Long-hose in the time of COVID-19

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During my open-water exam for getting the 3-stars CMAS extension to my certification, the examiner used to suddenly remove mask and/or regulator to the instructor being evaluated.
He did remove the reg to my wife, from behind, so she could not see him coming. Of course he waited she had expired, and starting inspiring. She did not drown, she coughed a little, grabbed her secondary, purged it pressing the button (as we were trained to do in such a case) and started breathing from it. She passed the exam.
To me, instead, he did remove the mask. But he made the error of making him visible. As he removed my mask, I removed his one, placed it on my face, evacuated it from water, and looked around... he was not around, as he did not expect my reaction, so he surfaced quickly. He was quite upset with me, and I seriously risked not passing the exam. After a long discussion with the other two examiners, they found I did not behave really wrong, as I did not panic, so I got my 3-stars degree.
However, the point was that in our training the case to have the regulator and/or the mask taken away was specifically included, and we were trained to manage the situation (well, I did not manage exactly as I should have been, indeed).

There is another point which was not discussed. If a normally-trained rec divers comes to you, and tries to grab the secondary, which is necklaced and with short hose, do you think that this will end well? He probably will not be able to breath from it comfortably, resulting in a mess. In think that my approach is the most robust: I can easily donate both the primary and the secondary, and I can survive whatever one is grabbed by a panicked OOA diver.
My primary does not have a hose so long as my secondary, but is still around 1m, which is enough for being donated without too much problems. None of the two is necklaced, the secondary has a quick-release attachment to my harness, which will free it just grabbing.
Of course before the dive with people who do not know me I ill show them my secondary with its bright long yellow hose, and suggest them to take this one if OOA. I really do not see why they should take my primary, but in the case, I was explictly trained to survive to such an action, and I hope to be yet fit enough for using my training and to avoid drowning...
 
long post, a third responding to a bunch of people, a third getting on a high horse and ranting, and a third of miscellaneous thoughts on the topic as I struggle to pick a side.

I was trained from day 1 in primary donate. I have never been trained in any other sort of OOG scenario other than primary donate.
I was taught, and still teach, the following arguments for primary donate.
1. Most important, you know without a doubt, that the regulator in your mouth is breathable. This is both that it functions as expected, and also is providing a breathable gas. Most common reason for failing to function would be some sort of debris stuck in the exhaust valve that will cause the diver to suck water and likely cause panic.
2. Experience says that a truly panicked diver will grab a working regulator from your mouth, so you are hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. If diver is panicking or on the verge of panic, then see point #1. The last thing you want is to hand them a regulator with a compromised exhaust valve because that first big breath in will more than likely cause a panic if they are on the edge.

The process we teach for primary donate, and is the standard for how it should be taught, is for you to switch to your secondary and validate function before you fully release the primary. This lets you check function and if you are well practiced, is done typically in less time than it takes most divers to fumble around and grab their octo. Under normal circumstances, you have more than enough time to swap because you can see it coming. If you don't, well you planned for the worst which was to have someone mug your primary and it's already gone. If the exhaust valve is not working properly, you've been trained on how to breathe from a freeflowing regulator and deal with that at least until you can get it fixed. You may not know if that other person has been trained on how to breathe from a reg with a failed exhaust diaphragm and then you circle back to inducing panic.
Once every few years, we have someone with some sort of health issue where we don't want to use primary donate either with them donating, or them receiving. You deal with it, but it's an exception and there are workarounds. The important takeaway is that with primary donate we are planning for the worst, but hoping for the best. If there is any real risk that someone is going to mug you for your regulator, which I have had happen from divers that I was not buddied with and others in this thread have indicated as well, then it makes sense to plan for that and work accordingly.

Current struggles.
Most of my diving these days is not compatible with primary donate. I'm on a rebreather, I'm on my double hose, or I'm in OC sidemount.
Sidemount can be somewhat strategic to facilitate primary donate for most of the dive. You ALWAYS start the dive on the long hose. This is a very likely time for someone to need gas right as they get in the water. In a cave, as you near the turnaround point, you ALWAYS are on the long hose. For whatever reason that seems to be a fun time for regs to fail, don't know why, but it is what it is. You ALWAYS finish the dive on your long hose. Less important in a cave, but especially in OW, as you start getting close to the end of the dive, people are most likely to run out of gas. If you are on stages or deco bottles, then primary donate works as well. This strategy with your gas switching on sidemount allows you to comply with primary donate during the highest risk portions of the dive, and you hope that the other diver asks nicely for your gas. If they ask nicely, you have more than enough time to unclip, take a breath or two to check function and clear the housing since we are nice and consider divers, and off you go.
Double hose is one of those things that I just really enjoy when I dive single tanks in OW and it's personal preference. I am aware they used to teach buddy breathing on them, but for all intents and purposes it is not a configuration where primary donate is going to happen. That said, we will treat this exactly the same as we would a rebreather where you aren't going to pass the loop over for a myriad of reasons.

