Long hose for a new diver

[Slonda828]

Sas,

Thanks for your intelligent and well thought out comments. You can do whatever you want (as you well know), you're a grown woman. I was really talking about when I recommend things as a DM. I cannot really advocate people on one of my trips using a long hose to extend their dives, but as far as personally I could care less what people do when they are not in a capacity to say I acted negligently.

So, based upon your personal experiences you like using a long hose setup all the time. Based upon mine, I like using one sometimes (overhead dives) and not others (when guiding dives). I dig that, you and I occassionally have differing opinions. Still, you represent yours so politely and intelligently that I have zero issue with that. Are there times when you view the long hose as a pain?

 

[Teamcasa]

One other poster mentioned a danger exists of a buddy taking a long hose, and sky rocketing to the surface. This is an unrealistic complaint---a diver planning on rocketing would try the same thing with a "normal short hose", and to control them, the donating diver would still have to hold them to prevent the rocketing--they should not attempt to control the diver by holding the hose --they need eye contact and their hands on the bolting diver------and again, the buddy should have never run OOA if you had been monitoring their air all along, so the liklihood of the rocketing ( providing you don't let them get too low on air) is no longer a big issue.

Should have, could have, would have. Well the OP and I were talking about a brand new diver. One that may have a problem sharing air in any event but at least with a standard hose they have a fighting chance of controlling the situation.

From my experience, having a long hose allows uncomplicated air-sharing and can reduce the stress and task-loading of an emergency situation. It provides a higher degree of ease, personal space and more flexible options for emergency ascents.

If taught to use the system properly (including the deployment and stowage of long hose), then it has some serious benefits for any recreational diver.

Again, we are talking about a brand new diver, not some well seasoned diver with 100's of dives to their credit.

Just what would constitute a serious benefit as it relates to a recreational OW diver?

 

[Sas]

All these comments make me curious, so I am going to level here. I have never once had to donate air to someone in over 6 years of diving.

What makes you feel like you can comment on what is appropriate hose-wise in OW then? I don't mean to be snarky at all, but I am curious as to why you seem to be dismissive of the long hose setup when you have never had to use it in a true OOA emergency? I find actually experiencing problems really does alter my perspective sometimes.

Some of you make this whole long hose thing (bear in mind I have one too) to be like a life and death thing for open water diving, which I really feel is bad case of groupthink that sometimes happens here.

I fail to see anyone where making it a life or death thing?

I am not anti-long hose (remember, I use one, just not all the time), but a great deal of people on here are certainly anti-standard hoses.

Sure I am anti-standard hoses. I am anti- any bit of gear that I have tried and found severely lacking. But everyone is different so I don't think others should be offended by the fact I do not like their equipment setup. I am sure plenty of people do not like mine and they are free to chose not to dive with me as a result if that is what they like.

Keep in mind that for the first 40 or so years of diving we didn't have long hoses, and people weren't dropping like flies. I understand if it's the only way you will dive, but I hesitate when people give me this whole "any other way is dangerous" line of malarky.

Firstly, just because people were not dropping like flies does not mean that their gear was just as efficient. I haven't seen many people say 'any other way is dangerous'. There are always zealots though, on both sides of the fence, but it is hardly the majority.

There are definite disadvantages to the long hose setup. Try diving a river or a snag rich environment with one. I had that stupid snap-swivel on my primary tangle around a piece of bridge debris so bad that I thought I was going to have to cut it away with my knife. Beaching diving with that setup is a pain in the rear too, because with the secondary around your neck it love to freeflow on the swim out to sea.

Actually I have dived in snag rich environments and two thirds of my dives are beach dives. I have experienced neither of those problems. I find I get snagged less often (hardly at all) with my current hose setup. But if you do not find this that's cool, but your experience is not necessarily going to be the norm.

I'm not trying to be the squeeky wheel here. I just wish that some of you would finally admit that the long hose setup is not the holy grail of diving. I don't run around saying that everyone should use a 26" primary and 40" secondary. The mission dictates the equipment, not the other way around.

Sure.

 

[Slonda828]

Just what would constitute a serious benefit as it relates to a recreational OW diver?

I was curious about this as well. So far the closest thing I have heard is that some people like it better as a personal preference. I personally like to have a firm grip on someone's BC or harness when I share air with them, a practice I carry over from buddy breathing. It also gives me enough proximity to manage their buoyancy if they are kirking out on me.

