Primary Long Hose Length: 5' or 7'?

[beanojones]

Here is an exercise....do an easy dive with your buddy, using a 7 foot hose, you wear no tank, just neutral weight....and do the whole dive on the 7 foot donated hose...have a 3rd buddy if you want to be DIR version buddied/safe backup...

Then try the exercise again with a 5 foot hose....then decide if the 7 foot hose provided a superior experience to the 5 foot hose trial....

Then do it again with a 5 foot hose with a 70 swivel and you will find that works better than either of the above, since it removes the loop in front of the diver. I imagine a 7 footer with a 70 would be the best for air sharing, but then its back to dealing with the extra length.

Of course using a Poseidon would also remove the loop but, uh,....

---------- Post added July 20th, 2013 at 06:48 AM ----------

Surprisingly, I guess, an awful lot of relatively inexperienced divers manage to acquire and learn to route and manage 7' hoses. But not in Hawaii, it seems . . .

Ot they just use what people tell them to use and work around the problems it creates.

At least three different posters have mentioned that the 7 footer comes untucked, and they put up with it. That is putting up with, dealing with, and managing the problems the length causes, and not saying it is not causing problems.

You are in the system, so you will make the system work for very good reasons. But when not in the system, it's worth looking at the question the thread asks, thinking about it, trying things out, and seeing what strengths and weakness each choice has.

But not in Washington State it seems. (Clever put downs do not really suit you well. Me it does, as noted in my status.

 

[tracydr]

GUE initially just mandated primary donation with a bungied backup regulator. I believe I remember reading a comment by George Irvine that a 40" hose was fine for simple, open water diving. Over time, however, and in part because the agency focuses on keeping everything as much the same as possible, from open water to deep technical or long penetration cave dives, the decision was made just to require the 7' hose from the beginning. Surprisingly, I guess, an awful lot of relatively inexperienced divers manage to acquire and learn to route and manage 7' hoses. But not in Hawaii, it seems . . .

Thanks. I know the "Dress for Success" book was slightly dated. I wish they would publish a list of changes to it.

---------- Post added July 20th, 2013 at 06:28 AM ----------

If I can use a 7 foot hose,at 5'1", and not have excess length down to my knees,and TSandM, who is about my size, than the people who have hose down to their knees must be 4'2". Beano must be teaching 8 year olds!
FWIW, the Halcyon weight pockets work quite well as a substitute for a can light to hook the excess to. I was using this until I got a can light. I'm sure other weight pockets are similar.

 

[beanojones]

If I can use a 7 foot hose,at 5'1", and not have excess length down to my knees,and TSandM, who is about my size, than the people who have hose down to their knees must be 4'2". Beano must be teaching 8 year olds!

You could actually read the post that referenced the situation I was referring to.

It's hard to learn new things when you think you already know everything. When you listen to new ideas without assuming you already know everything, you can learn new things. Try listening to people who have experience, and experience in conditions you are not familiar with, and it works better. Being polite and respectful and not sarcastic works too.

When everything is perfect, and there are no waves, no surge and most importantly no actual OOA, then quite simply hose length does not matter. One can make anything work, and get by with anything. We could even buddy breath and not use an octo. It's all just playing around anyway. SO of course in those situations, a 7 footer seems to be fine, because, frankly anything works OK in those situation.

If someone is actually on a long hose in tough conditions, (surge, surf, hands full), and then the go off the long hose, the donor has to stow (or something) the hose. There are quite simply times when stowing it is next to impossible. The hose cannot be wrapped, and certainly there is no time to fiddle with silly things that require two hands like pulling a length of hose into an insecure belt tuck (that as has been pointed out by several people (including TSandM herself) comes untucked by itself even in ideal conditions.)

At those times, the long hose reg goes in the donors mouth, and the long loop just goes under the donor's arm. That foot longer dangle of the 7 footer run underarm, versus the 5 footer run under arm, makes all the difference in the world. And that is exactly the situation where the 7 footer gets hooked on stuff.

Yes, underarm is not how the hose is supposed to be run, and yet in actual conditions, sometimes it has to be done because actual OOA conditions don't happen when it is 70 and sunny, in pool like situations. Actual OOA situations happen in high stress situation when and conditions are ****, and breathing rates go way up, and divers have more important things to deal with than playing with trying to fiddle with their gear.

