Weighting,Stupid Question !!!!

[tndiveinstruct1]

Good morning all,

Have been reading this thread with great interest, as I am (*GASP*) questioning many of the procedures that I use AND teach. I find that many things that DIR recommends make a lot of sense. And this coming from a PADI Instructor... whoda thunk it?!?!

Suffice it to say that I can really see both sides of the debate here. I understand the reasoning behind putting the WB under the crotch strap. It would prevent a runaway ascent if the buckle came loose for WHATEVER reason. And yes, that is the DIR approved method of wearing a weight belt. But I can appreciate the thinking on wearing it outside as well.

I honestly believe that GI3 and JJ have come up with a great system here. But I also know that the DIR system has come about due to PEOPLE like GI3 and JJ thinking about the situations that they have been in themselves. Just because we haven't all done 18,000' cave penetrations doesn't mean we cannot contribute to the thought processes that have codified the DIR system so far. Many people have already stated that they do things *SLIGHTLY* different than what the DIR teaches say.

By meeting in places like ScubaBoard and openly discussing items such as this, I feel that we all become more than automatons simply repeating what we have been taught.

Granted, labeling something as unsafe when the track record has shown it to be quite safe may be a little over the top, but didn't it cause everyone to stop and re-evaluate what they personally are doing?

My personal views on DIR are still evolving. I truly believe that it DOES make a LOT of sense for 90% of the diving that we all do. NAUI now has the NTEC configuration for technical diving, and yes, even PADI standardized the equipment config for it's TecRec program. Many instructors, myself included, are taking the basic tenets of DIR to heart and teaching that way. I use a BP/W, long hose, teach proper buoyancy control and trim, and yes even trim and other finning methods besides the flutter kick that people say PADI doesn't teach...

Sorry for the long post, but I really felt compelled to say these things in the thread that got me to thinking about it.

To the original poster, you have received your answer. The DIR approved method is under the crotch strap on the drysuit, and over the strap with a wetsuit.

Randy Cain

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sorry, Bob, couldn't disagree with you more. This is exactly the type of forum this discussion belongs in.

Not according to the rules posted for participating in this forum. Respectfully, these rules were created to prevent someone from so muddying up the conversation that any meaningful discussion of the DIR principles of diving becomes difficult. That is how I see this conversation developing. As a participant in the discussion, I cannot moderate the thread. I can, however, remind everyone what the rules of engagement are. That is what I am doing. You decide whether or not to follow them ... if you choose not to, another moderator will make a decision what to do about it.

This guy never talked about going buddyless...why state that he did.

Read replies 5 and 15 in this thread. The person he is referring to was, effectively, buddyless. No, he never specifically stated so ... however, he did state that the conditions were such that they could not see each other, and speculated on the cause of death, meaning that no one was there to actually witness it. In effect, if you cannot see your buddy and you do not terminate the dive, you are diving buddyless. That, BTW, isn't just DIR practice ... they teach you to do that in every agency's OW class.

But the comment was brought up by Soggy that there NEVER is situation where ditching weights is appropriate. That proper planning negates this. That is just wrong. S$^T happens. The whole DIR concept is based on this. Plan for contingencies. Redundant systems. But yet this whole argument ignores that fact that a buddy separation can occur.

Actually, the argument doesn't ignore the fact that a buddy separation can occur. It states the fact that there are other ways to deal with the issue ... that ditching your weights isn't a desireable thing to do in almost any imaginable circumstance. I also pointed out that if you need to ditch weights in a standard harness, it is quite simple to do so. Granted, not as simple as it is if your weights are on the outside of your crotch strap, but still quite doable. Both notions were rejected out of hand, and the practice labeled unsafe. He's welcome to his opinion ... it's just not an informed one.

Tell me that you are a DIR diver who has never drifted, separated, lost, or whatever, "your buddies", then I will call you a liar...in a nice sort of way.