I understand if someone tells me they prefer a long hose, and I respect it. I just get wary of that whole "the long hose is a far superior way to dive" rhetoric. In a wreck or a cave....sure, absolutely. I just have trouble seeing the serious benefits on a West Palm drift dive, especially because you would be the ONLY person there with that setup unless you brought an identically equipped buddy with you.

 

[Sas]

I dig that, you and I occassionally have differing opinions. Still, you represent yours so politely and intelligently that I have zero issue with that.

Thanks Same here with your posts. I never mind when people disagree with me. Often it points out areas I have not considered in my thinking, and whilst I may not change my mind I do learn more!

Are there times when you view the long hose as a pain?

When like an eejit I forget to take off my backup from around my neck sometimes when I take off my gear and it strangles me! When I was new to using this setup a few times I forgot to check that the two hoses were correctly placed - example here, one of my earlier dives with this set up, which would be messy when donating. I always encorporate a check to make sure my hoses are placed correctly before a dive and do not have this problem anymore. Basically the only issues I have found have been user-error and just getting used to the setup early on. But it doesn't take long.

I was curious about this as well. So far the closest thing I have heard is that some people like it better as a personal preference. I personally like to have a firm grip on someone's BC or harness when I share air with them, a practice I carry over from buddy breathing. It also gives me enough proximity to manage their buoyancy if they are kirking out on me.

You can do this with a long hose. My buddy occassionally pretends to be out of air and panicking (often I can't tell if he is really OOA or not), and I have had no issue having a firm grip on him.

 

[Slonda828]

Thanks Same here with your posts. I never mind when people disagree with me. Often it points out areas I have not considered in my thinking, and whilst I may not change my mind I do learn more!



When like an eejit I forget to take off my backup from around my neck sometimes when I take off my gear and it strangles me! When I was new to using this setup a few times I forgot to check that the two hoses were correctly placed - example here, one of my earlier dives with this set up, which would be messy when donating. I always encorporate a check to make sure my hoses are placed correctly before a dive and do not have this problem anymore. Basically the only issues I have found have been user-error and just getting used to the setup early on. But it doesn't take long.



You can do this with a long hose. My buddy occassionally pretends to be out of air and panicking (often I can't tell if he is really OOA or not), and I have had no issue having a firm grip on him.

I hear you. I always try to do at least a modified S drill when I use the long hose, even if nobody else is configured that way.

 

[ptyx]

Are there times when you view the long hose as a pain?

When someone not used to the setup is handling your gear.

The expectation seems to be that once the BC is disconnected, one can just grab the first stage and move it somewhere else - with a long hose it ends up with a second stage bouncing on the deck or - more fun- one crew member at one end of the boat considering the second stage still clipped 7ft away and wondering who played a practical joke on him.

I had it happen a couple time on liveaboards, and it's no big deal - you get categorized really fast as 'the diver with weird gear, beware!'.

 

[Slonda828]

When someone not used to the setup is handling your gear.

The expectation seems to be that once the BC is disconnected, one can just grab the first stage and move it somewhere else - with a long hose it ends up with a second stage bouncing on the deck or - more fun- one crew member at one end of the boat considering the second stage still clipped 7ft away and wondering who played a practical joke on him.

I had it happen a couple time on liveaboards, and it's no big deal - you get categorized really fast as 'the diver with weird gear, beware!'.

Yeah, if I'm on the boat and I'm not the DM, I just tell the DM he can check my gear all he wants, but I am going to take care of setup and break down. That way he doesn't mess up the chrome on my second stage. It's just not a very frequent setup, so nobody really knows how to take you, especially in warmer water areas. The guy in the Caymans said straight up not to bring a long hose.

 

[danvolker]

Should have, could have, would have. Well the OP and I were talking about a brand new diver. One that may have a problem sharing air in any event but at least with a standard hose they have a fighting chance of controlling the situation.

More importantly, the OP was talking about his daughter as his buddy...he has a much greater emotional commitment than the average new diver, to concentrate on buddy skills, and to be prepared to "control" his daughter's ascent if he found himself in an OOA share with her....far more likely, he will have practiced air shares with her using the long hose enough, so that it would be a zero stress event for her to take the long hose and buddy breath till dive end.

Sharing with the "standard" short hose, means that both will find their swimming efforts impaired by the body of the other--and this is stressful for new divers or old divers. Many new divers using nonsense like the Air2, will find bouyancy control hindered, if not dangerously difficult for the buddy team.

