I don't know if you remember, but we had a discussion about long hose breathing earlier this year. I told you I would come back to you after trying it for a while. I did part of my homeworks and I am now soliciting your comments.
I heard and read a lot about diving Hogarthian during the last few years. At the beginning, I really was skeptical. I was thinking that some individuals were just motivated to say that they are the best and that the rest of the world were dumb fuck assholes. I still believe that they act like that. However, I'm starting to recognize that their approach make a lot of sense (interestingly, Tom Mount is the one that brought me the better arguments).
Since I'm not yet converted, I would like to share my experience and explain the system I'm diving now. I would appreciate that you take the time to understand what I'm doing and the way I defined my system before recommending changes or new approaches.
At the present time, I breathe the long hose (5 feet) when doing recreational sport diving (long hose is 7 feet for other dives). I converted the regulator of my wife so she use the same configuration. The sport diving system, being very simple, does not require many more question and allows for easy implementation of this approach.
However, for tech. (not sure I like the word) diving (cave, wreck and deep), I have some problem with the system. Let's start with what I do the most: Openwater deep diving:
Seven years ago, while I was divemaster for a diving facility in Eastern Township (on Memphremagog lake), I got interested in deeper diving (I used to bring clients on the same walls over and over to a maximum of 100 feet). I had the desire to explore the bottom of the walls and to see a little bit more of the sites. One of the walls was very deep (estimated to 300 feet). After exploring the sites progressively from 130 to 200 feet (over a period of 3 years), I decided to get formal training in mixed gas diving. My teacher was Sheck Exley.
While Sheck's training was not very intensive neither extensive, he showed us that we were better to carry our travel mix (air) on back and the bottom mix in a stage. So we proceeded that way breathing heliair during the course. I now put the bottom mix on my back, travel and deco mixes are on left (ean 32 and 50 most of the time) and oxygen on my right side. I just got use to carry O2 on right side on all dive requiring that gas. I have to say that all dives I do (openwater, cave, wreck) are swimming dives (no scooter and no concern for scooter towing problems). Since I own a dive-rite NL12/24, 150w light (which I will soon replace by a more convenient one), I butt-mount my light under my set of 95's. The cable is routed under my chest strap and I hold the light in my right hand. When not in use, the light is simply suspended around my neck. Many people said all sorts of thing about that light. However, I never had any problem or incident with it.
After completion of my full cave course, I started to dive a system in Ontario where the passages are often very low. Sure I also do wreck diving in the St-Lawrence river.
My harness is a Dive-Rite harness (deluxe) that I modified to put two d-rings on each shoulder. I also added a quick-release on the left side. The reason for all those toys on the harness is the bulky insulation that I use. My dry-suits (DUI CF200X, and Viking Pro that I very rarely use) with my DUI Thinsulate (35-50) underwear made it difficult to extract myself out of my harness without the quick-release. The additional D-ring were added because I dont have enough feel of the snaps when wearing think three-finger gloves. Therefore, I prefer to have a single use for each of the D-rings. The upper left one is for my pressure gauge. The lower left one is for my two left stages. The upper right one is for my secondary regulator (I'll come to it later) and my lower right one is for the O2 stage. I carry a Z-knife on the shoulder.
I tried to carry the pressure gauge on the waist. This did not work well as it was hanging below me. The caves I dive in here are very low and I simply cannot carry anything below me. For the same reason, I stopped attaching my stages on the waist d-rings (I used to do that for years). After trashing the bottom of a cave over about 100 feet, my buddy made me realize that my stage tank was hanging too low. I now clip the stages on tank D-rings. I felt that this was putting my off-balance at the beginning, but I got used to it. However, I don't think I would be comfortable carrying all stages on the same side that way. Next year, my configuration will change dramatically for those cave dives as I will be diving with a sidemount configuration.
By carrying a tank-clipped stage on my right side (O2 for deco.), I feel that the stage would interfere with the long hose should I decide to use it as per the Hogarthian configuration. Therefore, I still pack the long hose on the side of the backplate and breathe the short hose on dives requiring right side stage. On other technical (that word again) dives, I breathe the long hose most of the time. Please remember that while doing openwater dives and often on wreck dives, I carry all my cylinders during the whole dive. I forgot to mention that my valves are Dive-Rite manifold with isolator (I don't know if this is relevant for you). I place my backup light on my harness 'a la Irvine' since 1993. I like that placement. However, I'm thinking about an even simpler placement 'a la Hire' (two small lights in a pouch). I used to carry a spare mask. I now carry it only on decompression dive in cold (less than 40F) water when my hang time is of more than 20 minutes and risk of failure exist (such as in wreck penetration).
