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Dave Mabry <dmabry@mi*.co*> wrote: >I would conclude that since the pro-independent croud really can't point >out advantages of independents that make them safer, that indeed they >ARE NOT safer! I am NOT advocating independents with this posting, but this wouldn't be the Techdiver list if somebody didn't play the devil's advocate. The safety advantages would relate to the systems being independent, thereby limiting the amount of air you could lose due to any incident to only that in one side if: - you didn't hear air escaping. - you couldn't get to your valves, due to being in a restriction, task loaded with your hands full with something else, wearing the wrong dry suit, etc. - you couldn't figure out which side to shut off. - you forgot to check air, or the gauge jammed, and you went below plan (you've only sucked half the system dry and not the whole system). - you can't lose everything to a blown valve stem in an isolator valve or to a compromised crossover bar. Now, for my honest opinion, I think there are advantages on both sides, or else we wouldn't be having this debate. If one method was a win from all possible points of view, we'd all be taking it for granted. A big issue is the probability of each failure mode. If one system has an apparent weakness that in actual practise will kill one diver every five years, while the weaknesses of the other system kill three divers a year, you want to go with the first system. Robb Wolov's posting the other day about NATOPS and how the US Navy does things hits the nail on the head quite well: you need a bunch of people out there doing it according to the same book, with a strong accident-reporting and analysis system, so that you can quantify how things actually work in the real world and adjust your methods accordingly. Armchair analysis has its limitations; a one-in-a-billion problem can look like a show-stopper, while something that looks surmountable and/or easily avoidable can be a killer. Based on the evidence presented here, it looks like a manifolded system has the better track record. Also, neither system is a gun-to-your-head killer. This is a good system up against a better system. 99% of independents divers will live to a ripe old age, while perhaps 99.9% of manifold divers will, so any argument is going to meet up with a goodly number of live, healthy, skeptical independents divers. A wise man once said "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ... but time and chance happen to them all". A later commentator added that "that's still the way to place your bets, though". I'll go diving with a manifold, thank you. (BTW, that same wise man also said "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Amazing what you can copy-and-paste out of the Good Book. This would be the Scriptural view on solo diving, buddy pairs, and cave triples. Both quotes are from Ecclesiastes, if anyone wants to look them up.) So in conclusion, the independents system is bad only in light of there being a better alternative. Three years from now we'll probably be flaming anyone who still dives a manifolded open-circuit system when anybody in their right mind would be using a rebreather. -- Anthony DeBoer http://www.onramp.ca/~adb/ adb@he*.re*.or* (here) adb@ge*.co* (work) #include "std.disclaimer"
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