Should I carry bailout??

Kit

I dive a Dolphin, so I am obviously not the best candidate to answer your question, but I can answer with an analogy:

We all know that you don't always have to stop at stop signs (unless the police are watching), as most of the time if you don't stop, nothing bad happens. Still, it only takes one idiot who you can't see coming to run the same stop sign and ruin your day.

The obvious question is: How much are you willing to gamble with your life?

Take a bailout.

wedivebc

Does anyone who has has a massive CO2 hit want to comment on how long it took to get your breathing under control.
Do you think a 3l is big enough?

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tcascione

You are better off standardizing the way you go into the water with weighting, trim etc. Better to make a stage part of the routine so its comfortable for you. That is to say, if you ever expect to dive deeper or more aggressively which I'm sure you do.

hoppyinca

massive CO2 hit?... well it wasn't fun... as murphy would have it, on this dive I was diving with
my DIL as inflation (wing & drysuit) and b/o.

upon recognizing the problem... (actually not being able to control breathing);
bailout, wrapped the reel into a knot and surfaced...

"I had about a 5 minute surface swim in; my mind was clear, but still short of breath. it wasn't until
17 minutes after surfacing (looked at my computer) that I was completely settled..."
http://www.rebreatherworld.com/rebre...fish-bait.html

My DIL sphere was full (3000psi => 18-ish cuft?... 3-ish liter).
I can not remember the actual pressure after the incident, but more than 1000psi was left.

My thoughts over all;
I think it depends on type of diving you are planning and the support one might need. In my case
I had enough gas, but if a safety stop would have been required... no way...

The other thought is this... a diver should always KNOW their equipment to that end, changes
should be kept to a minimum and "test dived" before performing any actual dives. I am still in
the habit, during dives, of touching everything without looking... O2 valve there,
bailout/ deco/ travel/ whatever reg here, etc...

so why not keep the base unit the same? what that means, for me, is that I will always have my
butt mounted bottle when diving my rig; 19cuft (3l) dedicated to bouyancy and bailout. more and
different gas added as required by the dive plan, but this will always remain the same...

hoppy's 2 cents...

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Sutty

I remember doing an instructive exercise on my mod1 course: ascent on BOV from about 20m, with a 3l dil cyl about half full or a bit over - with a normal ascent rate I was a bit surprised to see that I would have run out of gas, (or been very near to it) before getting to the surface (we switched back to the loop). Try it and see (with bailout available). Now add a higher SAC and its not a hard decision for me...

I always carry bailout below 9m!

Neil

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Abbo

Could I recommend you take a look at this link before making your decision?
CO2: The rebreather incident
On OC I used to plan for 13 litres/min SAC rate: I'm told I should plan for 40l/min+ in case of a CO2 hit. Say you have 2.5 litres of usable capacity in your tanks at 200B; you're at 30m: you have 3.125 minutes of gas if you're breathing at 40 l/min. Theoretically you're almost OK: if you use an ascent rate of 9m/min then you're at the surface in 3.33 minutes. Unfortunately, the effects of a CO2 hit are effectively paralysis and mental confusion. Without good buddies, you're unlikely to set off for the surface immediately: in fact, the video suggests it could be quite a while. Game over.

I understand your quandrary: I travel to most of my dives by high-speed bullet train. When I go diving tomorrow, I will put quite literally 80kg of gear on my back and carry it up several sets of station steps in my journey. I wish I didn't have to carry my bailout tank, but if I die, I'm even heavier to carry.

999 times out of a thousand you're going to be OK: the bailout is for dive one thousand. As Andy Grove says "Only The Paranoid Survive"!

firemandiver

Should you take a bath with soap? Seriously, you could probably get away with no bailout nine times out of ten. But do you want to take that chance with your life and likely your only means of self rescue? Remember one of the major rules of rebreathers.... if something seems wrong, it may just be.....bailout! Kinda hard to do if you left yours in the truck. I wouldn't dive without one. In fact, I carry two complete seperate systems. Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps. FD

Hanssing

OK, this is not going to be popular....

Well in that case my answer would be yes - keep the stage for now.
However when you get more experience, say the magical +50hrs then for the dives described:
My personal feeling is that that damn stage is too much trouble to bother with, as long as you realise the following:
* Get OC-access to you O2-supply and keep them both well above 100bars (you're effectively diving with a turn-pressure af say 120'ish bars)
* Test and practice getting to the surface on you limited supply.
* Use Dil for drysuit (air) and O2 for wing (not used normally) keeping redundant boyancy.
* No deco or wreck penetation, we're talking pretty fishy dives here.
* Practice getting out off water with boom-scenarios on Dil (CCR-ascent guarding loop-volume)
* Practice getting out off water with boom-scenarios on O2 (SCR-ascent or OC-ascent).
* realise that any buddy you're diving with is getting the bird!

Would I feel suffciently safe doing 20msw dives with no bail-out? Yes....
Is it an added risk? Yes, in most cases (except certain high-current dives).
Have I ever dived without a stage? NO! (not yet <50hrs)
Am I tired of my dangling stage? Well I was until the last two dives, wich we're sidemounted! Now in the water the stage is not one bit of trouble if its sidemounted! On land/boat its still a pain.
Am I going to perform shallow no deco-dives without the stage? Yes.

So my recommendation to the OP is:
Keep the stage for you initial experience.
And some point try to sidemount it properly, do you still hate it?
When experienced enough to really think through changes to your rig, decide if you want to sacrifice the simplicity of your current standard setup to include OC-bailout to onboard gasses ect.
If you're still doing a lot of shallow dives - leave the stage at home, I know I will.

Regards
Nicolai

PS: Sorry Rasmus

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Nailer99

ALWAYS carry bailout. ALWAYS, every time, every dive. 40 cf is bare minimum for 5 ATA, 80 would be better.

Saga

So many good reasons to carry a bailout tank with you Don't play with your life...
A 40cf alu is very comfortable you can hardly feel it

Cheers,

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