Redundant buoyancy in warm weather

[rongoodman]

What actual problems has your Razor introduced? I mean real issues, not hypothetical ones. This is my second BCD with a dual bladder, the first being the infamous 100 pound OMS BWOD. So far, none of the hypothetical problems that were pontificated ad nauseum have ever materialized. I was wondering if you have, albeit reluctantly, found the same to be true.

The Razor isn't going to have the problems associated with most dual-bladder wings because the back-up bladder is oral inflate only.

 

[The Chairman]

Pete...Pete...Pete......Mis-quoting is unbecoming...

I am not misquoting: I am asking for clarification.

In earlier posts I clearly separated cave diving from ocean diving,

You did indicate that there were separate issues, but I don't think that you ever substantiated those reasons. I'm asking for clarification now. Why is what's good for fresh water anathema for salt?

 

[mmadiver]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but if you need redundant buoyancy (w/o drysuit) just bolt another wing to your backplate. It provides a good alternative to a fatty dual bladder wing. Setup is easy, use two identical low profile wings that are appropriate for your rig. The primary wing is closest to the diver and as long as the 2nd inflator hose is intelligently stowed and secured you will never tell the difference in the water.

 

[TSandM]

As Ron said, since the auxiliary bladder on the Razor is oral inflate only, it can't auto inflate, and I can't confuse which inflator goes to which wing. I can, and have gotten messed up because there was air in the auxiliary bladder that I hadn't fully vented, but that was after doing drills. It wouldn't be a problem in "real" diving.

 

[danvolker]

I am not misquoting: I am asking for clarification.

You did indicate that there were separate issues, but I don't think that you ever substantiated those reasons. I'm asking for clarification now. Why is what's good for fresh water anathema for salt?

I am not the ideal person to explain all the nuances of Cave diving. I spent very little time doing Cave dives...On the other hand, several of my buddies are very good cave divers, and they shared their ideas on Cave diving heavily with me--and they had wanted me to pursue this with them....
George Irvine used to state unequivocally that DIR divers use al 80s for doubles in ocean, and steels were better in fresh water cave for the extra gas needs, and the mandatory drysuit use ( which existed in the North fl caves).
Among the different issues in tech and cave, lets assume a complete wing failure for each.....you already know the scenario for balanced rig in ocean... for Cave, there are many options....the buddy--which you never leave....the drysuit.....the cave "can be" climbed up, much like a mountain trail--at least for a good distance--where as at 280 deep in ocean, there is no structure leading to the surface to grab onto..except for the NetDoc BeanStalk, leading to the anchored boat overhead in places with small or no currents....





Which gets to another key difference....most cave divers do not have scooters to deal with high flow...most do not deal with high flow caves...most deal with caves with relatively low flow/current for most of a dive. The issues on a drift dive on a tech wreck or reef, mean that with too many tanks and too much volume filling a Wing, that the diver moves like a huge inflated pufferfish, and they get blown around like leaves in the wind.... In contrast, team members at Wakulla, may bring down 6 stages or more extra, to drop at a place deep inside the cave where an exploration team may need them....the travel to this spot is not that difficult, as the flow or current over most of the traverse, does not relate to the drift current conditions of the tech dive in ocean. Cave divers, as a population, do not need to be "slick" to enjoy cave, and in fact, enjoy a very slow frog kick most of the time, with little workload. The few that scooter for miles, are not really representative of this discussion.
Drag is a key difference .....ability to climb to the surface is a key difference....following buddies and lines ( never losing your buddy) is a big difference between most cave divers and "many" tech divers.....Some of the Cave divers here could certainly list many more differences than I just came up with off the top of my head.


In the last couple of years, on many of the occasions that I have done tech dives on the local deep wrecks...there have been other "tech divers" on these wrecks...typically diving the dual bladder wing and with the extra 80 for travel gas...some times even 2 of them plus the O2. The larger issue in common with this large group of Florida tech divers, is that they weigh so much in the water collum, that they tend to swim head up and feet down, and they have tanks hanging at 45 degree angles, rather than the correct manner where the stage bottle hides in the slip stream behind your armpit--out of the flow so with reduced drag.....The final effect, is that they are kicking away, and going no-where. They need all this extra gas they brought down, just because they have to do so much more work to swim from point A to point B....It is embarrassing to watch, really. And the clusterf*&k of all this extra gear, gives the agencies more things to teach--more solutions to charge for that never existed before.

