Scuba-hookah combo

[echodiver]

Being a Scubaboard newbie, I hope I’m posting in the right forum? I’d like to get feedback about an idea I’m considering regarding how my wife and I scuba dive. We’re infrequent divers with moderate experience who dive only in open water conditions. Problem is my wife is a small person and the weight and hassle of the gear is causing discouragement. My idea is for me to dive in my normal configuration (backplate/wings) except with twin tanks and a manifold. To provide air for my wife, I would run a short air line from an unused low pressure port on my 1st stage to a waist belt connector at the small of my back. A 20-30’ low pressure line would then connect to my wife’s waist harness, then on to her regulator. In other words, she’s breathing from my air supply hookah-style. She would carry a small pony bottle and regulator for backup. I can’t see anything seriously wrong with this picture – can you?

 

[ptyx]

This seem like a pretty complex system to solve a simple problem. Even if there isn't anything 'seriously wrong' with it (i.e. you can make that system work if everything goes well), I can find a number of potentially dangerous situations with such a system: self entanglement, problems maneuvering in current, 2nd stage behaving weirdly if it's at a very different depth from first stage, problems getting in and out of the water, your wife not being able to monitor her own gas, etc...

Have you considered having her gear up in the water, or switch to a smaller/lighter tank with good buoyancy characteristics? (i.e. steel if she's wearing a 5mm or thicker wetsuit).

It's not something I'd recommend either - especially for infrequent divers - but your wife monkey diving an AL40 and you supplying air on a regular long hose for most of the dive seems like a better alternative than the system you described. Reasonable gas planning would still severely limit your depth.

Btw, that post probably doesn't belong in 'basic scuba'. More like 'weird scuba' if there was such a forum

 

[Kryssa]

My suggests for minimizing hassle of gear would be stick to boat dives (often once you get on the boat, the crew takes care of everything, even changing tanks, and you could help her get her gear to the boat) and have her dive a smaller tank. When we're diving dry and I need a lot of weight, my husband will dive an 80 and I will dive a 63. I know some people even dive a 50. This will help a lot with the weight issue and the tanks are shorter so they are easier to handle for people of a smaller stature.

 

[fjpatrum]

why not just give her a small tank and less weight? Seems like designing a completely unique rig would not be worth the trouble. A smaller tank, especially if she can don it in the water, is a much simpler and safer solution.

 

[ptyx]

Just an example of a small steel tank:

Assuming (best case) your wife needs 10 pounds of weight with a standard AL80.
Total weight on her back (tank full) is 10+31(tank)+5.8(gas) = 44 pounds.

Switching to a tiny steel 65: 2+25+4.8 = 32 pounds. (Steel tank is negative underwater, so requires less weight).

That's a pretty significant difference.

 

[Guba]

I'm no expert on configurations or diving in general, but I have to say there are several issues concerning the described rig I would have problems handling. I'm assuming the two of you would be diving as if you were a buddy team. In truth, that's not actually so, is it? What you would become, it seems, is a "two-headed diver". For example, a problem such as a blown o-ring for one of you is now a complication for you both. If one has trouble with buoyancy, then so does the other. If, heaven forbid, one of you has an emergency that renders one unconscious, the other's options are greatly limited. It could mean that instead of one victim, you could have two.
In short, it appears to me that the system is complex and greatly reduces valuable flexibility in handling situations. My natural response is "there has to be a better way to handle the problem", possibly through some of the suggestions being offered by other, more knowlegable divers within the thread.

 

[Blackwood]

This isn't as good as the guy who was going to strap Aluminum 80s to his legs to avoid expensive doubles parts. Go back to the drawing board.

Seriously, if your wife doesn't want to strap on gear, maybe take some freediving classes. But tethering her to your cylinder with a 30 foot hose is just asking for trouble (you swim one way she swims the other way -> the hookah reg pulls out of her mouth; you swim around something and catch the extraordinarily long hose on it -> the hookah reg pulls out of her mouth, etc.) particularly if she isn't comfortable with her bailout configuration.

I'm not one to give people a hard time about their gear (unless they solicit my opinion as in this thread), but if I ran a dive op, this configuration would be a non-starter.

A sidemount configuration may give her the illusion that she's not wearing gear, and makes it easy to doff the heaviest part (cylinder) in the water when boat diving.

 

[echodiver]

PTYX - great feedback and thanks! Yeah, the self-entanglement chance and current resistance are considerations but sort of come with the hookah territory. I really appreciate your point about her potential weird 2nd stage performance due to any depth diffs between me and her. As in "Why didn't I think of that . . . "

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

FYI: Snuba operates all the time with the tank and 1st on the surface and the 2nd 20 feet or so below, so that might not be an issue.

One option with the small tank for her is to do extended air share drills to equalize dive time on the bottom. You might find a standard 7' long hose setup adequate and it would be less of an issue with dive ops.

 

[echodiver]

-> the hookah reg pulls out of her mouth;

Blackwood - Thanks for your feedback and good points! However, regarding the reg pulling out of her mouth, the config prevents that as the long hose would actually run in typical hookah fashion from my waist harness connector to her waist harness connector - not directly to her reg. But the overall unpopularity of this idea may make it all a moot point