What if DIR Evolved Elsewhere... (take two)

[rjack321]

I have had leaking inflators a couple of times, no runaway. One of my cave buddies had a runaway in open water once though. Brand new (non-halcyon) plastic inflator.

My wife had the whole hose on her BCD pop off the elbow, so the "balanced rig" concept really came into play on that dive.

If you dive often enough and across the range of conditions, I think all of the failures discussed and managed in GUE's program happen eventually. Dsteding had a primary light failure last weekend. Which was due to a faulty volt meter suggesting that he picked up a charged battery from his gear when he had not.

Its not just to Halcyon gear.

 

[Mike Edmonston]

Yes, but I've made, quite literally, thousands of dives [SIZE=-1]within 23.5 degrees of latitude of both poles [/SIZE]and never experienced, witnessed or heard of the problem. Freeflow sure ... very rare, usually traceable to wrong gear or crappy technique, ... but runaway BC or suit? Never.

Just to be fair, None of the inflators that we had leak were Halcion. There were 2 oms and 1 dive rite. I think it had more to do with using them out of the water first, then using them again underwater that caused the freeflows. They were not runnaways, but they were inflating the wings and you could hear them leaking.

What we did was get out of the water, and dunk them in a thermos of hot water for a couple minutes. Then before we went in again, we orally inflated the bc's, and used the inflators only while underwater. There wasn't another leak for the rest of the day (other than the Atomic regs..)

 

[Thalassamania]

Starting to sound like I should go back to my Fenzy for cold water dives.

 

[amascuba]

You are likely right.

It's nice to find some consensus.

I do wonder about this whole "runaway" inflater thing. 10K+ dives and I've never had it happen, never seen it happen and never even heard of it happening ... except at the intersection of the internet and DIR divers, which I guess I can understand that given the Q/C problems that Halcyon had and how that would have a much greater effect on the DIR community.

Is this real or an artifact of something else?

There was as incident in Ontario earlier this year where a diver had a run away inflator on his wing AND his drysuit.

 

[TSandM]

I've had a leaking inflator on a DSS wing. It wasn't a gross runaway, but it was slowly auto-inflating.

Mike, it wasn't going out of trim that made me unhappy in Florida -- It was dumping all my gas and lying on the bottom to put ties in. That still makes me unhappy, but maybe it's the only way to get the job done. I've definitely absorbed the idea that one doesn't want to touch ANYTHING in a cave, and high flow was an exercise in cognitive dissonance for me, because I had a choice -- I could not touch anything, and go float in the river, or I could pull and shove and get into the cave. Now, remember, my cave training ISN'T GUE -- It's TDI. But in Mexico, where things are different. Reading your statement, "Clawing your way through the eye is not something you should be ashamed of," makes me feel much better.

 

[limeyx]

I've had a leaking inflator on a DSS wing. It wasn't a gross runaway, but it was slowly auto-inflating.

Mike, it wasn't going out of trim that made me unhappy in Florida -- It was dumping all my gas and lying on the bottom to put ties in. That still makes me unhappy, but maybe it's the only way to get the job done. I've definitely absorbed the idea that one doesn't want to touch ANYTHING in a cave, and high flow was an exercise in cognitive dissonance for me, because I had a choice -- I could not touch anything, and go float in the river, or I could pull and shove and get into the cave. Now, remember, my cave training ISN'T GUE -- It's TDI. But in Mexico, where things are different. Reading your statement, "Clawing your way through the eye is not something you should be ashamed of," makes me feel much better.

I do seem to remember reports from other GUE classes about essentially having to do the same thing there -- dump all gas from everything and muscle your way in.

I think it may have been in Joe T's report but that seems to have gone missing ...

Muscling your way in in Mx is definitely not usually recommended or necessary

 

[grazie42]

How do you get thru the lips in Ginnie without pull and...pull?

It may be possible to swim against the flow but why would you want to? One thing among many sigh_2 my cave-instructor kept hammering into us was to be energy-efficient...no wasted motion and only using the method of propulsion most suitable to that part of the cave...There are some places where that method is a frogkick, in others it´s pull and glide in still others thats a flutter...

Same thing with trim, you choose the trim most appropriate to the cave you´re in..."flat" was definetly the starting-point though...

But none of these were "better" than others, its simply that "flat" and frogkick are the appropriate selections in most cave (and other) enviroments...part of the class is to teach you how to make good decisions about which mode to be in, in different enviroments...

The few dives I´ve done with dir-divers (maybe 30 or so) they tend to stay away from wreckpassages where silting is unavoidable. My prejudice is that they feel it´s more important "not to silt" than to see the cool parts of a wreck...which is fine...I just hate to see people missing out on good dive-experiences because of what I see as "fear" of imperfection...

If a class doesen´t teach you when to "break" the rules, I think you´re not getting your money worth (this is a general statement not directed particularly at gue-courses)...

 

[Gilldiver]

All this talk about auto inflation leaks has me asking the question,

Do any of you ever just unhook the dame thing and fill the BC by mouth? If you have your hose bunggied into a D-ring and can find it, it takes about 1, maybe 2 seconds to do it.

I have had a few problems with power inflators on BCs that were either in need of a good cleaning and o-ring lube or that I rented in other locations while traveling for work, these dives were sneak dives where I could take an afternoon off on business travel, not a dive trip where I took my own equipment.

If the power inflators leaked enough to be a pain, I just took the hose off them. After all, power inflators didn't become common till the early 80s. Or is this another lost skill like buddy breathing, ditch & don, etc.?

 

[JimC]

Do any of you ever just unhook the dame thing and fill the BC by mouth? If you have your hose bunggied into a D-ring and can find it, it takes about 1, maybe 2 seconds to do it.

By the time you get to the hose to unhook the QD the inflater is covered in a ball of ice. Besides the fact that unhooking one of those things with 2 or 3 sets of insulation gloves and a nice sloppy blue glove on isn't exactly quick. Me? Well, if I still was insane enough (read had the time anymore (17month old)) to dive in freezing temperatures I would start the dive with it unhooked. That power inflater is just tooooo finicky and consequences of failure much to high (scared ***less, hospital or dead) when it is dirt simple to orally inflate.

 

[JeffG]

All this talk about auto inflation leaks has me asking the question,

Do any of you ever just unhook the dame thing and fill the BC by mouth? If you have your hose bunggied into a D-ring and can find it, it takes about 1, maybe 2 seconds to do it.

I will do that for Ice diving now. Never hook it up is my new sop.