Experience, and not just 'what I heard on the internet' does in fact matter. The 7 footer is very from ideal, and even dangerous, in exactly that situation, and the 5 footer is at least manageable, though not ideal. This situation not common, but then OOA should basically be so uncommon as to have never happened to most people, because most people simply do not do enough diving to run into 1 in 1000 circumstances.

This is why the pantomime S-Drills are not great for finding and eliminating problems with OOA: because the people practicing them, and even people teaching them, simply have no real world experience with actual OOA situations, much less in OOA in bad conditions. People without experience can imagine a whole bunch of bull**** about how it will be. It's not like those things when it happens.

(It's worth pointing out that in the "Molested at 100' thread', that the only person other person who actually had someone else go OOA on them at depth had exactly what I said would happen, happen to them. Everyone was just making **** up. WHich is fine, but then again we learn from new info, not from repeating nonsense we heard but have no experience with.)

So you call an S-Drill as practiced a safety thing. I call it a false sense of security unless it is routinely practiced in the worst conditions and situations one can find. Blind in a surge zone with hands full is a good place to practice. In an actual restriction, where hand signals are not possible is a good place to learn that a long hose is a serious entanglement hazard on the return.

What someone said on the internet about how this length or that length is the way to to do it is just what someone imagining **** says. This is exactly the time to listen to the contrarian with experience in the actual situation where any long hose is needed (OOA).

 

[danvolker]

You <snip 1st bit of nonsense>



If someone is actually on a long hose in tough conditions, (surge, surf, hands full), and then the go off the long hose, the donor has to stow (or something) the hose. There are quite simply times when stowing it is next to impossible. The hose cannot be wrapped, and certainly there is no time to fiddle with silly things that require two hands like pulling a length of hose into an insecure belt tuck (that as has been pointed out by several people (including TSandM herself) comes untucked by itself even in ideal conditions.)

At those times, the long hose reg goes in the donors mouth, and the long loop just goes under the donor's arm. That foot longer dangle of the 7 footer run underarm, versus the 5 footer run under arm, makes all the difference in the world. And that is exactly the situation where the 7 footer gets hooked on stuff.

BJ,
More proof you have no idea how DIR or GUE divers dive, and that you must never have dived with a GOOD DIR or GOOD GUE diver.....maybe you saw a poor DIR imitation , once upon a time.

You know so little about how we handle things, and you come up with nonsense about tough conditions.

Give it a rest, you are just making yourself into more and more of a caricature.

 

[fisheater]

Hmm.

I HAVE had an actual OOA incident with a non-buddy, who was breathing like a freight train and my hands were full with a can light and camera system with dual strobes. Cold water (Monterey), heavy exposure gear including thick gloves.

My 7' hose was awesome. It allowed me to easily and quickly donate air, without hand signals, entanglement danger or any of the problems that you ascribe to long hose setups.

In contrast, my earlier OOA incident with a conventional setup worked well underwater, but it required that we surface in the middle of an extremely think and large kelp bed and, thus, spend a very long time doing a "kelp crawl" that could have easily been avoided by using a 7' hose and swimming back to the boat single file through the kelp.

 

[beanojones]

Glad to hear it worked out well for you, but staying on the long hose is not the problem. It's stowing it when conditions demand that causes problems. ANd the fact that a 7 footer can require a stow to eat up length, which can be both finicky, and insecure depending on the diver's setup.

Thus the point that when the OOA situation includes having to manage the long hose when it is back in the donors mouth, and 7 footers not working when an underarm stow becomes expedient.

---------- Post added July 21st, 2013 at 04:27 AM ----------

If someone is actually on a long hose in tough conditions, (surge, surf, hands full), and then the go off the long hose, the donor has to stow (or something) the hose. There are quite simply times when stowing it is next to impossible. The hose cannot be wrapped, and certainly there is no time to fiddle with silly things that require two hands like pulling a length of hose into an insecure belt tuck (that as has been pointed out by several people (including TSandM herself) comes untucked by itself even in ideal conditions.)

At those times, the long hose reg goes in the donors mouth, and the long loop just goes under the donor's arm. That foot longer dangle of the 7 footer run underarm, versus the 5 footer run under arm, makes all the difference in the world. And that is exactly the situation where the 7 footer gets hooked on stuff.

Yes, underarm is not how the hose is supposed to be run, and yet in actual conditions, sometimes it has to be done because actual OOA conditions don't happen when it is 70 and sunny, in pool like situations. Actual OOA situations happen in high stress situation when and conditions are ****, and breathing rates go way up, and divers have more important things to deal with than playing with trying to fiddle with their gear.
.