 

[victorzamora]

Only issue there is you can't crawl out of all caves, and many caves DO have high flow that cave divers dive in. The flow issue I might concede because there's not AS MUCH as there can be in OW in most caves, but there are plenty of big-name, often-dived caves that are high flow. As for caves you can't crawl out of, there are plenty. Twin Cave and Hole in the Wall (both in Merritt's Mill Pond) have so much silt that you'd sink below the silt level LONG before you touched hard bottom.....and the silt is so squishy you'd sink pretty quickly.

 

[The Chairman]

As Ron said, since the auxiliary bladder on the Razor is oral inflate only, it can't auto inflate, and I can't confuse which inflator goes to which wing. I can, and have gotten messed up because there was air in the auxiliary bladder that I hadn't fully vented, but that was after doing drills. It wouldn't be a problem in "real" diving.

So other than training: none. But we sure see a lot of people fret about it. I don't hook up my right side inflator unless the left side has an issue. At that point, I took the time to completely drain the left side of all air, so I didn't have to deal with that on ascent. For those of us who choose not to wear a drysuit, it's pretty darned convenient.

George Irvine used to state unequivocally that DIR divers use al 80s for doubles in ocean,

So, the first and primary reason is "Cuz George said so!"??? Oh my. I'm tempted to end on this note alone with the "S" word.

and steels were better in fresh water cave for the extra gas needs,

Ah, here is probably the gist of the entire discussion and why you keep missing the point: "extra gas needs". OK, I get that you can't imagine a dive where a diver needs that extra gas in salt water. You've taken your needs, or lack thereof, and have extrapolated that to all divers everywhere. People dive BAS (Big Arsed Steel) tanks usually only when they need or want extra gas. Perhaps it's to fulfill the rule of thirds in case their buddy has an issue. Perhaps it's because they are hoovers. Perhaps it's because it's an exploration dive and they have no idea what to expect. There's lots of reasons for diving BAS tanks, though that may not be your personal preference. This is the problem with only following mantras and not fully understanding the contexts of them. I try to dive balanced rigs. I would guess that %95 of my diving is with balanced rigs. However, when I do dive an unbalanced rig I want redundant buoyancy. Not if... but when. If it's sidemount, then it would be at least a double bladder.

AND, if they are following the same redundant buoyancy protocols that they are diving with in caves, then what's the big dif? Water is water. I was very happy to have redundant buoyancy in Peacock. Could I have climbed out? Sure, and I am certain that there would be videos of me doing so on youtube for all the world to laugh at. Sneaky me, I came prepared and it's the same preparations I do for my ocean jaunts in that gear. Why? It's that same old concept of "muscle memory" that's preached by any number of DIR advocates.

 

[PfcAJ]

I am not the ideal person to explain all the nuances of Cave diving. I spent very little time doing Cave dives...On the other hand, several of my buddies are very good cave divers, and they shared their ideas on Cave diving heavily with me--and they had wanted me to pursue this with them....
George Irvine used to state unequivocally that DIR divers use al 80s for doubles in ocean, and steels were better in fresh water cave for the extra gas needs, and the mandatory drysuit use ( which existed in the North fl caves).
Among the different issues in tech and cave, lets assume a complete wing failure for each.....you already know the scenario for balanced rig in ocean... for Cave, there are many options....the buddy--which you never leave....the drysuit.....the cave "can be" climbed up, much like a mountain trail--at least for a good distance--where as at 280 deep in ocean, there is no structure leading to the surface to grab onto..except for the NetDoc BeanStalk, leading to the anchored boat overhead in places with small or no currents....





Which gets to another key difference....most cave divers do not have scooters to deal with high flow...most do not deal with high flow caves...most deal with caves with relatively low flow/current for most of a dive. The issues on a drift dive on a tech wreck or reef, mean that with too many tanks and too much volume filling a Wing, that the diver moves like a huge inflated pufferfish, and they get blown around like leaves in the wind.... In contrast, team members at Wakulla, may bring down 6 stages or more extra, to drop at a place deep inside the cave where an exploration team may need them....the travel to this spot is not that difficult, as the flow or current over most of the traverse, does not relate to the drift current conditions of the tech dive in ocean. Cave divers, as a population, do not need to be "slick" to enjoy cave, and in fact, enjoy a very slow frog kick most of the time, with little workload. The few that scooter for miles, are not really representative of this discussion.
Drag is a key difference .....ability to climb to the surface is a key difference....following buddies and lines ( never losing your buddy) is a big difference between most cave divers and "many" tech divers.....Some of the Cave divers here could certainly list many more differences than I just came up with off the top of my head.