Well, first off I will tell you that I am NOT a DIR diver ... and have never said I was one. Granted, I have taken the DIR-F training ... that doesn't automatically make one a DIR diver. I adopt most, but not all of what they taught me. That, by definition, disqualifies me from the label ... not to mention that I dislike labels in the first place.

But to answer your question, no ... since taking the training I have never drifted, separated, or "lost" my dive buddies ... and I often dive in three-person teams. I don't attribute it to DIR training so much as I do to the simple fact that I'm experienced enough to (a) prepare for expected conditions, which includes a pre-dive discussion with my buddies about how we'll dive and what we'll do if we separate, and (b) call the dive if conditions are such that proper buddy diving isn't possible. Both of those conditions are, as I'm sure you're aware, what they teach you in basic OW class ... regardless of which agency you take it with.

And, as I have posted in this thread before, the situation in which you will lose contact with your team will very likely be an emergency situation. Fine, depend on the team. But plan on your team not being there....or you not being with your team. That is a higher probability than an regulator failure or whatever other contigency you have trained over an over for. Consider this....perhaps there just is something new to learn.

OK ... and in return I'll ask you to consider the concept that DIR training has considered the eventuality of diver separation, and planning for contingencies and failures. They have answers and responses for any problem that has been discussed here, and any that you can imagine might occur underwater. And none of them require you to drop your weights.

Consider also that if something unexpected, and unplanned, occurs and you need to drop your weights, the extra two or three seconds it takes to release your waist strap, remove your crotch strap, and release your weights, won't really be an issue.

Consider also that, as Soggy pointed out twice, if the diver was having a seizure ... dropping your weights amounts to a death sentence. You cannot overrule Boyle's Law, and this fellow having the seizure would've blown holes in his lungs ... explosively in the event of an uncontrolled ascent ... which would almost certainly have killed him before he hit the surface. OK ... so in this case a weightbelt removal would've made body recovery easier ... maybe. I'll give you that much.

Are you saying that no DIR diver has ever gone into rough surf, bad viz, swift current, lost a buddy, been lost by a buddy, ...give me a break. If you only dove SWEET water, you'd all be pussies and I know that is not the case, so don't say you don't go into questionable water. Unless you dive into a placid lake, there are situations that need to be dealt with.

At the risk of repeating myself ... they teach you alternatives for dealing with these issues that have nothing to do with dropping your weights. Consider that most people who dive doubles don't even HAVE ditchable weight ... whether they're DIR or not. How, exactly, do you think those people deal with those emergency situations? Perhaps that's the question you should be asking.

Quit expousing theory and talk reality.

My reality is based on logging over 1,000 dives ... and nearly 800 hours of bottom time ... in a little over three and a half years. Theory is for the Internet ... what I am telling you is based on experience.

Again...S**T happens and this guy has discussed a situation that could happen to any of you.

That, sir, is where I'll disagree with you. The situation he discussed cannot happen to me ... for two reasons.

1) If I found myself diving in a situation where I couldn't keep track of my buddy I'd surface before I gave myself a chance to have a problem. I would discuss this contingency with my buddy before the dive (we do, by the way) and expect him or her to do the same.

2) If for any reason I found myself in the situation, dropping my weightbelt would not be my first option for dealing with it. And in the event that other means didn't suffice for getting out of the situation, I would have the opportunity to remove my weightbelt in the manner previously described.

In no manner can I see how I dive as being "unsafe".

Why cram him into a non-DIR forum when he came to you to ask a question.

Because we gave him the answer and he rejected it out of hand. Fine ... that's his choice. However, if he is unwilling to hear the DIR answer, then based on the rules of engagement in this forum, he's asking in the wrong place.

He has done it reasonably, responsibly and with respect. You have not given him the same.

I disagree ... at no time was I disrespectful. I simply pointed out the rules and asked him to consider observing them.

Time to self relfect and make this a better forum. If you look in this forum there are a lot of non-DIR divers looking to see if this is the place for them to belong. It doesn't look too friendly to me. Time for a change.

