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Skip MacElhannon wrote: > > When I first started looking into deep ocean diving I read your posts >about diving double Al 80s (especially if diving wet) and got into an >email discussion with Mr Mount on that subject. He informed me he >would prohibit diving Al80s for ocean trimix classes. His logic, not >enough gas for safe diving. Skip, This is typical hypocrisy; Mouth himself has always used some bogus little toy tanks made by Cressi - they look like about 70 cu ft each, and until his boy at OMS started importing the Faber tanks, we never heard a peep out of Tom about "not enough gas". Aluminum 80's were what eveyone used. In about 1990, Genesis made some high pressure steels, but they turned out to be about the same volume as 80's at the same pressure, and caused the problem of being too heavy. I tried them on one dive and turned them into oxygen bottles. At the same time, they were too light for drysuit diving in cave, and too small. Genesis then made 120's which had all the same bad features - too light for cave without extra weight, too heavy for ocean. Scuba Pro always had the Faber 95's, but you notice that neither Mount nor his legion of strokes ever recommended or "required" those tanks. Why? Because any not every jack leg dive shop can be a Scuba Pro dealer. Very simple economics - that made the tanks a non sequitur. With the OMS on them, we see a sudden "requirement". The Presssed Steel 104's had been areound but were too heavy for ocean and had been discontinued anyway at the time. If Mounth has been doing all of this diving and teaching for 50 years, why did it take the appearance of a new label on ancient tanks for him to "require" them. This is nothing more than a typical Mount response - any way but the way the pros do it. The obvious solution for his hoovering hordes is to either shorten the dives to match their lack of skill or if they can not use a reasonable amount of gas recognize that they have NO BUSINESS deep diving or taking advanced dive classes from IANTD, and or to use stages if he indeed is concerned about "safety". The WKPP for example, whose divers have far beter breathing rates and fitness than Mouth and his students, do not even touch their back gas for cave diving - it is considered emergency gas, and we do not do long enough exposures in the open ocean to require any larger supply. We usually can do two of these dives on one set of 80's without violating any safety margins. I know this from doing back to badk repets looking for the bodies from one of IANTD's deep gas classes last January in Palm Beach. I know how much gas I used since I had to record it for the bill: 25 dives on 12 sets of aluminum 80's, 25 minute bt's each dive at 250 rectangular. John Rose of WKPP has developed a simple rule of thumb in dealing with Tom : if you find yourself on the same side of an argument as Tom, you are probably wrong. This has held up for years due to the simple fact that whatever I say or do, Tom tries to do the opposite, over everyone else's dead body, and before me it was Parker Turner, and then Bill Gavin. "Deliver me from the Evil One" can be replaced by "Deliver me from Ego" - my advice to the Mouth. His ego and false pride are spelling disaster for diving. There is obvious, and he is obviously wrong on this and every other subject we have seen out of him lately. > At 06:38 PM 4/29/99 -0400, you wrote: > >In addition, Mouth also requires bottles on different sides as a means > >of identification ( very stupid and did not work for jane Ornmstein or > >her instructor), he has color coding, ( extremely stupid ), he has > >poodle jackets ( extra stupid ), and a bunch of other nonsense in > >addition to the fact that the gases he requires are farm animal stupid, > >and this is just the tip of the iceberg. > > > >John R. Rose wrote: > >> > >> Steve wrote: > >> > Why do the some of the readers of this list feel that blame must be > >> > placed on an agency or person when a tradegy occurs? > >> > > >> > The fact that someone has lost a life, someone had lost a loved one, and > >> > someone has lost a friend is enough of a tragic loss. > >> > > >> > I feel that for every loss there is a lesson to be learned. > >> > Unfortunately, the normal case is that someone didn't follow the rules > >> > which have been well established over time. > >> > >> Steve, > >> > >> The problem is that while the losses are Mounting, the lessons are not > >> being learned. Inadvertently breathing the wrong gas while on deco is > >> clearly a bottle marking problem. A simple and effective solution, wich > >> by the way WAS developed in response to a fatal accident, is clearly > >> mark the cylinder with MOD. This allows both the diver and his teammates > >> to easily verify that the correct bottle is beng breathed. > >> > >> The facts: > >> 1) A simple solution for safe bottle marking is available > >> 2) The official policy of IANTD is to persist in promoting > >> unsafe bottle marking which have been implicated in a > >> number of fatal accidents. While the agency may believe > >> that their approach is "equally safe" the Mounting death > >> toll suggests otherwise. > >> > >> The Questions: > >> How many people have to die in accidents in which unsafe bottle > >> markings are implicated before ALL agencies promote safe bottle > >> markings. > >> > >> Best Regards, > >> > >> -John > >
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