Sender: Maggie  Date: 1/18/99 6:54 PM

>I think everyone's made some really good points in this thread. But I am
>nonetheless compelled to put in my $0.02. Some of the boats here in the NY
>/ NJ area list a redundant air supply as *required* equipment if you want
>to dive off the boat -- along with equipment that I think you agree is
>necessary, such as a reel, lift bag, cutting implement, etc. Do you suggest
>that if I want to dive with a single tank, I should not dive off of one of
>those boats? Do none of the boats in your area have equipment requirements?

Screw the dive boat. You look at the dive and equip yourself 
appropriately, after all its your ass. I am surprized that the boats 
baby-sit the divers up there like that, I thought that was a Fla Keys 
thing. Or perhaps it is a reflection of the poor state of divers up 
there, the boat assuming that you are a bunch of idiots who don't know 
how to look at a gauge and need all the help you can get. No, there is no 
"pony requirement" down here.

>To my knowledge, the Wahoo does not require a redundant air supply. But
>when I was a brand-new wreck diver, I didn't dive off the Wahoo much
>because at the time, they mostly went to the Oregon and the San Diego. I
>didn't feel ready at the beginning to dive the Oregon, and, well, I like a
>little variety, so I was diving on other boats, too (which required the
>redundant air supply) in order to visit wrecks such as the Lizzie D, Stolt,
>Algol, Iberia, etc. 

I am glad to see that the Wahoo lives up to it's reputation as a serious, 
first class dive boat.

>When dive season begins again here, I will probably spend April doing what
>I did last April: diving with a single. It's just way too cold for me to
>want to stay down long enough to incur deco, and my hands just don't work
>real well in super-cold water, so I'm not interested in penetrating the
>wreck (yes, Virginia, there are things to see on the outside!) -- neither
>of which I would do without doubles. And I freely admit that climbing the
>boat ladder with a single tank (with or without a pony) in the heavy seas
>of the early season is a lot easier than doing it in doubles. 

Well, if a single with pony is nicer than doubles, then imagine what just 
the single is like, weight-wise. Nothing wrong with the outside of the 
boat, you'd be surprized what you can find on the outskirts of a wreck. 
After all they don't all implode or something.

>No matter what I do, I seem to be powerless to prevent people on the same
>boat as me from diving solo and / or failing to manage their own gas supply
>properly. If some giant hoover runs out of air and grabs the reg out of my
>mouth, I'm not so sure that there would be enough gas for us to return to
>the anchor line, ascend slowly and do a reasonable safety stop. What if I'm
>all the way at the other end of the wreck and this guy has a consumption
>rate five times mine (not an unreasonable assumption)? Perhaps the OOA
>diver is not a hoover per se, but is a fairly new diver and freaked out
>enough by the situation to use more air than normal. 

The solution to this is to get a scooter and when you hit the wreck, 
crank that baby wide open and head as far as possible from the anchor 
line as fast as you can. And when you come back, avoid the fur-ball at 
the bottom of the anchor line, another thing a scooter will allow you to 
do. Then drop your own hang line and avoid the fist-fight at the hangbar. 
And if you are wondering if a using a scooter will leave your mystery 
so-called "buddy" far behind, yes, it sure will. It suuuure will.

>So here are my options as I see them:
>(1) Stop using the pony, and practice the tried and true rule of "my air is
>my air." 
>(2) Skip diving when the water is too cold for me to want to do dives that
>require me to use doubles. 
>(3) Maybe I should only get in the water when everyone else is on the boat? 
>(4) Stop diving off boats that accept giant hoovers, people who don't
>manage their gas and buddyless divers. (No such boat exists to my
>knowledge. As far as those that require buddy diving, it's a little hard to
>control what the buddies do once they get in the water.)
>(5) Dive with doubles anyway. But wait, according to my limited
>understanding of "DIR," diving with extra unnecessary equipment (did you
>say "Christmas Tree?") is just as much of a sin as having wrong or
>improperly configured equipment. 
>(6) Manifold a couple of 45's -- like you suggested -- for my early-season
>single-tank diving. That would give me redundancy the "right" way, but it
>still wouldn't solve the hoover problem. 
>(7) Calculate my thirds as a hoover would, yielding 7 minutes of bottom
>time instead of 30.
>(8) Use a 120 cu. ft. tank and calculate my thirds as the hoover would,
>yielding 10 or 11 minutes of bottom time.
>
>Is it me, or do all these seem like impractical solutions?