In the DIR oriented mentality, it is argued to teach primary donate from day 1 because it is scalable through all levels of diving. For DIR diving where sidemount historically has not been something that was accepted and where rebreathers were left for a very select few divers for select projects, it was something so rare that it wasn't worth trying to reinvent the wheel. In BSAC however, CCR's were much more prevalent early on and that is one of the arguments for not working with primary donate because it is not scalable to rebreathers.
If we look at how the GUE rebreathers are set up, you have a "normal" set of doubles, and to donate you unclip the long hose, take the loop out of your mouth and switch to secondary, then bring loop back to your mouth. This is utterly obnoxious with OTS or TOS counterlungs, but on the RB80 with the bellows and the JJ with BMCL's, it's not that big of a deal. When you have that level of diver though, especially in a cave, you aren't going to get mugged. You'll see the light signals, and if they don't signal, you'll still see them turn around if you're in the back or have to turn around yourself if you're up front while they chase you down. Either way, in technical diving because of the lights and limited number of divers in the water, you can usually see it coming.

So the conundrum is how to handle what I truly believe to be a superior configuration for the vast majority of diving, and how to apply that to the diving that I'm currently doing where it can't work. The conundrum is where you place your priority and what you're willing to sacrifice. On one hand, I can prioritize what I feel to be a better way to dive and use that whenever I can. The sacrifice there is that I have to say that scalability of a single donation method from basic open water up through rebreather is less important than the benefits of consistency in training and methods at all levels of diving and all equipment configurations. On the other hand, I can prioritize that scalability and consistency which ultimately leads to what I believe to be an inferior configuration for the majority of diving that is done in the world as well as equipment configuration compromises that result from it.
Right now, I maintain that I believe primary donate is a superior configuration and I use it whenever possible. When I am not able to use it, I am with divers where the odds of "the worst" happening which is being mugged for the primary is so near 0 that it isn't worth thinking about. It leads me to make compromises in what I want to dive at times, particularly with the double hose if I believe that I'll be in the water with people that I don't trust, but it's worth it to me to not have to worry.
 
Current struggles.
Most of my diving these days is not compatible with primary donate. I'm on a rebreather, I'm on my double hose, or I'm in OC sidemount.
Sidemount can be somewhat strategic to facilitate primary donate for most of the dive. You ALWAYS start the dive on the long hose. This is a very likely time for someone to need gas right as they get in the water. In a cave, as you near the turnaround point, you ALWAYS are on the long hose. For whatever reason that seems to be a fun time for regs to fail, don't know why, but it is what it is. You ALWAYS finish the dive on your long hose. Less important in a cave, but especially in OW, as you start getting close to the end of the dive, people are most likely to run out of gas. If you are on stages or deco bottles, then primary donate works as well. This strategy with your gas switching on sidemount allows you to comply with primary donate during the highest risk portions of the dive, and you hope that the other diver asks nicely for your gas. If they ask nicely, you have more than enough time to unclip, take a breath or two to check function and clear the housing since we are nice and consider divers, and off you go.
Double hose is one of those things that I just really enjoy when I dive single tanks in OW and it's personal preference. I am aware they used to teach buddy breathing on them, but for all intents and purposes it is not a configuration where primary donate is going to happen. That said, we will treat this exactly the same as we would a rebreather where you aren't going to pass the loop over for a myriad of reasons.

I am interested in how you dive the side mount rig, (never having done this myself).

You state that the start of the dive you are on the long hose, and that you are on the long hose at the turn point, and as you exit the cave, or toward the end of the dive, you are back on the long hose.
This appears similar to independent twins, where you enter on the long hose and do a switch very early, say at the bottom of the shot.
Enter on Long hose - switch (to short hose) at the bottom of the shot
Short hose - switch back at 150bar (to long hose)
Long hose - switch back at 100bar (to short hose) .. (turn point probably around 125 for open water dive)
short hose - switch back at 75 bar (to long hose). .. ( dive end towards 75 bar)

(The turn points are very dependent on what the plan is and how much redundancy will be needed)

I have been that diver that did the switch from the long hose at 100bar, only to find the short hose regulator compromised.
(Thats when I decided to only dive manifolded twins for serious dives.)

