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I have noticed that there are those who would stuff their long
hose rather than breath it, as is recommended by many instructors,
and as somebody pointed out, is mentioned as an alternative in one
of Tom Mount's books.
There is a contingent out there who feel that if a technique is
"safe", it is ok. I don't think stuffing is either safe or optimal, and I will
point out why.
First of all , we breath the long hose. This hose generally, but
not necessarily, has a high-performance second stage. I use a Beuchat
VX10 for this, as it is high-performance and is not the least bit finicky.
I also use the Scuba Pro G250, but prefer it on the deco bottles (breathes
easiest, but is more likely to lose gas while scootering that the VX10)
The intermediate pressure of the first stage, or the ability of the first
stage to deliver must be in keeping with the length of the hose -don't
use a weak first stage. This is the hose we share gas from: it is always
either in our mouth or clipped to our right chest d-ring, where it can
be passed off quickly - QUICKLY and efficiently is the difference between
success and failure. If you think that you can unstow you hose fast enough ,
well, you better hope you are right, because YOU are the one who will be
needing it to breath off of, as the stressed diver ripps yours from your
mouth. Now pinned to you because of the shortness of the hose, you have
an even bigger problem - TWO stressed-out divers with the clock running.
We won't go into the merrits of different stuffery - they all are
found lacking and not in the least due to the forced compromise of some
other part of your gear to accomodate the stuffery and the mess.
Stuffed hoses get caught on things, they are hard to free up, they are
confused and messy, and clutter your dive gear. There is no convenient
way to stow the hose where the second stage is protected. It generally takes
two to restuff, as when the hose falls out, or gets caught on something.
With the long hose being the primary , there is no problem repositioning it.
Trying to unravel a hose from behind your head or under your arm or along
the sides of your tanks is not good planning - putting it back is worse.
The backup reg needs to be around the neck on a short leash. This
reg should be a lower performance model, so as not to lose gas. I use a
detuned Beuchat VX10 for this, again because of the reliability. Both
regs should be of the type that you can remove the boxtop to unfoul, and
should be finger tight on the hose so that you can swap them out with your
stage regs if a problem develops.
The issue of safety is obvious in the rare case of air-sharing.
But the real safety comes in an uncluttered, unencumbered, smooth , clean,
non-convoluted rig that will not grap and catch and cause excess drag. So
to those who say ,"any gear config is ok as long as it is safe", I agree, it
is just that not breathing the long hose is not the safest or the most optimal.
George Irvine
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