Should people bother progressing OC if they intend going to CCR

schford

Just wondered what you guys all thought about this....

I think that if people are going to go CCR due to them being gadget mad, wanting to dive deeper wrecks, always dive the best Nitrox Mix or for what ever reason they are better off going to CCR as as soon as possible, and they have no need to have hundreds or thousands of dives and be trimix certed on O.C.

I see many reasons for this including:

1 - Becoming confident with the unit sooner and not constantly comparing it to OC or thinking in OC terms (We hear of too many deths of very experienced OC divers that have just swapped over to CCR).

2 - Not spending thousands on OC kit which will become redundant.

3 - Not spending thousands on courses for OC.

4 - Increased safety and considerable more flexibility in terms of run times / deco obligations for scooby dives.

5 - Finding it easier to get the bouyancy nailed...

What do you all think?

Stuart

caveseeker7

I decided to do any and all advanced diving on CCR due to 2 and 3 mostly.
Seems missing the point if you spend all the effort, time and money to do it OC when you know you'll be diving CC in the end anyway.

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Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

dive2dive2000

Stuart,

You raise some very interesting questions For me I needed all of my dive experience before I felt confident enough to buy a rebreather. I tried one early on when I just got OW cert. and it scared the out of me. I have around 200 Teck dives, that is what it took for me to feel confident.

Martin

UWSojourner

Your list pretty much describes my situation. I knew I wanted to go deeper and liked the idea of Rebreather better than OC for that. From the info I got, there was no need to get 000's of dives OC before you switched, so I went for it.

Philippe GERIN

In theory, I'd agree with you on all points Stuart but it's not easy to get there. Here are a few reasons I can find:
1) Except maybe in the UK where CCrs are the most present per capita/diver, one doesn't meet Rebreather divers often enough to take that path before one gets a lot of OC dives under one's belt;
2) To my knowledge, most (all?) training agencies require advanced nitrox cert AND a minimum number of dives to enter a CCR course & this previous training is all conducted on OC.
3) CCrs are still presented as belonging to "the dark side" of Tek diving therefore being perceived as difficult to reach if one is not a very advanced/experienced tekkies.
4) It is my opinion that mostly because of a combination of legal/liability and business/profit reasons, CCRs will belong to tek diving for long: a) you get to charge more the tekkies; b) "these devices can kill you anytime without warning"- oh! that reminds me something -
This holds back CCR diving development . In that I support APD. See their website on the Evo page: "EXTENDED RANGE RECREATION - the future of sport diving here & now". That shows it all: They had to create a new category/marketing niche where to fit the Evo: "Extended range recreationnal diving". Does this definition/category make sense? not to me. Is it wise to do it in order to pass a hurdle that the industry created itself? YES.
5) As a dive supervisor, will I be comfortable having in the water CCR divers that do not practice regularly- like typical recreational OC divers do? Surely not, as I would need to have CCRs divemasters/guides/safety divers down under with them. Now what's the cost of that for a dive shop? Prohibitive.

My 2 cents
Best
Philippe

Pelagian

Did my first tech course on on OC, then switched to CCR and stuck with that for the rest of my Tech training. Had to cross back to OC trimix for liabilty coverage when guiding OC trimix divers even through I chose to dive closed.

Cheers

Seb

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Andy Del

Colourful characters involved with rebreathers in Sydney have long maintained it's posible to train someone on a CCR from day 1.

I think you are quite correct that the 'normal' (if any or us are normal!) progrssion of O/W diver through to OC trimix and then to a CCR looks like a long winded, expensive journey that can be done easier, cheaper and quite likely safer if CCR was introduced early on in the piece. (I shudder when thinking of the costs I have gone through, and I did it pretty cheaply!)

The problem I see is the manner in which we are (mostly) trained. The McDonalds approach of come back again and again (and again and again) to get enough training to safely do your dives with a reasonably comprehensive background knowledge is simply an exercise in marketing and keeping a business afloat. (Apologies to all dive business owners, no real offense is meant! )

To change training regimes so as to allow for CCR to be used from an early time in one's dive 'career' would be an interesting exercise, both in logistics and completely rewriting how one learns to dive. Within this, there would need to be OC diving for the purpose of bailout, buyouncy control etc. etc.

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bubblefree

Doing Mod 1 on the Inspiration was my first real foray into techical diving. Everything I have learned about a CCR so far makes me believe that dived correctly it is far superior to OC and I see no reason why anyone would want to revert back to OC to learn about mixed gas diving.

However the CCR course is very intensive and I think you need to feel comfortable in the water before you move forward. Although it is possible to start people diving on a CCR, IMHO i think 50-100 OC dives would lay a minimum foundation for people to progress quickly.

Nad

I kept doing OC because of training, I felt it could have been a pity to grow students up and then let them to do something different.

However 3 years ago I began to teach just Tech classes and this gave me more time to look at something else.
Now I still teach OC and dive CC with buddies and ex-students OC.

So sorry for the long time I need for the Boris article but more time I stay at the PC less time I have to dive.

Best,

Nad

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Nad

Too late at night...too many errors

...and then leave them, to do something different. (correction)

Nad

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