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>If you go back and reread what I said earlier, manifolds are not an option >for me and my buddy. So, I am trying to figure out the safest and best >way to work with independent doubles. Something wrong with that? Do >you have a problem with people trying to be as safe as possible with >what they have available to them? A few suggestions, then. 1. Talk with the Japanese dive operators you use most frequently. Ask them to work with you on equipment and improving the safety of the operation for their more advanced customers. Ask them to make manifolded doubles available for those few individuals who are trained in their use. If you can successfully present it as an improved safety issue, you have a pretty good chance of getting a hearing. It will help a LOT if you can have your case presented by a respected Japanese diver, or by someone the Japanese respect. (Hint: A couple of the bigger non-WKPP names from cave diving were over there a while back; you can probably point to THEIR equipment and say "this is what we want to do, and this is why we want to do it this way.") 2. Talk with Japanese divers. Talk up safety issues. Explain how and why manifolds are safer. It may take a while, but the word will get out. 3. Have you and your buddy, and a few of your diving friends, considered going in together, organizing a small dive club, and buying a few sets of manifolded doubles and a van to haul them all? This fixes your motorcycle and train problem. You still have the cost problem of the tanks. 4. Pitch manifolds to the Japanese dive companies as an opportunity to sell equipment to the more specialized operations. Japanese survive by selling to each other. There is this whole technical diving market that is being neglected there. 5. Figure out a way to sell Japanese women divers on manifolds. 6. Consider restricting your diving to what you can do safely with a single tank and sport rig. Independents are a bad idea all around. You want to talk safety, here it is. Going to independent doubles MORE than doubles your workload in the water compared to a single tank. You have to weigh the diving result against the risk. Are you getting enough ADDITIONAL techno-nookie to compensate for the increased workload and risk? 7. Look into rebreather diving. Although the Fieno is off the market, because of the North Koreans, there will be other options. Again, this is an opportunity to manufacture and sell. (Look at the Japanese 4WD market.) 8. Look into setting up your own dive operation, using manifolded doubles. You'll need Japanese involvement, because the unions probably won't take a gaijin front man seriously, and the Yakuza certainly won't, but it can be done. One dive shop here in DFW was opened by a technical diver who was also a PADI instructor and who got tired of hiding his mixed gas proclivities. 9. Move to Florida. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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