My belief is that equipment configuration has to be a cohesive system. Placement of a single item may affects the usefulness of many other components. For example, the Hogarthian configuration works well because all components are working together (harness with left side buckle, waist-mounted light and long hose routing). It is not clear how I would convert entirely to that system without sacrifying some elements (mainly the right side stage and tank stage attachment).
From: Anonymous
To: m.therrien@netaxis.qc.ca (Michel Therrien)
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 14:03:49 EST
Subject: Re: Improving my style
Whew, that's a whole lot to read there..
Umm, I have no experience with butt mounting a light, so I can't really comment on some of this stuff, but what I can, I'll try.
First, for putting the O2 on the right side, to be honest, I do that too sometimes, especially when I have two or three stage bottles on the left. I still breathe the long hose however. I haven't put too much thought into the "what if we're sharing air during the O2 portion of the dive", remember, I drop my O2 bottles off and pick them up, so I'm not always carrying a bottle on my right side, only during the final stages of the dive. And that's only sometimes.
The closest thing I can think of as a "clean way to route the long hose and keep stage bottles on the right side and still make use of the long hose for the air share" is the "a la mount" method. He has loops of tubing on the side of a back plate that he shoves the hose into. That way the stage bottle can be on the front, but he can still deploy the hose. Unfortunatly stowing it I imagine becomes a two person ordeal.
As for the pressure gauge, if it's on your side on the waist it shouldn't be dragging below you. I have a clip which goes on the waist side D-ring.
Back to the tanks thing, one thing that we do when doing multiple stage dives (I used this for my last Cheryl dive, and it was awesome). Take a piece of rope, make a loop with it. Have a clip on it. The loop should be about 3" diameter (7cm). When you're finished with a stage bottle, clip the neck to the loop. The loop is clipped onto the waist d-ring, just like the psig. But, for situations like wreck penetrations it might make entanglements an issue.
Sorry I couldn't have been more help. I'd probably look for ways to drop the bottles off during the dive, like on an anchor line or something.
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 22:46:04 -0500
To: m.therrien@netaxis.qc.ca (Michel Therrien)
From: jwei@cis.ufl.edu (Jim Wei)
Subject: Re: Improving my style
I read your description of the configuration. It's difficult for me to recommend any single change because it'll affect the entire system. For example, if you change to breath the long hose, then you'll need to side mount the light to route the hose to the proper length. I'll try my best to be helpful and try not to embarrass myself at it :)
I don't know if I told you about this, but I had all sorts of problems with my NL12 so I finally sold it and bought an AUL light. The AUL light is not fault free either, but the problem are easily taking care of and they're mostly to do with maintenance (such as replacing cord, bulb, etc.) The main problem I had with my NL12 is the battery. It was getting crushed every time I go deep to the point where it started leaking acid through one of the terminals.
I think it's a fine light for shallow dives, in modest size cave. But for deeper, bigger cave, the AUL is a better light. As for carrying deco gas, the only thing that make sense to me is never change your config, once you set on way to carry your nitrox and O2 and stage bottles, don't change it. That's how Robby died. Again I'm not an expert on swimming dive with multiple stages. When scootering I carry everything on the left side, but for swimming, it's almost impossible to do it that way (the weight offset of full tanks makes you roll over).
The quick release it one thing I strongly recommend against. I know at least one case where the quick release broke in a cave and the team had an interesting time bring it out (yes, it took the entire team to do it). I know people who dives the CF200 and C4 underwear and have no problem getting in a one piece webbing harness. I'm even worse, I wear the C2 with a neoprene drysuit. The right amount of wiggling will usually do the trick. You do not want to have your harness come apart in a cave or deep. One word about the Z-knife on the shoulder. I used to do it that way until one dive at Indian, on the way out I picked up my stage and clipped it on to me, switched to it, and scootered out. During the trip out I noticed how my hose on the stage bottle seems to got shorter. It's only at beginning of the deco I realized instead of clipping the top stage clip to my shoulder D-ring, I clipped it to my Z-knife. After that dive I moved the knife to my waist.