Maggie, dive with whatever gives you the warm and fuzzies. My point is 
that most ponyboys use ponys for all the wrong reasons even if they did 
not mean to do it at the start. My point is that if air is really the big 
issue then why fool around with ersatz independent doubles. If weight is 
an issue then create a set double 50's. If you feel that you cannot 
possibly do the dive on a single tank then DIR and use doubles or don't 
do it at all.

>As far as the 6 cu. ft. bottle goes, well why not just carry a Spare Death
>instead? 
>
>You made a lot of really good points in your bulleted list. But I just
>can't see the disadvantages outweighing the advantages.
>
>>If you can't reach the surface with the air that's in your tank after
>you've had a LP hose failure you should not be diving.
>I can't add much to what Lisa said about this. However, because of some
>kind of paranoia I have (I'm sure its complete strokery and perhaps you
>will instruct me on this), I prefer to get back on the boat with 500 psi of
>air in my tank. If I have the pony bottle, and all kinds of stuff has gone
>wrong, I don't have to worry about sucking my main tank dry.

Then the dive was not doable on a single tank.

>>You get a DIN valve to get rid of the "oring failure phobia".
>I already have DIN valves on everything. I'm really happy to learn having
>DIN valves means that nothing can possibly go wrong.

I keep hearing "what about a oring failure". I maintain that you fix the 
problem rather than using it as an excuse to bring along a pony placebo.

>>How about inspecting your gear before you dive in? Oh, to hell with that,
>I've got a PONY.
>If inspecting my gear before I dive means that nothing can possibly go
>wrong with it, then why bother with redundancy at all, ever? 

As I have said, if you have to plan for catastropic disasters on every 
dive then you are better off with 2 ponys, right? Or three? Where do you 
draw the line? Why did you draw it there? I have voiced where *I* draw 
the line and the reasons for it. Nobody else has so far.

>>So you're telling me that you can strap a 40lb piece of lead to the side
>of your BC and not feel it? 
>>Oh, come on, it's downright comical to see the ponyboys stagger around the
>deck with their silly 
>>jacket BCs half pulled off from the pony bottle.
>Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, pony bottles are available in
>sizes other than 6 cu. ft. and 40 cu. ft.! 
>My pony bottle is 19 cu. ft. According to my calculations, it provides more
>than enough gas for me to ascend slowly from 130 ft., do a 5 min. safety
>stop at 15 ft and get back on the boat with plenty of air left over. Off
>the top of my head, I don't know what the buoyancy characteristics of an
>aluminum 19 cu. ft. tank is, but I can honestly say that it is not
>noticeable in the water compared to my light, which, when used with a
>single, DIR-style, is pretty unbalancing. (Since I don't carry the "right"
>kind of light, my light is only 1 1/2 pounds negative in the water.)  Maybe
>I should carry a hand-held light if I'm doing single tank diving.

But there it is, hanging off your tank, unreachable, you cant remove it 
and then put it back on, you can't see if it is leaking, how can you 
depend on it? A: you can't.

>Furthermore, in the unlikely event that all hell broke loose and I lost all
>my gas instantly I could ascend directly to the surface on one breath. But
>I'd really rather have the option of heading back to the anchor line and
>doing a safety stop. This is probably due to some unreasonable phobia of
>mine, or didn't I hear somewhere that "all diving is decompression diving."

A safety stop is a convenience item, not a requirement. If my dive got so 
fucked up that I lost all the air in my main tank, I think I'll just go 
ahead and skip the old safety stop and get the hell out of the water, if 
you know what I mean.

>I will admit it, on two occasions I have needed to use my pony bottle. Both
>times were in no-deco situations, and I didn't have enough gas in my tank
>to complete my safety stop without draining my main tank below 500 psi.
>This was due to complete and unforgivable strokery on my part. I made a
>mistake. And I learned from it.

I will bet that it would only have been ONCE if you didn't have your 
"blanky" (as my son calls his tattered blanket he drags all over the 
place) pony with you. Maybe not even once.

>All things considered, I think I'll carry the pony for single tank diving.
>Hopefully I will never *need* it.

I certainly have no problem with that. It does not matter to me what 
folks dive with. I am just trying to point out that a ponys are not being 
used for what they are supposed to be used for and nobody want to admit 
it...

 Jim



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