Handing Off a Pony Bottle

[DaleC]

Using skill to stay safe? How do you use skill to avoid potential failures?

It's a set up for a joke right? Oh here it is...

Me personally, I like to forget that it exists. Then , when it is really needed, I'm like "oh s%&t" I have extra gas

I tend to dive a little differently. I like to remain aware of my resources so that I don't have "oh s%&t" moments.

On those occasions that I do dive with someone else they are welcome to any of the regulators I carry. That is because I have access to the remaining ones and every source has enough gas to get us to the surface due to proper planning and monitoring. I can surface on either my back gas or pony so I don't favor either and neither do I deny either to a buddy. That simply does not make sense and is a red flag to me that the diver suggesting it does not fully understand or trust their gear or procedures. Sorry if that sounds harsh but there are some concepts that should not be supported in team diving and denying a gas source to an OOA diver in the recreational setting is one of them.

 

[KenGordon]

If thinking of handing off or dumping any cylinder you need to consider weight. Can you stay down as required without that cylinder? It would count as poor show to discover you cannot in the middle of an assisted accent.

As mentioned above, passing cylinders between divers is not a trivial skill for either party. If the OOG diver is really OOG so no gas for their BC and you hand them a nice 2kg negative 3l steel and valve which way are they going? (This works for a full AL80 or 7l too)

How many agencies teach taking a barge pole to fend off mad clinging OOG divers? How many teach getting hold of them, making eye contact and being reassuring?

 

[uncfnp]

I don't imagine any event on my ascent unless my panicked buddy is sucking air so hard that I go OOA. Which of course is very unlikely. But there is no need to unclip my pony and hand it over when the air on my back works just a good.

If I carried my pony bottle on my back, this wouldn't even be a question. So why should it be any different because I sling it? Me personally, I like to forget that it exists. Then , when it is really needed, I'm like "oh s%&t" I have extra gas.

It really is just a choice I've made. No different then carrying two lights on a night dive as far as I'm concerned. Or hiding a $20 bill in my wallet and forgetting it's there until I really need it.

Ok then. It sounds like I misunderstood. I thought you considered your pony inviolate, for your hands only. But it's just your primary plan. Same as many of the rest of us. If however, as unlikely as it might be, something happened that required you to donate the gas from the pony, you will. For example, you donate your primary as planned, take your Air 2 then there is a signal from your buddy. He's not getting any gas. What do you do? Give him your Air 2 and you take the pony? I don't think either of you would be happy with this. Nope. You give him the regulator from the pony. And remember, this does not require you to hand him the cylinder (same as if the pony is attached to the main). And I am betting, if you ever did have to donate your primary and go on the Air 2, depending on the model and hose, you might just want to switch to your pony yourself at that point.

 

[Searcaigh]

If thinking of handing off or dumping any cylinder you need to consider weight. Can you stay down as required without that cylinder? It would count as poor show to discover you cannot in the middle of an assisted accent.

As mentioned above, passing cylinders between divers is not a trivial skill for either party. If the OOG diver is really OOG so no gas for their BC and you hand them a nice 2kg negative 3l steel and valve which way are they going? (This works for a full AL80 or 7l too)

How many INSTRUCTORS teach taking a barge pole to fend off mad clinging OOG divers? How many teach getting hold of them, making eye contact and being reassuring?

I certainly agree with KG, it was funny when I hand over my camera rig to my daughter the first time while I had to adjust something, I compensated immediately, she didn't, but now knows to do the same.

When doing my Rescue course waaaay back in the early 90s my instructor (ex-RN marine) had plenty of scenarios up his sleeve and two mental 6ft DMs in training, built like brick outhouses, who were only too happy to try and drown me at any opportunity. He was very serious about "you save yourself first" then help the OOG victim.

Panic management is important in dealing with these people too and eye contact is very important. I don't understand why some people advocate rescuing from behind (underwater) and hold the victim's tank with their knees, this will surely create more panic underwater and eye contact is necessary to help with communication to the OOG victim.

For surface rescues, you can communicate vocally and grabbing a drowning victim from behind is necessary but that is a different scenario completely.

Back to ponies, I always use a long hose on all my regs except stages and ponies and explain that to my buddies, they can grab either but I prefer that they let me know that they are OOG so I can hand over the reg on my long hose, calm them down if necessary then after checking the problem ascend in a controlled manner.

 

[DaleC]

As a general rule - there is a difference between a pony and stage bottle. A pony being a reserve, a stage intended to be used.

Can you donate your reserve? Sure. Is it a good idea? As good an idea as diving with the guy who needed your reserve.....

Hey, I missed this one and want to go back for a second because it shows a basic error in logic regarding ponies.

With correct gas planning (using the concept of rock bottom) you calculate how much gas you will need to ascend from your dive. For example let's say 20cuft is needed. Without a pony you then reserve twice this volume in your back gas ie. 40cuft (for both you and your buddy to ascend should one experience a failure).

With a pony you can divide that reserve volume between back gas and pony ie. 20cuft in one, 20cuft in the other. This still allows each diver access to enough gas to surface if a failure occurs.