I find it slightly disappointing that so many people who use primary donate appear to have difficulty adapting to other techniques.
From a personal point of view, I must have been very lucky, those GUE/primary donate divers I have dived with have never had a problem adapting to diving with me.When I have been on CCR and primary donate is not an option.

Having dived independent twins, and with others diving independents, I have always expected to take the long hose, either from the shoulder bungy, or as PD, dependent on where it happened to be in my hour of need.
The one occasion where it all did go horribly wrong, I tapped my buddy on the shoulder and he handed over the long hose reg'. Initially, he though I was doing a drill, it was only when we transferred over to travel mix at the first stop, that he finally understood I had a proper issue. Goes to prove the best planned dives can go to ****.
As you say, things always go wrong at the worst point, one thing is never the issue it's when things cascade.

Interestingly, I was originally taught that a regulator being remove from your mouth would only occur if the diver panicked. Also, when donating, always to ensure the donated regulator was in the direct eye line to the OOA diver, obscuring your regulator. This reduced the risk of the diver taking your regulator from your mouth in panic.

Gareth
 
@Gareth J sidemount is basically just independent twins that fell off of your back. Gas management techniques are usually the same, but as I'm sure you're aware with indy twins, some people want you to change very frequently and keep them at almost the same pressure, and others go in much larger chunks. Over here you see people lobbying to change every 10-20bar which I think is ridiculous.
We work in PSI here, so my usual MO for cave diving provided we are doing a textbook dive to thirds *which is never a thing, but this is theoretical* is as follows. Start at 3600 psi in both tanks. Dive long hose to 3000psi. Switch to short hose and dive to 2400psi. Switch to long hose which covers through the turn. Stay on long hose until 1800psi. Switch back to short hose and dive to 1200psi. Switch to long hose for the remainder of exit and hit the deco bottles or exit at 1200psi in both tanks. Theoretically that's how it goes. Usually in a high ish flow cave we are coming out much faster than we went in, so that exact scenario rarely happens, but that's the theory.

The key in a real OOA is to make direct eye contact with the diver. Get them to look at your eyes. Eye contact and physical touch do wonders to lower the panic response. Trying to focus on obscuring your primary is going to distract you from what's going on, so get eye contact with them and don't break it.
 
@Gareth J
The key in a real OOA is to make direct eye contact with the diver. Get them to look at your eyes. Eye contact and physical touch do wonders to lower the panic response. Trying to focus on obscuring your primary is going to distract you from what's going on, so get eye contact with them and don't break it.

Couldn't agree more regarding eye contact. I have also found physical contact seems to help people regain/maintain control.
 
Couldn't agree more regarding eye contact. I have also found physical contact seems to help people regain/maintain control.

Absolutely. It's amazing how a simple bicep squeeze can be very calming in a stressful situation.
 
@Gareth J and @kensuf and you agreeing with me emphasizes my argument against BSAC's approach to secondary take and those that advocate using a long hose to let the panicked diver stay away from them. Not only does it not place the donating diver in the control position to manage the scenario, but more importantly doesn't give you the opportunity to help arrest a panic response.
Our students are taught that before they give a regulator to another diver, they are to reach out with their left hand and grab the other divers shoulder strap. This gives them positive contact with the diver. Once the reg is handed over, they switch to their right hand so they can control their buoyancy with the left and go into a forearm grip as trained, but they are also trained to grab the right shoulder strap if the diver is not being cooperative. This is something that I don't see heavily emphasized and is part of planning for the worst and hoping for the best.
 
@Gareth J and @kensuf and you agreeing with me emphasizes my argument against BSAC's approach to secondary take and those that advocate using a long hose to let the panicked diver stay away from them. Not only does it not place the donating diver in the control position to manage the scenario, but more importantly doesn't give you the opportunity to help arrest a panic response.
Our students are taught that before they give a regulator to another diver, they are to reach out with their left hand and grab the other divers shoulder strap. This gives them positive contact with the diver. Once the reg is handed over, they switch to their right hand so they can control their buoyancy with the left and go into a forearm grip as trained, but they are also trained to grab the right shoulder strap if the diver is not being cooperative. This is something that I don't see heavily emphasized and is part of planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Positive contact is a requirement in BSAC training.
Originally. we used to teach donate.
Which was basically.
Release the AAS - advance on the diver with it in front of you, ensuring the purge is clear (holding the hose is generally best).
Hand over the AAS and grasp the shoulder strap avoiding any shoulder release.