Back to the central issue, your long hose is a choice made so that you can donate to your "chosen buddy"..in this case his daughter. It has not been chosen so that you can handle OOA scenarios with people you have never seen or dived with before, and are not even diving with when the OOA occurs...this is not to say you would not help an OOA diver you come accross on a reef dive, but should such an event occur, it is not someting the "brand new diver" is trained for, since this diver could be the worst of the worst, and a major danger to both father and daughter as new divers---it would not be a threat to me, and perhaps you would not find this as a threat, but the interest of the OP was in how he could best protect his daughter as a dive buddy--not how he could help the worst "Never-Evers" that should never have been certified in the first place...and he should not be diving near people like this either.


As to West Palm Beach drift diving, I have done more drift dives off of Juno and Jupiter and Boynton than you could imagine. After many thousands of dives on charter boats, I have had to donate air to people buddied to other divers on multiple occaisions. I did this back in the 80's with single hose regs--no octopus used back then...in the 90's with the standard short hose octo of today, as well as Air 2 for a few months till I decided it was stupid if it had to be used ( but great and simple as long as you did not need it
And in the mid 90's and beyond when I began using the long hose, I found donating was so much easier, regardless of how bad the OOA diver was....
In the drift dives off of Juno, a typical OOA issue would occur in mini season or lobster season, and could be a new diver I was diving with ( in which case, they would not get below 700psi--I would see they were that low, and give them the long hose--then swim over to the other divers we were with, so everyone would know we were calling the dive. If I had 2000 to a new diver's 700psi, I might grab one more bug, then begin the slow circling ascent...but we would both be swimming, comfortably, both controling bouyancy from the 95 to 100 foot bottom, to the 10 foot stop depth. Both would continue circle swimming for stop, and then when we surfaced, he would be back to his own reg for getting on the boat.

Real buddys versus NEW DIVERS could be another thread. But for the OP in this thread, the daughter is his over-riding concern, and he should use the long hose with her, and do lots of practice with both air share, and peripherol awareness of each other, along with constant air monitoring of each other.

 

[ligersandtions]

My internet was not working last night, so as much as I wanted to come on and respond to questions, I couldn't....I'm late to the party, but I'm here

Sas, ligers, Andy, everyone else...how many times have you actually given a diver one of your second stages (in any form) when they were actually, physically out of air? I understand if you dive that way because you like to (which I support), but do you HAVE to dive that way? Many of you seem to make it out to be that way.

I have never had to donate to an OOA diver. The funny thing is....there are people who practice, make sure skills are always up to par, and donate long hoses on almost every dive they do, and they are never the ones that get themselves into an OOA situation. The majority of people I dive with know, understand, and follow that principles set out in Rock Bottom....this means, barring a catastrophic failure, they will never run out of gas. However, in preparing for said catastrophic failure (or diving with a buddy who doesn't follow rock bottom guidelines), we will always be ready to donate air and keep that buddy safe.

I do dive with new divers on occasion, but we go over a thorough gas plan before the dive. We hit on the max depth, the rock bottom pressure, and keep to conservative profiles. I've not yet had an issue with a new diver going OOA, but if I do, I'll be there to offer my long hose.

Are there times when you view the long hose as a pain?

I haven't found any time that I've viewed my long hose as a pain. I route it under my can light to take up slack, around my body, and behind my head....there are no snagging/entanglement issues that I've ever run into.

I suppose the only time I've found it to be a pain is when I forget to un-loop it from behind my head before I take my rig off....likewise, if I forget to take off my bungeed back-up before removing the rig. I've done it a couple times, and always felt like an idiot, but you start watching out for those things and soon it won't happen again.

Otherwise, I've never found the long hose to be a pain, only an asset for me.

So far the closest thing I have heard is that some people like it better as a personal preference. I personally like to have a firm grip on someone's BC or harness when I share air with them, a practice I carry over from buddy breathing. It also gives me enough proximity to manage their buoyancy if they are kirking out on me.

I understand if someone tells me they prefer a long hose, and I respect it. I just get wary of that whole "the long hose is a far superior way to dive" rhetoric.

Like I said before, I like the option to have a firm grip on someone's BC or harness when I share air with them....you don't lose that option with a long hose, but you gain the option of being 7 feet away and letting each control their own buoyancy (granted, I would not trust doing this with a new diver most likely).

However, I have never once said "you're going to die" if you don't dive with a long hose or "my way is superior to yours and I wouldn't dive with you in a standard hose" or anything along those lines. Yes, I do feel like the long hose has many advantages that a standard hose can't offer, but that doesn't mean I would refuse to dive with someone because of their hose choice....I would explain why I use the long hose and how it works well for me.