Using A Long Hose Isn't Just For Tech Divers

[OE2X]

One perception that seems to be prevalent here is that if you are going to use a long hose that you must be wreck or cave diving or you want to look like a tech wannabee.

Most of the divers I see out here that use a 7' hose seem to be doing a lot of recreational dives. I know that is particularly true for many of my buddies. Some of them even dive doubles for their rec. dives. The next time I go warm water diving, I will use a long hose...

Here are some of the reasons why I like using a 7' hose:

Air shares are much easier!
Ascents and holding stops are much easier when sharing air.
Swimming into a current is much easier when sharing air.

 

[El Orans]

I've recently changed my gear to a BP/W and a 7' hose.
Not that I'll be doing many technical dives in the near future but I consider it a safer way to do the dives I'm currently doing.

Laurens

 

[Kim]

Air shares are much easier!
Ascents and holding stops are much easier when sharing air.
Swimming into a current is much easier when sharing air.

[devilish mode] So you have to do a lot of air sharing do you? [/devilish mode]

 

[Kim]

Sorry - couldn't resist that last post - I just got a sudden image of someone who always ends up having to share air!!!

Actually, I agree it's something that rec divers can think about adopting. However - unless they use it from the start of their training I'm not sure that it's something that all OW divers need to be doing - especially not before they have some of their other skills a bit practiced. It is, after all, something that you need to get used to - not to mention in some places the flak you can get on the boats!

 

[Diver0001]

It is, after all, something that you need to get used to

And practice using. It also requires other little changes like not wearing the snorkel on your mask, finding a way to route the hose using the bcd you have and so on.

- not to mention in some places the flak you can get on the boats!

I wonder if the people most likely to give you flak for a long hose are the ones most qualified to have an opinion about it..... just a thought.

Either way I've encountered nothing but curiosity to date.

R..

 

[miketsp]

..snip..
It is, after all, something that you need to get used to - not to mention in some places the flak you can get on the boats!

Most of the flak I've seen on boats is towards those divers that let it trail behind them (on the boat) and keep tripping people up. Generates a certain amount of animosity.
The worst offenders I've seen have been instructor level, cave divers that don't seem to understand what's involved when a lot of people are in a confined space and the boat is pitching around.

 

[Kim]

I wonder if the people most likely to give you flak for a long hose are the ones most qualified to have an opinion about it..... just a thought.

Oh, I agree...probably not. Sometimes though DM's are a bit leery about things they don't know themselves. Of course that can be even more complicated if someone isn't really practiced with a long hose and it ends up causing problems on the boat. I suppose my real point was that if you have one - it's better to know how to look after it, gear up with it etc, before you get on the boat! That to my mind puts it slightly beyond the skill level of the holiday rec divers who only dives once or twice a year (not number of dives - the trips they go on). It simply needs a certain maintained level of competence IMO.

 

[Kim]

Most of the flak I've seen on boats is towards those divers that let it trail behind them (on the boat) and keep tripping people up. Generates a certain amount of animosity.
The worst offenders I've seen have been instructor level, cave divers that don't seem to understand what's involved when a lot of people are in a confined space and the boat is pitching around.

That's exactly what I mean. (mike, you posted as I was typing so I didn't see your post!)
Not to mention that doing the above also means someone might step on a reg by accident - and the damage doesn't show up until later - which kind of negates the safety benefits!

 

[Mark Vlahos]

I use the long hose for all of my dives. The only time I have shared my air was after I adopted the long hose, and on a recreational dive in Cozumel.

It was a choice, not a necessity to donate. I wanted the low on air diver to have a more than adequate amount of air still left in his tank to allow him to inflate his BC on the surface, keep the reg in his mouth while getting back on the boat, and not worry about any water flowing back into his reg if he breathed his tank to zero. We were at about 65' and he had just less than 500 PSI in his tank and was breathing hard due to his stress, I had somthing like 1200 PSI. He was ready to make a safe and controlled ascent to the surface, but he was not going to make a safety stop.

I found the donating experience to be simple and relaxed, as I try to practice it on at least an occasional but recurring schedule. The big surprise for me was not my experience but the experience of the recipient. When we got back to the boat he was surprised at just how much hose there was as a consequence of the 7' hose. He found that the long hose allowed him to relax quickly. It afforded me a little room to inflate a marker and shoot it to the surface so we would not get run over by a boat. We made a 3 minute safety stop and had a nice slow ascent of around 30 feet per minute. He gave me my reg back when we made the surface.

In every way it made a potentially stressful situation easier to manage.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I find that a long hose makes air sharing much more practical and allows it to be done proactively in some situations. The advantage a long hose gives to wreck or cave divers in being able to air share and swim horizontally for significant distances is still potentially useful for recreational divers.

For example on a dive at about 80 feet the buddy of the day notified me he was down to 250 psi a couple hundred feet from the anchor line while I still had over a 1300 psi. Rather than ascend immediately, do a stop mid water an then swim back on the surface dealing with wind, wave, boat and current issues, it was a simple matter to share air on the 7' hose and swim normally back to the anchor line and do a normal ascent up the line with a normal safety stop. It is not something that would have been feasible with the more normal 36" octo hose where a direct ascent to the surface would have been needed.

A 5' or 6' hose may be more appropriate for a recreational diver from a hose routing standpoint and they still provide about 95% of the benefit of the 7' hose.