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Jim >For the benefit of our sometimes doubtful audience, what effect did your >rather expensive changeover from strokedom to DIR have on your diving >experience? Confession is good for me, right Jim? Firstly, go brew a cup of tea as this catharsis is long. As you say, for the benefit of a doubtful audience... Before I get into my humble DIR experience, and for the newbies, I should say that there is a serious amount of garbage on this list. Probably 2% is worthwhile and 3% is humorous, the rest is dross. However, that 2% is priceless and we have some distinguished divers who are willing to share their experiences. Thank you to them. If one is prepared to listen to the message, think, and then act (implement it and then go diving) then techdiver is one of the best sources of information around. BTW, judging by the number of emails I get on Monday morning I am amazed how many cyber divers there out there when the rest of us are diving at the weekend! I converted to Hogarthian and DIR fully in 1997 but had implemented elements before this. Actually, I always have been a DIR diver in terms of wanting to do it right, I just didn't have the right information. I dive mostly on English Channel wrecks, occasional recreational dives in warm water, and recently every weekend cave diving in South Africa. What a pleasure is was to find that I can use equipment from Mike Fowler at the Badgat IANTD centre and dive pretty much with the same configuration as I do in the UK. This configuration works for the varied diving I have done. Anyway, on to the story, for those still awake... I was a bit keen and got into doubles diving pretty soon. This caused be to go for a wing arrangement and started with a configuration that actually worked reasonably well. OK, I used Omega II regs, Zeagle wings bought all sorts of clips and "really neat accessories" for my equipment. I even bought a long hose (2 metres - which is too short) that I stuffed and did not breathe. Yes, the long hose was stuffed, but only down the side of the cylinders, no real kinks, I could hand off the long hose without it snagging. It really annoyed me that I could not re-stow it on my own when it occasionally came loose. Those damn octo-quick clips occasionally came loose when you didn't want them to and were occasionally too tight when you wanted to unclip them, but they're "really neat accessories". My conversion started with the concept of breathing the long hose. I was always a bit dubious about the training exercises I did when learning to dive. You know all that polite, "Excuse me old boy, may I have your regulator as, golly gosh, I have just run out of air," business and the corresponding, "hang on a moment, old chap, I'll just find my octopus which is conveniently clipped off using one of those really neat octo-quicks secreted somewhere about my person, now where is it?". It always seemed to me that one has to cater for the worse case where someone, probably not your buddy, comes up panicking and takes the regulator from your mouth. Now, I'm the one who needs a regulator, not the out of air person. This selfishness cased me to go for a necklace for my long hose. I still breathed the short hose. Then I thought about it again, having heard about breathing the long hose and thought, why not have the long hose in my mouth so they take the regulator they are supposed to have in the first place. It works both ways: if the person is not panicking and asks for a regulator then I give then the long hose; if they panic, 99% of times they will still take the long hose - it works! I liked the elegance and simplicity. Armed with this insight, I wrapped the long hose several times around my neck and nearly choked my self when practising - well actually I'm exaggerating I had heard of routing the long hose around the neck but had to get the finer points sorted which I did via this fine electronic medium. Once I tried breathing the long hose I was amazed how good it was. The long hose breathes easy and is actually the most comfortable of all regulators from which to breathe. There is no tendency to pull in the mouth as one turns one's head from side to side as was the case with my stuffed hose and those really neat octo-quicks. I was a happy man I could even re-stow my own hose. Pleased with this I continued to dive the remainder of my stroke kit which was performing well on my 50-60 metre air dives. However, there was a lingering thought that if this changed worked, maybe I could improve other aspects. About this time I bought a few WKPP tapes, including the DIR I tape. I also started to think about and took a Trimix course. I had configured my steel stages with metal-to-metal connections: a D-ring on the stage connected via a SS double ended dog clip to a D-ring on my doubles. It used to take me an age of thrashing around to remove a stage. I like to be slick and this was an embarrassment. I recalled that scene in one of the WKPP videos where GMI3 effortlessly does stage drop with seemingly hardly a care in the world. He was probably pretty damn deep too. Now, I like to think of myself as not too stupid and noticed a stark contrast between the amount of effort in the two scenarios. As an experiment, I bought a Silly Billy Ring and slotted this through the "waist" strap of my Zeagle wings. I could not really get it into the correct position on the hip, but it was such a dramatic improvement that it was adopted. This lead me to thinking that I really needed a proper waist strap as is the case with a harness and backplate. Also, I was thinking about buying a canister light and had no idea where I would fit this to my kit except strapped to the doubles which I did not like. It was about this time that I had my calling. Elements that I had tried from Hogarthian rigging worked or would work better if I whole heartedly adopted them i.e. a LHS waist D-ring worked on the Zeagles but would work better with a harness. Pleased excuse the shouting, but is the important bit: I ACCEPTED THAT FOR A SYSTEM TO WORK FULLY, YOU HAVE TO ADOPT IT AS A WHOLE. I recognised that Hogarthian rigging had been developed by divers that knew more about diving than me. These chaps had thought it all through. Hogarthian rigging is perfect by definition. If there is a better way of doing something comes to light then the Hogarthian rig will be modified so that it is once again perfect. As I was sold on those elements I had tried, I adopted the system as a whole and only now look at ways to improve it. Here I am after much cost but happy with a system that works, finding no reason to change anything of substance. The only refinements I find to debate is a stupid discussion about a cable tie with Jim Cobb. So, Jim if you are still awake, to answer your question. If I had gone Hogarthian from the start I would have saved a lot of money. However, apart from sorrid fiscal matters how does one quantify the difference between my old stroke kit and new Hogarthian configuration? Is it a 20% difference or a 1% difference? The analogy I like to make is that the difference between a club athlete and an international athlete may only by 1%, but boy what a difference. Whatever the percentage is, it certainly increases the fun I have underwater and may even save my life sometime. Now what would I pay for the latter? David Shimell Project Manager, Sequent Computer Systems Ltd., Sandton, South Africa. Email: shimell@se*.co* <mailto:shimell@se*.co*> -----Original Message----- From: Jim Cobb [SMTP:cobber@ci*.co*] Sent: Friday, March 12, 1999 7:29 PM To: David Shimell (shimell); Tech Diver Subject: RE: DIR Rigging Answers David- For the benefit of our sometimes doubtful audience, what effect did your rather expensive changeover from strokedom to DIR have on your diving experience? Conventional wisdom states that you should either have noticed no change at all (as the doubters say that status quo is fine, after all many diver do it wrong and survive their dives), or your diving is horribly crippled due to the fact that you are not using a personal preference setup anymore. Care to enlighten us? Jim Sender: David Shimell (shimell) Date: 3/12/99 4:54 AM >Many years ago I was a stroke. Through the teachings of GMI3 and others I >saw the error in my ways. I was soon converted to Hogarthian and DIR >thinking. Every night thereafter I prayed in the direction of Ft >Lauderdale. I became a believer and sold my Zeagle kit, bought OMS >backplate and DiveRite Original wing, replaced my steel stages for >aluminium, replaced shower heads for Apex regulators, bought Barry's Primary >Light, Barry's backups, and George's scooter. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn About Trimix at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/trimix.html -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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