S drills how often?

[scubafool]

My question is, how often do you practice an air share drill?

Every dive?

Very regularly, with a deployment check of your 7' hose every dive?

Regularly(ie, every 3-4 dives)?

Sometimes?

Always when diving with a new buddy?

What is an S-drill?

 

[Lynn CA]

We dive a couple of times almost every month, and about every 4-5 months we go back into the pool and review and practice all of the safety stuff. We both have over 100 dives.

 

[OneBrightGator]

Every dive, although we don't always breathe off each other's regs, as we know the longhose works and we breathe off the backup during the drill.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Every cave dive.
Rick

 

[scubafool]

Every cave dive.
Rick

Not being critical; I am truly curious. Why only when you dive a cave, or am I misunderstanding?

Every dive, although we don't always breathe off each other's regs, as we know the longhose works and we breathe off the backup during the drill.

So you submerge, deploy the long hose, & switch to your backup, but don't actually breathe your buddy's primary?

 

[ScubaTwo]

I love voting!

 

[Rick Murchison]

Not being critical; I am truly curious. Why only when you dive a cave, or am I misunderstanding?

Uh, this is the cave diving forum, yes?
But a more accurate answer might be "Every cave or wreck penetration dive, and most but not all OW dives where we're diving the long hose. Absolutely on any dive where an OOA situation may require a tandem exit."
I rarely ever do an "S" drill (and even more rarely use a long hose) when tropical reef sightseeing on a recreational no-deco dive. I do breathe off all deco and stage/travel bottles in the water before going below their respective MODs, whether an "S" drill is done or not.
Rick

 

[scubafool]

Yes it is.

Thanks for the clarification. I got the meaning of your post now.

 

[OneBrightGator]

So you submerge, deploy the long hose, & switch to your backup, but don't actually breathe your buddy's primary?

Yep, we drop down, switch regs, fully deploy the longhose just like normal, but since I just saw you breathing off it and you're going to be breathing off it during the whole dive I have faith it works.

 

[pt40fathoms]

I'll sneak in here, not being a cave diver an all.

S-Drill on every dive where a hard or soft ceiling is planned.

(hard = wreck or cave if we had caves here, soft = deco)