Pony mounting questions

[Wreck/Tec]

DJ
Prepare your self. You will get numerous ideas! That's not necessarily a bad thing either, just makes a decision a little harder sometimes. I carry a pony when I do singles as standard equipment. I'm not going to down play others ideas. If it works for them, great. You'll have to decide for your self, here goes......
I use at least a 40! Most times an 80.......My reasoning about having a larger pony........ Doing a verticle ascent is only part of your OOA emergency! Your on the surface now, it's windy and the waves have made it nearly impossible to swim. If you had more air, descending to 10 feet and swimming in, to the boat or shore, may be alot easier. Having the air to do this with would have been nice. If you didn't have this choice, you have a new problem.
I carry my ponys under my left arm. In the event someone has an OOA emergency, I deal with it the standard way first. After they have calmed down, they take the regulator on the pony with a 40 inch long hose and give me my primary back. I clip the pony to their shoulder strap and they manage their own ascent with me near by to offer any assisstance if needed. They can swim in after surfaceing, or they can swim in under if necessary, or desired, and at a prudent depth hopefully.
People love to critique! You'll have to make a decision that's right for you and stick by it. Hopefully it's a safe one, and a smart one.............
Wreck/Tec

 

[Spectre]

djhall once bubbled...
If you mounted this on the BC's tank strap, how secure was the mounting, and did it get in the way when you were changing tanks?

I had no problems. I just popped off the pony before changing tanks. The tank was extremely secure on the band; the only problems I had was that I had 2 3# weights on my band as well, so I had to be careful to keep the bracket farther back on my tank band to keep it snug against the tank.

When I went to two bands; the bottle either needed to be mounted high or low, or move the hose-clamp to a point where clip wasn't centered on the bottle and it started to flop. That's when I moved to the stage rigging.

My procedure was the same. Hook up my main regs; turn on; Check the pressure; turn off; put onthe reg for the tank, turn it on; test the air and reg; turn off leaving the reg charged. The tank was kept self-contained... e.g. the regulator hose was stuffed under surgical tubing, and the mouthpiece was down by the valve. I could reach back easily with my left hand, grab the valve; turn it on, and pull the reg from where it was [since it was right by the valve].

Since it was back-mounted, there was no guarantee that I would notice if the reg twisted mouthpiece up and started free-flowing. No worries of free-flowing if the valve was off.

The Q-Connect is extremely easy to release [push a button]. While it was backmounted _I_ couldn't release it, but I buddy could pop it off and take the whole bottle.

Don't be too concerned about the speed of getting the valve turned on vs. leaving it off. You shouldn't end up instantly out of air; under the worst of situations you'll still be able to breathe off a free-flowing primary regulator for at least a breath. I'm not sure if you'll be able to draw off a regulator if you blow a burst disk [or in the event of a first stage failure], but I would imagine you'd be able to.

By having the regulator where the valve is, there isn't anyway a buddy will misake your bailout reg for your alternate regulator.

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All that stated; I've not found any benefits to the backmount vs. stage mount. Stage mount is easier to don, I don't have to worry about the valve getting bumped if I stumble on the boat. I can hand off the bottle [it's not as quick; but I can do it. I can add a pressure gauge and not have to worry about routing it somwhere I can see it. Having it stage rigged makes it so if it is handed off, the buddy has a way to clip it off to themselves. I can always see the regulator. By being able to self-doff it, it's not as critical of an entanglement hazard as on the back; where I'll need my buddy to unhook if it's fouled.

On top of all of that... a good back-mount pony bracket'll be 3 or 4 times the cost of stage mounting it.

 

[Wreck/Tec]

Guys.........
The only thing that will kill you, as a rule, is running out of gas, you can't breath water. Yes there's sharks, O2 toxicity, narcosis, I could go on...............you have to have something to breath. Is there such a thing as too much?
Wreck/Tec