.

PONY part TWO
Dry suit divers normaly connect suit and BCD inflator to main rig. Low air pressure by rig failure or bad practice means that you will have no air for boyancy control. If you connect the BCD inflator
to the pony you will be able to use the BCD for boyancy when you swop to your pony.
I lost a diver because she went to her pony only after using all her main rig air, ditched to much air at 42m/130ft to start assent and had big problems with a swimming accent , used all the air in her pony getting to 6m/18ft, tried to share air with buddy and do a stop but with no boyancy control sank back to 42m. Brown bread. If she had swopped earlier she would have had options. Think of your plan b's

Sorry about my inglish i was not teached proper wen i was a children

 

[PuddleDiver78]

Seems pretty simple to me. Better safe then sorry. I wouldn't want to be at depth, having a problem and wishing i had my pony.

 

[Standingbear56]

There can be a million arguments for or against having a pony. The thought here is that if you aren't sure of which way to go, always go to the side of caution. I've never heard of anyone who carried a pony getting hurt because of it. I always teach my students about redundancy from day 1 of their OW classes, and I require a pony for the deep dive of the AOW class or anytime they are going below 60 feet. It's one of the skills I teach in the AOW confined water sessions so they have the required skills to mount and utilize the equipment properly. If the students decide to have a pony with them on all dives, so much the better. Think of it this way - you can have thousands of dives where absolutely nothing goes wrong, and that's a good thing. However none of that means a damn thing on the 1 dive during your entire lifetime when things go FUBAR in a few seconds. When the doo doo hits the fan, you may well indeed spend the remainder of your life thinking of all the reasons you should have had a pony. Better have it and never need it rather than to need it and not have it - especially since you will have a hard time breathing water.
Safe Diving,
George

 

[frankc420]

My wife and soon to be 2 kids is the reason I use a pony bottle, if I don't come up because of an air issue, they don't have a husband or daddy to look for at the end of the day. Plus, it's not a big hassle dragging it along.

 

[dutybooty]

Personally, I never go deeper than 20m without a twinset on.

This works anywhere. On holiday (vacation) carry some extra cam bands and use a wing that will accept singles or doubles. An extra few dollars to the dive shop owner will get you a set of independent twins, sometimes manifolded if they've got them!

Around your home town twinsets are always there because you've probably got them at home.

Twinsets, the redundant gas you use on every dive!

EDIT: I have no experience of H-valves and can't even profess to understanding them, but wouldn't a H-valved single do the same?

Anyway, gotta go, I'm on duty.

Dutybooty.

 

[Old Diver]

35 years ago I had a 2nd stage fail at 60'. I did an unhurried free ascent. That 35 years later I think that it might be a little less fun. In the process of further training I saw my instructor's first stage fail at about 10', this was last year. Any equipment can fail. I carry rigged as a stage a 19' setup which is easy to hand off or keep as required, I havent had to use it yet except as a drill, knock on wood!

 

[shoredivr]

I have no experience of H-valves and can't even profess to understanding them, but wouldn't a H-valved single do the same?

I dive single tanks which are H-valved. The gray steel tank on the left of the bottom shelf in my avatar is one of them. You have a first and second stage on each valve. In case of a first stage malfunction, or second stage free flow (which can happen easily in the cold water here in the Great Lakes, and especially in winter diving, as in diving right now), you simply shut down the problem side and switch to the backup. Problem solved, no more gas lost.

However, in the case of a blown tank o-ring or burst disk failure, you don't have an isolator valve to preserve half your remaining gas supply the way you have with double tanks.

Since there are more free-flows than blown tank o-rings, an h-valve makes sense to me for shallower dives. If I need extra redundancy I'll sling a pony or dive doubles.

 

[lowviz]

I am trying to build an argument for not carrying pony bottles around in my travels.

Do you do one or two dives on a fill?