The current technique is really an adaption where the 'casualty' takes the regulator from the diver.
But the donor, once aware grasp's the shoulder strap (avoiding the release).
The casualty is also supposed to grasp the rescuers shoulder strap.

I basically teach both donate, and take. The principle reason for take, is to ensure the casualty actually learns that they are able to take the AAS rather than sitting waiting for rescue.
Whilst it seems counter intuitive that some one wouldn't take an AAS if the buddy was unaware. This appeared to be the reaction of a number who had made rapid ascent when a perfectly good AAS even though the buddy was unaware.

I guess it is an extension of the issue we used to have where divers would fail to release the weight belt, even when in difficulty on the surface. Something that is now corrected in diver training, because on various lessons they are required to 'ditch' the weight belt. This has increased the number of people ditching weight belts when in difficulty.

It also has increased the amusement of onlookers watching people attempting to get weight belts back after ditching during training.:clapping:
 
I just read through this thread, and my head is spinning. I do believe that people will tend to behave as trained, but the way they were trained may be a problem. If you are talking about long hose donation, you are primarily talking about people who learned that during more advanced training, and the nature of that training is very different from most training given to the overwhelming majority of the world's divers, who have had no training after their OW class. The training most divers receive in OW class violates a primary rule of effective performance training and leads to many of the problems we see in OOA situations.

A primary rule of performance training (as in all sports) is that the instruction and practice should be "gamelike"--it should be done as much as possible precisely the way it happens in real life. If not, you are likely ingraining incorrect habits that may harm performance in a real-life situation.

When I was a beginning instructor, all OOA training, from the first introduction in the shallow end of the pool to the OW checkout dives, was done as follows.
  1. The students are using the traditional "golden triangle" alternate system.
  2. The two students kneel on the bottom, chest to chest.
  3. The OOA diver signals OOA and then patiently waits for the donor to respond.
  4. If (as is most common) the alternate is to be either taken or donated, it is right there in full view, a foot or so away from the kneeling OOA diver.
  5. The exchange is made, after which they go through the rest of the process.
In real life, we rarely spend the dive kneeling next to each other, awaiting an OOA event. The divers will be in mid water, and the OOA diver will not be kneeling and patiently waiting but will instead be swimming toward the donor from an unpredictable angle. The OOA diver who has been taught to take or receive the alternate may not see that regulator because of that approach angle. The primary may be the only regulator visible, but the OOA diver may still try to follow training and find that alternate. In an episode in the Netherlands that impacted my thinking on this, the OOA diver drowned because neither she nor the donor could find the alternate, which had come loose from its holder and was stuck behind the donor. In short, a real-life OOA situation does not look or behave the way it is too often taught and trained. Because of that, it can lead to unpredictable behaviors on the part of the OOA diver.

Training with a long hose more typically takes place in mid water, and it often involves "surprises," with a student being told to be OOA unexpectedly in a natural diving scenario. In tech training, these situations happen frequently. That means that the OOA diver will know where to go for the donation. The OOA diver will see the donatable regulator easily. It also means that the donor will almost certainly see the OOA diver coming as the OOA signal is being given. Contrary to something said earlier, the donation of the primary on a long hose is incredibly fast, many times faster than the donation of an alternate, no matter how that alternate is attached.

As to the OP's question, I have not been able to dive for months now because of Covid-19, and I have students champing at the bit to begin. We are going to have to have a chat about this. My primary is clipped on a breakaway connection (weak zip tie), as I learned in my sidemount training, but I am not anxious to teach a skill differently than I would want to them to use it in real life. We may do more modified S-drills, where the OOA diver does not complete the action of using the regulator.

In real life, I want the air first. I can worry about the Covid later.
 
My primary is clipped on a breakaway connection (weak zip tie), as I learned in my sidemount training, but I am not anxious to teach a skill differently than I would want to them to use it in real life. We may do more modified S-drills, where the OOA diver does not complete the action of using the regulator.
What about teaching like sidemount/independent doubles:
- Grasp the reg in the mouth to see which it is (by the dangling bolt snap),
- if it is the long hose donate it,
- otherwise, reach for where the long hose is clipped off, unclip or breakaway, and donate it.

The hose deployment of the clipped off reg is similar to from the mouth and you can complete both divers dealing with the air share more naturally. Have them practice from the mouth by themself a few times to get the feel of how that goes over the head. If they then go back to breathing the long hose, post covid, the procedure is the same. Just post covid it always happens to be the longhose in their mouth.

It depends. With them in class only responding when it is clipped off, you might be training them to not really make a choice based on the 'which reg am I breathing' check and just always then reach to their chest D ring.
 
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