See like I said, re stowing is the issue. That's why I wrote that re-stowing it can be an issue because re-stowing it can be an issue. I am certainly not saying that at all times and in all situations a 5 is better than a 7. It's as foolish to say that as it is to say a 7' is in all cases better than a 5'. I am making no blanket statements, because I am not tied any one way of doing anything. Unlike, say,....

I am all for long hoses. I never dive without one. The thread title, and thus the topic of the thread is 5' or 7' long hose, not 40" or 7 foot hose. Thus the discussion of a 5' versus a 7'.

I am certainly not saying no one should dive with a 7 footer. I dive with a 7 footer sometimes. Just not in the conditions that the OP (the original question asker) described. In the OP's circumstances, a 5' hose is at least on the table, and has some advantages of unquestioningly going with a 7' because DIR/GUE people want it to be so. Their reasons for a 7' are about consistency between divers and setups, among other things.

 

[Lorenzoid]

This may have been brought up earlier (I've only been reading this thread intermittently) but wouldn't the best solution for a diver who is not beholden to standardization be to custom-size the long hose accordingly with the dimensions of the diver's torso? As I mentioned earlier, I found that a 5' hose wraps too tightly around my head, while a 7' hose of course requires that I tuck the loop under something. It's my understanding that except for overhead divers, a hose in the range of 5-7' is DIR-acceptable.

 

[danvolker]

Glad to hear it worked out well for you, but staying on the long hose is not the problem. It's stowing it when conditions demand that causes problems. ANd the fact that a 7 footer can require a stow to eat up length, which can be both finicky, and insecure depending on the diver's setup.

Thus the point that when the OOA situation includes having to manage the long hose when it is back in the donors mouth, and 7 footers not working when an underarm stow becomes expedient.

---------- Post added July 21st, 2013 at 04:27 AM ----------



See like I said, re stowing is the issue. That's why I wrote that re-stowing it can be an issue because re-stowing it can be an issue. I am certainly not saying that at all times and in all situations a 5 is better than a 7. It's as foolish to say that as it is to say a 7' is in all cases better than a 5'. I am making no blanket statements, because I am not tied any one way of doing anything. Unlike, say,....

I am all for long hoses. I never dive without one. The thread title, and thus the topic of the thread is 5' or 7' long hose, not 40" or 7 foot hose. Thus the discussion of a 5' versus a 7'.

I am certainly not saying no one should dive with a 7 footer. I dive with a 7 footer sometimes. Just not in the conditions that the OP (the original question asker) described. In the OP's circumstances, a 5' hose is at least on the table, and has some advantages of unquestioningly going with a 7' because DIR/GUE people want it to be so. Their reasons for a 7' are about consistency between divers and setups, among other things.

If re-stowing is hard, then you are doing it very wrong. I can easily re-stow with one hand, while my large housed camera ( aquatica for canon 5 D makrII ) is in my other hand. This is a very basic skill.....apparently some people need this skill taught to them , and apparently you BJ are one of these....But....there are plenty of us that would be happy to mentor you in basic DIR skills at no cost too you--as long as you travel to us.

 

[Locus]

This may have been brought up earlier (I've only been reading this thread intermittently) but wouldn't the best solution for a diver who is not beholden to standardization be to custom-size the long hose accordingly with the dimensions of the diver's torso? As I mentioned earlier, I found that a 5' hose wraps too tightly around my head, while a 7' hose of course requires that I tuck the loop under something. It's my understanding that except for overhead divers, a hose in the range of 5-7' is DIR-acceptable.

I'm liking this logic. Putting aside for a moment the either-or nature of my initial question, is there a reason not to go with a mid-length (~6', say) primary hose long enough to wear comfortably looped around the back of the neck, but not so long as to require routing under a can light etc. or stowing of excess hose under a waist strap?

 

[danvolker]

I'm liking this logic. Putting aside for a moment the either-or nature of my initial question, is there a reason not to go with a mid-length (~6', say) primary hose long enough to wear comfortably looped around the back of the neck, but not so long as to require routing under a can light etc. or stowing of excess hose under a waist strap?

I think this depends upon how "slick" you want your gear configuration .... I see nothing wrong with the custom length....the only issues I see are that if you don't route the hose under a pocket or can light or knife, and just have the hose hanging....then in some positions the hose moves too much