Reminder: Always do an S-drill before or at the beginning of your dive

[TSandM]

It's really easy to do that, or just to put the backup reg on with a twist in the hose that trips the long hose. That's why the "long hose deployable" step is in the gear check. It's incredibly easy to get stuff twisted or improperly set, even when you've done it a thousand times.

 

[rhwestfall]

....even when you've done it a thousand times.

exactly when it happens!

 

[elan]

I went on a pretty casual boat dive the other day. It was a shallow dive from a friend's boat in a calm lake on a bright, clear, sunny day. It was one of those dives that feels so casual and easy it's easy to forget how dangerous it can be underwater.

Anyway, at the end of the dive I got some weed caught in the loop of my long hose near my hip. I switched to my backup, intended to extend the hose to make clearing it out easier. I couldn't get the primary more than a foot or so away from my face, though. Turned out that when I put my backup around my neck, I had trapped the long hose under it. It was a simple matter of feeding it behind my head out from under the hose, but in a stressed emergency situation it would not have been so easy and those 5-10 seconds could have been the difference. This would have been found immediately if I did a quick and simple S-drill on the surface before descending, or immediately upon reaching the bottom.

Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear. You don't want to wait until your buddy is actually OOA at depth under a shipping channel to realize that you can't effectively get a regulator into his mouth.

Yeah GUE EDGE catches this.

Some of my non-GUE buddies get irritated by this but it has proven to be working. Every season we catch 4-5 trapped hoses of all kinds - backup oevr primary, dry suit over primary etc. .. just by doing the checks..

There was a case when an "experienced technical diver" has not noticed that his backup reg is not actually under his chin but somewhere trapped in the manifold on the back until his buddy pointed him out on the first deco stop that his backup is misplaced

 

[Dive the World]

Good point - never thought about the hose being tangled.

Have done multiple bubble checks at 6 meters - now will keep an eye on hose alignment too.

 

[spectrum]

It's equally easy to screw up with normal hoses so don't think you long hosers had the market cornered on pratfalls.:wink1:

For me the big risk has been chatting, especially with a new buddy while gearing up. I've gotten pretty good at securing mt crotch strap mid dive. Self check, buddy check however check, do check!

 

[Moonglow]

The 7' hose is for single file air sharing in a restricted diving environment, not for use in a diving environment where the length of the hose itself makes it the entanglement hazzard.

Diver education is so valuable, and it never ends...

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

The chance that new divers and those considering diving will have any idea what a s-drill, long hose, bubble check or GUE EDGE is pretty low. Not that it was wrong to post of course but given the sub-form it was posted in some more explanation might be order unless the intention was to preach to the converted.

 

[leabre]

I thought I summed that up with "Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear." but I see your point.

I apologize, I did not realize that an "S-drill" was a "mock air share".

Not to nitpick, but unless you are actually performing an air-share with your buddy, then it is actually a mod-S drill (modified). Modified as in you just deploy the long hose to check that it is deployable and for any entanglements. S-drill is the full air-share simulationl

Usually before a dive we'll do a gear check with the team before hitting the water and then in the water we'll test breathe our regs and do the mod-S drill and then check for bubbles last before descending. No one I've ever dived with or trained with in my many classes involving a long-hose actually performed a full air-share on the surface as a part of the buddy check protocol but I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never experienced it as such. It's always been the mod-S variant. Depending on conditions, the bubble check may happen at the 20' mark on the descent.

 

[Crush]

Maybe for the benefit of those who do not know what an "S-drill" is, you could enlighten them (us). After all this is the New Divers Forum and folks might not be familiar with what your are suggesting/reminding.

Bill

With no prejudice towards the OP I have noticed that many highly-trained, technical divers post very terse and exceptionally accurate responses in the "New" and "Basic" fora that are totally incomprehensible to the intended audience. A basic understanding of "S-drill" (which is a term specific to GUE, I believe) and similar terms cannot be generally assumed in these fora.

 

[andrewy]

sorry all it means is a check if you can donate long hose to out of air diver, i.e. it dont catch onto anything