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Rod, the manifolds don't fail catostrophicly, they usually just
leak at the interface, which is not even a reason to call the dive.
The normal failure is to loose a reg, and then you just shut it
off, like the independent. If you loose a knob by hitting something,
and then the reg, that is when you would shut the isolator. You
are worrying about things that don't happen. We make our bets on the
surface: option number one "don't dive".
With a namifold, you only have four hoses : pressure guage, inflator,
backup reg, and long hose reg. You can access all of your gas from either
reg, and you share the long hose, which you are breathing, if need be.
I am into the cleanest, simplest rig possible. I carry no buddy
bottles or any other bullshit. For me a solo dive and a team dive are
done the same way, but I may carry a couple of extra backup lights
in my pocket for a cave dive.
I am not sure what the points of the arguments are, as I have not
been following. Like I told you and Jason a long time ago: in the U.S.
only the biggest weenies or strokes dive independents, and they do it
because they are scared to dive or because they have some convoluted
logic about putting different gasses in the tanks.
It is easy in this country to get out the list of divers who do
it each way, and the list of caves to see who has the end of the line:
the weenies and strokes have nothing, as you would expect. This is
why I hate to argue with the Aussies or the Brits, as these people
who actually are good divers and are tougher than nails are discredited
when compared to the pussies and morons in this country who dive
independents. Keep in mind for you weenies out there that "British"
rules are "my air is my air". There is no attempt to rig dependency into
the gear as we do. Also keep in mind that they do not moonshoot the caves
like we do, which requires an orchestrated series of contingencies that
must be rehearsed and perfected as a team.
We do use the sidemount config where necessary, and that is
just the equivalent of carrying stage bottles with no back gas, and
works just fine. We use the single tank config when necessary, and
we use the no-mount or "pong" bottle (single tank pushed ahead of the
diver) when necessary to get the job done, but obviously we don't go
too far with this, and we leave that to Steve "Hammerhead" Irving to
manage or Pat "Little Tanks" Watson. I do it in the Bahamas, but
that is to save flying the doubles over, and the water is 81 degress
in the caves, so a real simple rig is all one needs. Also the caves
are generally so short that not much gas is required.
I really have no stake in other people's gear config, unless they
want to dive with us, in which case they must do it our way. Anyone
who dives with me already does it the way I do or they would not be
able to do the dive in the first place, and I would not waste my time
testing this theory any more: when yuo dreive 500 miles to do a cave
dive, you don't have time to listen to excuses. With me it's always
"go at throttle up". - G
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