Pete,

You're reading this the wrong way. Hell, I want people out there developing 
and testing rebreathers. At some point in the future they may actually be 
as safe and applicable as open circuit gear is now. Until that point in 
time is reached, I don't think it is prudent to tell the masses that 
today's rebreathers will offer the average diver a safety advantage. When I 
mention 'average sport divers' and the 'masses', I'm referring to those 
people involved in extended range/tech diving or whatever the vogue term is 
for this week.

I don't think the military/commercial track record is sufficiently diverse 
to draw conclusions from with regard to the suitability of rebreathers in 
the sport diving community. - Tony


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Gas margin, safety with rebreathers
Author:  heseltin@hs*.us*.ed* at EXTERNAL
Date:    10/4/96 7:44 PM


Tony,

This is the meat in what, on 4 Oct 1996, Anthony Martinez wrote:

> Rebreathers (as they exist today) are neither sufficiently fault tolerant 
> nor user friendly enough for them to be considered an added safety
> advantage. I will not accept that today's rebreathers are a safer means 
> for sport divers to accomplish their goals. There are cases where
> logistically speaking, a rebreather may make a dive or a series of dives 
> more feasible, but at a loss of reliability and safety.

I am certainly not the one to tell you they are or are not more or less 
reliable. There are people on this list who clearly believe that they are, 
or they wouldn't be diving them and there are others who believe that if 
God had intended us to fly, he'd never have given us the railways.

The issue is not whether Joe Sportdiver is going to change from OC to CCR 
and be safer. That's not what I believe and not what I said. But, as you 
note, a rebreather may make logistic sense for some divers. You issue is 
reliability. The first step is to design and build units that make sense. 
The second is to to have them tested in real diving situations. Both of 
this has happened in the military. Rod Farb's point is (I believe) that the 
military experience is only so-so applicable to the tech diver. Techdivers 
dive deeper, longer and in places where there is much less surface support. 
The only question is whether modifications to the Navy's routine to deal 
with these exigencies makes it better or worse. That's the real issue of 
this debate. People *will* use rebreathers, just as others *will* go on 
using OC. It's more reasonable to learn from both types of experience than 
to assume one is inherently better than the other.

Peace

-peter heseltine

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