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As an ex-pony boy, I will have to agree with the anti-pony crowd. You simply can't do decom diving and follow the rule of thirds with 120 cu.ft. of gas. There are too many good arguments against using independent doubles and when you add the additional variable of different capacities, you are going to fuck yourself. I have witnessed this. In the back of your mind you are always fudging your main air supply because you know you've got that "extra" 30 cubes back there. You know you are in trouble when you start using your "emergency" air as part of your dive plan. On a recent night lobster dive, one of the guys was using a 120 w/30 pony. He breathed his air down then could not find the up line. He got a bit excited and by the time he found the up line he was well into decom and had sucked his main dry. He switched over to his pony and by the time he got to the hang bar he did not have enough air to complete his decom. He popped up and someone gave him their pony tank. Near the the end of his decom he dropped the pony and it yanked the regulator out of his mouth and headed to the bottom (when he was telling us this story, it was about this time everyone on the boat was rolling on the deck in laughter) and he had to bolt to the surface, striking his head on the bottom of the boat. He will now and forever be called "pony boy" and has doubled his 120's up. To his credit he did not drop his bag of lobsters. The irony of this story is that he thought he had superior air consumption and did not need the weight and bother of doubles, so he split them up and added a pony. If he had doubles and been following the rule of thirds he would have had no problems. And, uh, this is also a good example of how *not* to solo dive. >J. Shepherd writes: >> >> Hi Chris, I hope you're feeling better. >> >> I have to disagree with you on a couple of points. >> >> i) That ponies have no use. >> >> ii) That their discussion has no place on techdiver. >> >> Point i I'll leave for the moment. But on point two, can you >> define techdiving in your terms? You may find that a lot of people >> differ. Now, I may believe that it refers to people with more money than >> sense and too much gear. You may believe it refers to diving in >> environments beyond 'the norm'. > ><snip> > >Look, I am sorry that my question about pony bottles got everyone all >flabergasted. The reason I post some border-line questions on the list is >because this is the one place I know that there are some very advanced divers >who might be willing to share their opinions and experience with me. What do >you people want me to do, go ask my NAUI instructor about pony bottles? Maybe >the guys with no teeth who work as divemasters on the boats down here will >give it to me straight. I trust the information that I get here above the >advice I would get from any of the above. > >Now, I know we don't want to turn this into rec.scuba. That place has a couple >of people that know what they're talking about and the rest dive once a year >on vacation. > >I know that even the *basic* training in NAUI is taught wrong. So I think that >this forum can be used as a place where people who know that the agencies >teach crap can come and get an idea of how to do it properly. > >That's all I'm going to say about it. I'd rather read 100 posts about pony >bottle rigging than 100 posts about the politics of diving. > >Jeff. >-- >+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| jjackson@se*.sb*.co* | >+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| If I had a nickname, I think I would want it to be "Prince of Weasels", | >| because then I could go up and bite people and they would turn around and | >| go, "What the-?" And then they would recognize me, and go, "Oh, it's you, | >| the Prince of Weasels." --Jack Handey | >+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >-- >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. >Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'.
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