The rules were established to keep this forum from becoming a "playground" for every non-DIR diver with an axe to grind. As I'm certain you are aware, there are many people out there who know nothing about DIR teaching, but base their opinions on some perception that DIR divers are trying to "shove something down our throat". This forum was designed as a place where we can discuss DIR teachings without having to allow those people to disrupt the conversation.

If you take that as unfriendly, that's your choice. It's a decision we made to keep the forum usable.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[jonnythan]

I think the whole thing boils down to this: Ditching weight in shallow water on NDL dives can solve some problems. However, when you're back in a cave, ditching weights to solve a problem is simply not an option, so you come up with, plan, and train for other ways to deal with the situation. That same planning and training is equally valuable in OW environments, and that's where DIR comes in.

Why plan to ditch your weight belt in an emergency during an NDL dive but plan not to do it on a cave or deco dive?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Good post Randy, but this brings up something that, perhaps, we can discuss ...

Granted, labeling something as unsafe when the track record has shown it to be quite safe may be a little over the top, but didn't it cause everyone to stop and re-evaluate what they personally are doing?

... which is, how would the DIR-trained diver handle the situation that led to the death described in reply 5 of this thread.

My answer is that proper team diving would have this buddy team dividing up their roles in such a way as to avoid losing contact with each other. It is similar to what we do when training to dive maskless ... one team member maintains touch contact with the other.

In the case brought up previously, one diver gets the role of collecting while the other keeps his hand on the forearm of the collecting diver ... you don't both collect (this is the difference between team diving vs the "traditional" buddy team). If there is a problem with either diver, you know where your buddy is, and use touch signals to figure out how to deal with it.

The thing is, if you KNOW the conditions are blackout, plan for them and utilize your roles in such a way as to minimize the risk of diver separation ... that way you don't have to rely on weight-belt removal as a last-ditch effort to get you to the surface.

FWIW - a few months ago I did a very low-vis dive with Kalvyn and Snowbear. Vis was such that if you stretched out your arm you could not see your fingers. Yet we maintained a three-person buddy team without buddy separation ... in moderate current ... for the duration of a 48-minute dive. This was the result of training and planning ... at no point would we have needed to consider dropping our weights to surface, and at any point if there had been a problem our buddies would've been readily accessible.

Getting back to the epileptic event ... I'm not sure anything could have prevented death. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. However, I would treat it in the same manner as a toxing diver ... maintain close contact, with the diver's regulator in my hand, near his mouth, ready to replace it when the seizure passes. Once the seizure passes, get the reg into the diver's mouth and initiate standard surfacing procedures.

I would NOT consider removing this diver's weight belt while the diver is convulsing ... the seizure would be causing his tongue to block his airway, and an ascent at this point would guarantee an embolism, which would most likely be fatal.

My point being that no ... by utilizing proper configuration, training, and practice, I cannot envision a situation where dropping weights would be necessary. And even if one occurred, I believe there would be adequate time for me to remove my weights as previously described.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Jason B]

I'm not DIR and have not taken a fundies class, but I have started verturing into the technical realm a tad. My reading thus far shows two schools of thought....flight or fight. Rec divers are taught flight...when something goes wrong, get out. Technical divers are taught fight....due to an overhead (rock from a cave or glass from a deco obligation) one must learn to fight the urge to surface and learn to solve the problem at depth as that is their only choice. So the dropping of a weight belt a depth would be a flight option, not the right choice for someone with a ceiling overhead; be a real ceiling or a virtual ceiling.

Jason

 

[tndiveinstruct1]

Good post Randy, but this brings up something that, perhaps, we can discuss ...

My answer is that proper team diving would have this buddy team dividing up their roles in such a way as to avoid losing contact with each other. It is similar to what we do when training to dive maskless ... one team member maintains touch contact with the other.

In the case brought up previously, one diver gets the role of collecting while the other keeps his hand on the forearm of the collecting diver ... you don't both collect (this is the difference between team diving vs the "traditional" buddy team). If there is a problem with either diver, you know where your buddy is, and use touch signals to figure out how to deal with it.

