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Steve & George
I wear my gear as clean as anyone. I have most likely been in as many
tight situtations as either of you. My mental attitude and discipline I
will compare to anyone who dives. I maintain excellent physcial
condition.
When diving with WKPP it is proper and important to be configured in
the same fashion. That means doing it to the tee. I agree with this
approach and its importance on the project. It would be extremely
disrespectful and out of order for someone to show up on a WKPP dive
without being configured as specified. In your shoes I would also deny
them diving privedledges on that project. Being configured as required
and following the procedures used on the WKPP projects, is part of the
discipline and it would be an insult to all who do follow the project
standards if someone failed to honor these procedures.
DIVING IN GENERAL
On all dives as long as someone maintains the same clean priniciples we
both advocate they can be equally as safe even if they attach the
pressure gauge at a differnt point, wear a safety light at a different
place and even if they butt mount a light provided the light is
designed for the type dive being made. They can even store the long
hose in a different fashion (provided it deploys easily, is positioned
so it will not chafe or become entangled) and with all these changes
they can be equally as safe and equally as trim and still have that
good gas duration thsat comes with good clean configuration combined
with excellent dive trim, Of course fitness plays a big role here to.
I'm not aruging the merits of the manner either you, I or others (who
keep safe placement and useage of equipment) configure equipment Your
method for instance is outstanding and it is a proven system. Anyone
duplicating this will have a safe and outstanding set up and enjoy the
use of a proven under fire design.
The point is regardless of what either you or I think and we do have
good reasons for our beliefs based on proven concepts, yet other people
will configure differently and they can do so and still remain safe.
I think the important thing is to emphasize the safety of proven
systems and to demonstrate the impractical application of some systems
that are commonly used in the field. To a point even though we approach
this last point from different angles we have began to develop
awareness of gear configuration to the overall diving population. That
I think is a major breakthrough in diving and we should be proud of
that realility.
There is also a thing called comfort that enters the equation. On my
own dives I now use a transpack, I do so because for the first time in
years my back does not give me pain when I climb up the steps cave
diving and walk to the car. In fact for the first time in years I now
can and ocassionaly do walk out of the water with both a deco and
penetraion stage still attached and walk to my car with them. It does
not hurt my back let alone almost cripple me the way doing the same
thing in my backplate does. I breath from both hoses during every dive
just to be sure they are always functioning correctly. Like you I use
custom hose lengths on my bc and spg. When I dive dry I wear one set of
wings when I dive wet I wear a backup set of wings. All hoses leaving
my first stage go straight down. I do not criss cross hoses. As you
know I perfer buttmounted lights(for cave diving as the lights are
bigger) regardless of manufacture. I do side mount lights when it is
appropriate for the dive group I'm diving with or when using a smaller
light while wreck diving.
What I hope to see is the community getting away from wrapping hoses in
surgical tubing on the side of the tanks, due to the increased
possibility of entanglement and chaffing of hoses. I would like to see
people discontinue placing safety lights and reels on the side of tanks
when diving in overhead environments as it can lead to entanglement and
also is an esasy way to lose a safety light of reel and not even know
its gone. To make this attreactive to all I think a variey of methods
should be shown and that the advantages of each should be explained. If
people have a choice of multiple equally as safe approaches they are
more likely to adopt these than if they are just told everything they
do is wrong and they can only do it one way.
I work with a large international market and many of these folks have
developed systems they are comfortable with. Some of these are equally
as safe as what you or I would recommend some are not. To get them to
switch there must be some degree of choice. Hell, George/Steve you and
I both have the same attitude towards independent tanks and look at the
number of folks who still insist on using them. There is no way these
folks will duplicate what you or I would do but maybe if we give them
some different approaches they will switch over to a safer system. This
is the only place we get cranky in IANTD , but we forbid the use of
independents in training programs period, no exceptions, except for
side mount dives.
Stating an opnion not creating or looking for an arguement , opnion is
stated. I understand your point I hope you understand the points I
presented here.
Tom Mount
You wrote:
>
>At 05:35 PM 2/13/96 -0800, gmiiii@in*.co* wrote:
>>
>***************************************************************
>> Tom, all good points except that my opinion is that any *
>>convolution is unsafe, not that it will kill you by itself, *
>>but that the mental attitude that allows it will
*
>***************************************************************
>
>There it is! Did everyone get that? Read it again.
>
>~~
>Steve
>
>"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys
> to teen age boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke
>
>
>
>
>--
>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'.
>Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'.
>
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