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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 04:42:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian Sheets <b_sheets@ya*.co*> Subject: Stage bottles on the left? Can someone explain to me why have both stage bottles on the left? +++++ response Brian, going back to the basis of the gear configuration logic where the backup is around the neck coming from the left post, and the long hose is on the right and run under the light cannister or tucked into the belt with no cannister, we find that the right side is free of a lower d-ring. There could be an extra buckle holding the light, but nothing that would prevent you from removing it. Scooters are triggered from the right side, and ridden in a position that throws the prop wash along that side: any bottle hanging down will act like a reverse thruster on the scooter. A good gear config will allow you to progeress to all levels of tech wihtout changing anything, like the way we do it. You will find that those who disagree with this have yet to "do it" - we do it, and we do it to an extreme not equalled anywhere. See wkpp.org for this and other related information. You have no scooter yet? The real story there is that unless the bottles are held stiffly to you, as in sidemount cave diving with scooter, they will ocillate in the breeze so to speak if they are on both sides. This sets them out of synch with your swimming, and gives you a yo-yo effect. Any movement of the bottles increases the drag dramaticly, like the way you move your hands to get more pull on the water when swimming in a pool. Tightly fastening the bottles to either side is a no-no in wreck diving, or any diving where the conditions can change without you being able to anticipate it ( any marine situation) where you could get hung up and pinned. Along those lines you never use metal to metal connections - the warning flag of the stroke. You maut be able to cut any gear free if hung, meaning that the clip on the bottle must not be metal connected to the tank. Only the abosolute worst blithering idiot would do this. Again, no scooter involved? Current in the ocean is far stronger than any normal scooter, and trying to pull along against it with bottles dancing on either side is a nightmare. If the two bottles are together tightly at the top and losely at the bottom on the left side, they will present less of a drag profile by staying still and the butts of the tanks finding their own slipstream, not fighting it. We do exremely long cave dives and have looked at every possible way to cut drag for more speed to get further in less time ( we hold the World Record for cave penetration with our recent 18,060 foot dive into Wakulla Springs, breaking our own 14,230, our 14,140, our 14,010, our 11,000, and Isler's 13,005 and 14,150), and have wroked al of this out ad infininitem. It you have more bottles, put the third by the nose to the left hip ring. You should be using aluminum 80's, or in the ocean 40's and 30's for deco, you should be diving helium, and therefor the weight of the bottles full is insignificant, and will not twist you around. Even air or oxygen in a Luxfer 80 is only going to give you -3 lbs in fresh water, less in salt, and the 30's and 40's are much less, obviously. WKPP divers routinely carry up to seven bottles at at time on some dives where we are moving gear around. NONE are on the left. Ask Sue Harvey how many bottles she can carry at once while still maintaining nearly 175 FPM speed. The practice of trying to use the location of bottles to identify the content is so stupid and so dangerous that we will not discuss it here: suffice it to say that several recent deaths are the direct result of breathing the wrong gas, and in all cases were on improperly marked bottles, bottles "ponied" to the back of tanks, or bottles "located" on either side. For any further questions see WKPP.ORG. I realize that you are probably posting from a fake account, and that you were hoping to get somebody who would not be able to adequately answer the question so that you and other dive instructors could continue to justify teaching crap to paying customers. Let me assure you that I will stand in the way of this, and will pull my track record and superior results on you every time. If this is not the case, then I thank you for giving me the opportunity to demokeyize another case of dive industry mongolism. Seriosly, see the WKPP page for complete explanations of everything related to bottle marking, carrying bottles, and why. We do slick best. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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