The thing is, if you KNOW the conditions are blackout, plan for them and utilize your roles in such a way as to minimize the risk of diver separation ... that way you don't have to rely on weight-belt removal as a last-ditch effort to get you to the surface.

FWIW - a few months ago I did a very low-vis dive with Kalvyn and Snowbear. Vis was such that if you stretched out your arm you could not see your fingers. Yet we maintained a three-person buddy team without buddy separation ... in moderate current ... for the duration of a 48-minute dive. This was the result of training and planning ... at no point would we have needed to consider dropping our weights to surface, and at any point if there had been a problem our buddies would've been readily accessible.

Getting back to the epileptic event ... I'm not sure anything could have prevented death. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. However, I would treat it in the same manner as a toxing diver ... maintain close contact, with the diver's regulator in my hand, near his mouth, ready to replace it when the seizure passes. Once the seizure passes, get the reg into the diver's mouth and initiate standard surfacing procedures.

I would NOT consider removing this diver's weight belt while the diver is convulsing ... the seizure would be causing his tongue to block his airway, and an ascent at this point would guarantee an embolism, which would most likely be fatal.

My point being that no ... by utilizing proper configuration, training, and practice, I cannot envision a situation where dropping weights would be necessary. And even if one occurred, I believe there would be adequate time for me to remove my weights as previously described.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

In these particular circumstances that you have mentioned, and perhaps this is a discussion that should be put into a different forum and thread, I would tend to agree. Certainly dive buddies/teams SHOULD plan the dive and dive the plan, and we all remember that we should take into account the conditions around us AND the people with us when planning a dive. Far too many people simply plan the dive as depth and time and do NOT take into account things such as viz.

I was thinking about a possible scenario that *COULD* affect people such as yourself and I, and that is when we as instructors are teaching OW students and something happens to us in the water. Now granted most of the time I have a CA with me, but there have been times when I am in the water without one, and I have 2 students with me. They are smaller than I ( 6'6", 290 lbs) and if something happens to me, will they react in the fashion that we have gone over in the pool? They might have to remove my weight belt to get me to the surface and keep me floating...

Of course the DIR method would be to NEVER be in the water with untrained personnel, but sometimes things like this cannot be predicted. My CA gets sick the morning of the dives, but the students are already there and we can't reschedule them for another time....

Perhaps we should move this topic into another area and start a new thread...

Randy

 

[Morg_NZ]

Sorry for all the flaming...................I only wanted a simple question answered and didn't mean it to get so heated.

From what I can see.....there are a few Cyber-divers who really don't have any knowledge on DIR..........some that do know a lot about DIR..................and people like me who want to know more about DIR.

I know who I'll be putting my DIR questions to in the near future

 

[JustJoe]

In posts 91, 92 and 94, most of the information that I needed I found. Reading the thread did bring up questions for me. But didn't want to jump in and get flamed. Bob's posts answered those questions.

Joe (DIR curious - that just sounds dirty, get it, DIRty! nevermind)

 

[Nomaster]

I still follow this thread.
I will continue to read DIR.
I will, for the most part,
avoid posting here.

Prepare yourself; here it comes,
BUT? Is a buddy line DIR?
If so, when we dive in 0/ZERO VIS
why not use a buddy line?
Since I first read about them I have
been curious about the tangling hazard,
but in the zero vis/current situation above,
would this be a prefered option -should "not
diving" not be an option.

Tom

 

[detroit diver]

No. Buddy lines are NOT DIR. For the exact reason you mentioned-entanglement hazard.

edit: Not diving is always an option.

I still follow this thread.
I will continue to read DIR.
I will, for the most part,
avoid posting here.

Prepare yourself; here it comes,
BUT? Is a buddy line DIR?
If so, when we dive in 0/ZERO VIS
whay not use a buddy line?
Since I first read about them I have
been curious about the tangling hazard,
but in the zero vis/current situation above,
would this be a prefered option -should "not
diving" not be an option.

Tom