I tried to carry the pressure gauge on the waist. This did not work well as it was hanging below me. The caves I dive in here are very low and I simply cannot carry anything below me. For the same reason, I stopped attaching my stages on the waist d-rings (I used to do that for years). After trashing the bottom of a cave over about 100 feet, my buddy made me realize that my stage tank was hanging too low. I now clip the stages on tank D-rings. I felt that this was putting my off-balance at the beginning, but I got used to it. However, I don't think I would be comfortable carrying all stages on the same side that way. Next year, my configuration will change dramatically for those cave dives as I will be diving with a sidemount configuration.
It's simple. Just get the 22 (or is it 24) inch high pressure hose from Dive-Rite. Good idea on the side mount. I usually don't go to places I can't get in with my doubles, and there are only a few place like that, for example Branford Spring, which my buddy Jason Richards loves and tried to get me to do it with him. After seeing his riggs for that cave (single 80 with Y valve pushed in front of him) I refused.
My belief is that equipment configuration has to be a cohesive system. Placement of a single item may affects the usefulness of many other components. For example, the Hogarthian configuration works well because all components are working together (harness with left side buckle, waist-mounted light and long hose routing). It is not clear how I would convert entirely to that system without sacrifying some elements (mainly the right side stage and tank stage attachment).
That's a very good point. It's very hard to change a single item w/o affecting rest of the configuration. You already have a solution for the tank stage attachment. Once you start side mounting, you won't have to worry about stage dragging through the mud because you'll only dive you doubles in bigger caves or openwater. I don't like attach my stage to my doubles because I don't like to have any D-rings on my doubles. I think that saved me many times from snagging on the time. There are times in Manatee where I would come out from under a duck under, going full speed with three stage bottles and the flow behind me and have no idea where the line is, only to discover it's brushing past one side of my doubles. If I had any D-ring or stage bottles on the doubles, I'd probably still be there untangling myself right now :)
As for the right stage, it's very difficult to do efficiently with the side mounted light. Maybe George or Tom has some idea about this, since he also dives in the ocean(I don't). Sometimes I hang a tank on the right side, but that's the one I'll drop off right away, so it doesn't bother me that much. But for carrying the entire dive, I really don't know. Have to think about it.
Jim
From: JJCAVE@aol.com
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 21:57:55 -0500
To: m.therrien@netaxis.qc.ca
Subject: Re: Improving my style
I see your point but most of your problems are related to trying to make what you have work instead of adapting what you have to what you want. For example the spg will drag unless you use a custom hose limiting the length greatly. Also, my guess is your bottles clips are not very tight causing your bottles to hang low. I see the glove problem but you could probably change this a bit anyway. Also, I would probably go with the dry gloves and reduce the size and therefore the modifications necc. The light has some disadvantages that you have probably read but my biggest are the downward pull a flooded canister will exert on your legs and if you keep diving a square light to progressively deeper depths you will see this in time. Also, you have a risk with an attachment failure of the light. I have seen several people flail aimlessly as they try to deal with the dangle of their light.
As for the back-up light. In the pocket is the worst place for them even though I really like Lamar this is crazy. Any decent one's will weigh down your bag increasing line entanglement and drag. Ditch the bag and go with side pockets. Worse yet the lights can come on and burn dead with you none the wiser as they are sealed away in a pocket. This is dangerous regardless of your style.
The tank on the right is understandable with a triple and is the same for us. You could share air with the tank on the right but full deployment would be a little slower. However, in a cave where you would need the extra length you would leave the bottles and on an ocean dive you don't need it. The short hose is still more easily reached around the neck, even if donating from there. I do not agree that there is any excuse for the quick release. I have taught hundreds of people from around the world and cold water people invariably argue a bit on that. I too dive the C4 stuff and my big students in bulky Vikings managed. The key is do you want to take a couple more seconds on the surface or have your tanks come off in the water. At the very least please at least use a double end bolt snap to back-up this very weak link.
I see your point on most of your choices but it does still seem to me that you are letting your equipment dictate your configuration and not vice-versa. I think you should pick a style and dive it. Changing constantly, especially fundamentals like which hose to breathe is dangerous. Good luck in your endeavors.
Good Diving,
JJ