When you understand that you can see why it does not matter if you donate your reserve (pony) gas or back gas because it is all the same. Every non pony diver who follows a correct gas plan would also donate their reserve because theirs and their partners is comingled. A pony diver has simply divided the shared reserve between two cylinders.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

I can only relate this story -
The only time I had an OOA situation - I was diving in Martinique and a person not my buddy came to me at 80 feet and tried to grab my reg. This was in the 80's or 90's I dont remember. But I remember we only had one reg on the rig with an SPG - no oct and no pony. She grabbed for my reg and I backed off and gave her the OOA slash across the throat. She shook her head - I took a breath and handed her my reg. She took it for maybe 20 seconds and it seemed like minutes and I remember I wanted it back. Because we were in warm water and down about 80 feet and I knew we had enough air. We swam to look for the DM - we had 80+ foot viz so it was fairly easy to find him close to the anchor. As we swam we shared the primary reg like we were taught - no one paniced and no one bolted to the surface. We were locked together as if it was a training exercise but I do remember thinking my god she is taking a long time giving me back that reg. I swam her over to the DM and he had an octopus which was great - I then finished my dive without my buddy - I have no idea what happened to him.
But that is the only time I had to share air since I learned to dive. I have since bought a pony for me for Solo dives. If I knew someone was paniced - I would not leave them alone but if it was someone I knew and they seemed fine - I see no reason not to get them breathing and on their own using my donated Pony clipped off. But we are ending the dive at that point - we may go up the anchor line but we are done and heading up very shortly.
I am not Rescue Diver certified but I think a reasonable person can help an OOA diver quite easily. A paniced diver - maybe not so easily - but what are they doing down there if they are prone to panic?

 

[AfterDark]

The only thing that can be done for/with a panicked OOG diver is to get them calmed down. Handing off a bottle to a diver in that state of mind isn't possible. Also every OOG diver isn't panicked. So the OP question itself is flawed IMO.

I only sling a pony when buddy diving to be able to hand it off, when soloing I use IDs, far superior to a smaller pony bottle IMO. It isn't my only plan and isn't set in stone. I don't have to hand it off, however I would prefer to hand it off after the diver is calm and we've started our ascent. I prefer to control my own buoyancy during an ascent and not have someone holding on to me potentially affecting my buoyancy and ascent rate. I dive with a lot of different divers with varied levels of skill, some quite likely would panic. Others I'm pretty sure would not. Options are important not getting stuck on one plan is too.

The 1st time I went OOG was a working dive, solo no pony, without surface support. I didn't panic even as the air got harder to draw and I was unable to free myself from the lines that my valve/regulator had gotten entangled in; my last option to doff my rig and CESA worked. No panic, just thought and action. Panic is the last thing a diver does.

 

[tbone1004]

I also normally dive an Air2 and a pony bottle and I have no octopus. So I too would donate from my mouth and would switch to my Air2 and begin an immediate ascent. If, during the ascent, I felt that the remaining gas in the main tank might be getting low, then I would switch to my pony in an attempt to preserve the remaining supply in the main tank.

Why would you plan like that? That doesn't make sense.

Pony bottles exist for one reason, to get someone to the surface in the event of an OOA situation. This situation occurs for one of two reasons, your buddy ran out of gas, or you ran out of gas, either for being an idiot and literally just running out of gas, or a failure. Either way you have a redundant source of breathing gas for an emergency. No discussions of inflators because you're going up, you're dumping gas, and frankly if the other guy is incapable of orally inflating their bc, and you are also incapable of orally inflating theirs, you deserve to die, literally that simple.

You plan for them the same way you plan rock bottom, you need a bottle big enough to get whoever is breathing on it to the surface as fast as possible. Minimum SAC planning of 1.0, 30fpm ascent rate, 5 minutes at 20ft, plus up to 5 minutes at depth to resolve an issue. Plan accordingly.

In an OOA situation you have three options. Ignore the bottle except in a true emergency *stupid*, hand off the bottle *only feasible if the other diver is competent, usually a diver is LOA or you have a good diver who had a regulator failure*, or you breathe off of your bottle. You are proposing option 1, BUT you are now risking both of your lives because if you are diving a similar sized tank, odds are your tank is already low, so why run the added risk of waiting until you deem the gas to be too low before switching over? If you planned your gas in the pony properly, why not give the OOA diver your primary, switch to your octopus, and once everything is figured out, switch over to your pony bottle so there is no risk of both of you being OOA?

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

No discussions of inflators because you're going up, you're dumping gas, and frankly if the other guy is incapable of orally inflating their bc, and you are also incapable of orally inflating theirs, you deserve to die, literally that simple.

How about just dropping weights? Must we die if we can not inflate a BCD? Really? Not sure I agree but I do agree everyone should be capable of inflating orally.

You plan for them the same way you plan rock bottom, you need a bottle big enough to get whoever is breathing on it to the surface as fast as possible. Minimum SAC planning of 1.0, 30fpm ascent rate, 5 minutes at 20ft, plus up to 5 minutes at depth to resolve an issue. Plan accordingly.

I dont plan using Rock Bottom and I am still here - not sure you "need" to dive rock bottom to have fun and be safe in an OW dive. But everyone has strong opinions on this board - it really depends on your profile and your confidence in your abilities and those of your buddy.

You need to know your limitations and dive within that framework - that I would agree with.

 

[Robert Thompson]

Interesting theories... I think unless you practice OOA drills with your dive partners you're going to find that it's an ugly proposition. Even still there is no way to know how they will actually act until you see them in an actual emergency situation. I've dealt with both passive and active panic in divers and both suck. I don't think there is one answer to this. I think you should have a good plan but also be able to adjust to the situation. Most of all make sure you're diving with someone who is within there training and abilities. Taking inexperienced divers far out of their comfort zone is a sure way to end up with issues.