Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Peter Heseltine Wrote: >Kevin, > >Check out the ref to you below. Is this true?? ;-) Tony 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. >> If you tell me you want one because they are cool or a challenge >>to dive or even because it will help you get laid, fine, those reasons I >>can accept. Peter Wrote: >Nobody told me you got laid more often once you owned one - no wonder >Heydude has'nt got time to shave ;-P > Then Tony said: Ask Kevin how much >>of the Monitor he saw this summer. - Tony Hokay... I'll respond since Pete asked me to, and I'm trying to con him into giving me a Yellow Fever Vaccine so I can go to Africa in Feb... Remember, I still don't have 100 hrs on my unit, and thus have only qualified for Rod's "Associate Master Rebreather Technical Mixed Gas Semi-Instructor" badge (which, incidentally, only cost me $2,000 in addition to the $1,500 "friendship fee" the Rod charges me yearly...). First off - I am convinced that, with proper training, and rigorous maintenance, a closed circuit rebreather will keep you alive in SEVERAL different ways. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. When something goes wrong in open circuit - you've got one option- Get more Gas. When something goes wrong with a rebreather (like mine, since I know no others) - you have SEVERAL different options at your disposal. You've also got MINUTES to figure out the problem, as opposed to SECONDS in open circuit. I don't have to tell you that that can mean the difference between life and death. To say that rebreathers DON'T offer safety advantages to the trained diver is ludicrous, and simply identifies the person stating that as a non-rebreather diver. This is not meant as an insult, simply a statement of fact. Once you get a closed circuit rebreather, you will see just how much they can do for you in terms of safer deco, safer gas managment, and safer unsupported solo diving. Not only that, but you have got the POTENTIAL for sooooo much bottom time, that if you were stuck in a wreck (which was the subject talked about in the previous posts), lets say at 130' - you've got probably 4-5 hours to figure a way to get out. Think about that. Four to Five HOURS. Maybe more, depending upon whether or not you started the dive with full spheres and new scrubber, and if you listened to Rod and plumbed your unit with combo bailout/extra diluent bottle. That is just one case example, and naturally I'm making a few assumptions here: 1) You were WELL trained. 2) You've got A LOT of time on your rig in safer situations (over 100 hrs.) 3) You don't panic in your situation, you trust that thing on your back. 4) Your unit is working properly, since you are sooo dilligent in maintaining it. And let me say here that most of the guys that keep harping about "electronic devices" in life support equipment are NOT rebreather divers. I used to ask Rod and John a bunch of stupid questions, born of concerns I had BEFORE I owned my unit and was properly trained on it. Once I got mine, and learned in detail its functions and design, I stopped worrying about the electronics and other stupid stuff like that. Truth be told, the damn thing is really a beauty of simple engineering. Nothing fancy, no multiple integrated circuits, no complex wiring. Hell, you could probably go to Radio Shack and build the circuits for the CCR-155. There is nothing in these units that does not serve some SIMPLE function. This is why us BioMarine divers chuckle at some of the proposed designs of other manufacturers. Why re-invent the wheel? Figure a way to copy the BioMarine design, and go with that. At the recent rebreather forum, there was a preponderance of BioMarine units. Not because they have the best marketing, but because they HAVE the technology. I'm not being partisan here. If Cis Lunar were to quit jerking around and worrying about every single potential piece of litigation, drop their prices to something that is within the grasp of most "tech" divers, eliminate the draconian controls they want to impose upon purchasers of their units, then maybe there'd be some healthy competition. As of now there isn't... Furthermore, when someone states that the CCR-155 is not "fully-tested technology" they simply do not know what they are talking about. The Navy probably has racked up millions of hours on these things, and they still use 'em. Commercial divers racked up quite a few hours on the CCR-1000's. Now, some civilian divers are busily racking up hours on these rigs, doing things with them that the Navy never even dreamed of - witness the two EOD divers from the Navy who spent about an HOUR asking me about the mods I made to my rig. They expressed a desire to have theirs similarly equipped. I eventually turned them over to Farb, who no doubt, dazzled them further. To say, because guys like Farb are using the units outside the range of what the military considered when they built them, that this moves the technology into the "experimental" catergory, is simple misrepresentation of material fact. Sure, Farb's taking them deep - but these rigs have been dived to 1800 feet from a lockout. I doubt even Pyle would want to dive that deep in search of his counter-lung eating fish. The technology and experimental testing behind these units remain the same, no matter what depth you are taking them to. "But hasn't the Navy killed guys on these rigs?" Yes. Most recently, from what I understand, a guy died under the ice somewhere - but he was NOT a trained Mark 16 diver (once again, from what I've heard - Rod knows the story). His buddy decided to let him take one for a ride... Some ride... The truth is, Tony, that I'd rather run into an emergency situation while wearing a rebreather than with Open Circuit. That's because I was trained on how to use every advantage these things have over OC to keep myself alive. As many of you remember, I did have a pretty bad scare a while back, but the unit kept me alive for an HOUR after the problem, while I finished my deco. Diving these things is not for everyone. You have to be trained, you have to build the confidence that only hours of diving in shallow water can give you, and you have to be capable of dealing with stressful situations, to the same degree that you have to cope with ANY kind of diving activity. Dirty Harry said it best: "A man's got to know his limitations..." Knowing your limitations is very hard, but it must be done. Luckily, I've got friends who are MORE than willing to point mine out. I get pissed at them, but they DO mean well. They just want to keep me around because I'm a good cook, and to collect their friendship fee. The trick is to think about your limitations, work on expanding them, and constantly set new goals to stretch your envelope ever so slightly. That is the road to experience. As for the Monitor - I blew the dive on the Monitor because of an EARLY O2 solenoid that was installed in my rig - it drew 5 Watts of power to activate. As such, it needed a practically brand new battery to function. Dick King of BioMarine shipped me the NEW solenoids that draw only 1 Watt. This makes the difference between firing and not firing on a used battery. It is important to note, that had I had MORE experience with the unit, I probably would have made the dive anyway, since I can control my PPO2 manually. Had I known that Bertha was going to blow us all out of Hatteras, I probably would have tried that anyway. Bringing up my blown dive on the Monitor really is a lame way to attack the units - I'm still a relatively inexperienced rebreather diver, and as such I'm still running into small gremlins that once figured out and fixed, go immediately into that knowledge database that all of us must acquire in order to become proficient in whatever field we aspire to. I'm sure Pete Heseltine gouged several holes in the first patient he tried to draw blood from. That doesn't mean that the needle he was using was unreliable, untested technology. Also, the time he gave that dude the penile implant, when what the guy really wanted was a sex-change was simply a small error that doctors make all the time when they are new. You can't blame the technology... Now, as regards getting women: The beard helps. Gotta look like a sea-faring Man-'o-War stud to get the womenz... Being a studly man-of-the-sea, and a deep water, shark divin', filmmakin', rebreather dude definately is a bonus. In fact, don't let your women read this post, I've only got 3 bedrooms in my house, and couldn't handle the sheer volume of female flesh that would descend upon me if word got out... When I think about all the money I ever spent on useless dates, I should have sent Dick King my $13k a looooong time ago... ;-) Later, Kevin HeyyDude
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]