In the last couple of years, on many of the occasions that I have done tech dives on the local deep wrecks...there have been other "tech divers" on these wrecks...typically diving the dual bladder wing and with the extra 80 for travel gas...some times even 2 of them plus the O2. The larger issue in common with this large group of Florida tech divers, is that they weigh so much in the water collum, that they tend to swim head up and feet down, and they have tanks hanging at 45 degree angles, rather than the correct manner where the stage bottle hides in the slip stream behind your armpit--out of the flow so with reduced drag.....The final effect, is that they are kicking away, and going no-where. They need all this extra gas they brought down, just because they have to do so much more work to swim from point A to point B....It is embarrassing to watch, really. And the clusterf*&k of all this extra gear, gives the agencies more things to teach--more solutions to charge for that never existed before.

Climb out? Bwahahah! That's fantasy land stuff. You're not "climbing" out of most caves. That nonsense might work in ginnie springs, but seriously no where else.

And you do need to be slick. You've already got a bunch of gear (big tanks, lights, reels, maybe stages), and all that stuff slows you down and contributes to fatigue. You can tell the guys who don't work on having a streamlined gear configuration. They either a) don't get anywhere or b) quit because its a miserable experience.

Climb out. Heh. That one got me good.

 

[danvolker]

So, the first and primary reason is "Cuz George said so!"??? Oh my. I'm tempted to end on this note alone with the "S" word.

Ah, here is probably the gist of the entire discussion and why you keep missing the point: "extra gas needs". OK, I get that you can't imagine a dive where a diver needs that extra gas in salt water. You've taken your needs, or lack thereof, and have extrapolated that to all divers everywhere. People dive BAS (Big Arsed Steel) tanks usually only when they need or want extra gas. Perhaps it's to fulfill the rule of thirds in case their buddy has an issue. Perhaps it's because they are hoovers. Perhaps it's because it's an exploration dive and they have no idea what to expect. There's lots of reasons for diving BAS tanks, though that may not be your personal preference. This is the problem with only following mantras and not fully understanding the contexts of them.

.

Just a few posts back, I added the discussion that just diving for an extra 5 minutes, can easily be the difference between NEEDING the extra stage bottle, and not needing it.....and that the real issue is, some divers are choosing to plan a dive that is too long for them to do with just the double 80's and a 30 or 40 cu.ft deco bottle....MY point on this, is that if they just cut back the duration a little bit, all the nonsense of being too heavy would no longer exist....
The desire to bring more gas --to have much more than needed for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or 25 minutes....is what creates the exponential increase in drag, workload, skills to handle all the extra choices and gear( knowing how to choose what reg to breath off of, and how to deal with all the extra mass)....I am saying some tech divers should figure that if they are an air hog--or their buddy is, they should be doing shorter dives untill they rectify this issue.
Few people have to be air hogs....and usually real skills will fix the air hog problem, and then less gas is needed.....but if you drop 3 extra bottles and a double bladder BC on a doubles wearing diver----he is not going to be able to lower his breathing rate, because he is working too hard to just barely move.....and now he really need to get another tank....or maybe a rebreather !!! NOT!!!

---------- Post added December 9th, 2013 at 05:08 PM ----------

Climb out? Bwahahah! That's fantasy land stuff. You're not "climbing" out of most caves. That nonsense might work in ginnie springs, but seriously no where else.

And you do need to be slick. You've already got a bunch of gear (big tanks, lights, reels, maybe stages), and all that stuff slows you down and contributes to fatigue. You can tell the guys who don't work on having a streamlined gear configuration. They either a) don't get anywhere or b) quit because its a miserable experience.

Climb out. Heh. That one got me good.

I don't know....I could swear I just saw a PADI class where they were practicing to climb out of the hole they were in.....there was an awful lot of clawing on all fours ( could have been a NAUI class or SSI....most of the big agency, monster sized classes. look the same underwater

I think they have this kneeling and walking and clawing thing down pretty well by the time they are Advanced OW or Instructors.....just a great background for Cave, don't you think?

 

[RTee]

All the tanks I possess, with the exception of an 80 CFT and 40 cft stage bottles, are all steel tanks. I also own a 10lbs SMB, 20 lbs SMB, 50 lbs lift bag and a second independent wing. When diving doubles (Faber 117) with wetsuit, I will add the second wing to my SS BP&W set-up and will carry the 50 lbs lift bag in addition to the 20 lbs/6 ft SMB