How to Use a Long Hose for Single Tank Diving 

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks!

Thank you Diego! Much appreciated!

I'm starting next week after 10 years of a regular setup! It looks alot safer and i'm excited to practice!! Sidemount next

Hi Alexis. Thank you for your comment and questions. I have to tell you, I personally am not an advocate for the "Air 2" style system for sharing air. Even if you use a longer hose as your primary to make donating easier, in my opinion, Air 2's still have some inherent issues. In the general sense, they are larger and bulkier than a standard LPI so would be considered less streamlined. They may be more challenging to grab and manipulate with one hand, especially in cold water with dry gloves. Air 2's are also not very good breathers compared to a standard regulator. In an air sharing situation, although you may be able to get your primary off to your dive buddy effectively given your thought process of using a longer hose, the regulator that you are expected to use is not easily available to you, especially in a potentially stressful situation such as an out of air scenario. In order to find air, you will need to look down to locate your Air 2 which will potentially cause you to lose awareness to your buddy as well as general situational awareness to your surroundings. Even if for a brief moment, this can still cause a stressful situation to escalate. It also leaves too much for potential error as the Air 2 may be caught up in something and not where you expect to find it. After donating your primary, this could leave you in a precarious situation. Lastly, once you do get the Air 2 in your mouth, you now need to manipulate your buoyancy with the same device that your are breathing from. This could make buoyancy control more awkward. In comparison, if you have a good performing back up regulator secured with a bungee necklace, you always have an easy to access regulator available. You can locate it by feel without changing your focus on your buddy and your surrounding environment. It can also be useful in other circumstances aside from air sharing. Regulator recovery is as easy as grabbing your backup regulator from around your neck, then you can find your primary at your leisure. Let's say you are shore diving and you trip and fall in the water without your primary regulator in your mouth, you can find your backup regulator. As far as your comment about people pulling off your mask along with your primary second stage. I am speculating that you are referencing having the long hose catch your snorkel as you donate? If this is what you mean, then the quick answer is that a snorkel is typically not secured to your mask when using a long hose set up. If you feel like you will need a snorkel, then you can consider a pocket snorkel, or find a way to stow your snorkel while diving yet still have it accessible on the surface. If you are using proper gas management, then you can also consider the fact that you should have enough air in your cylinder to allow you to breath on the surface via your regulator. I realize that there a lot of comments by divers and instructors about divers coming up and ripping regulators out of mouths in an out or air situation. I certainly will not deny that there is not potential that this can happen, however, I personally have not read any reports or studies that back this up. This mind set really just helps you be prepared for the worst case scenario. To play devil's advocate, one could argue that the majority of divers are trained to seek out the "Yellow" octopus and since they have practiced this, their muscle memory could kick in and grab the regulator that they were trained to grab. When diving a with a long hose, I make a special emphasis to explain that a diver should either signal out of air or just come up and grab my primary if out of air as part of the predive plan. You can even practice/demonstrate this during the decent. With respect to configuration using a SP Hydros, I don't think the Apeks Hose Retainer would work well with this BCD as it is designed to slide onto a webbing harness. You would either have to sort out a method that works with the Hydros, or as you mentioned, you could try to use a shorter hose. Although I admittedly have not experimented with this myself, I understand that some divers will use a 5" hose without securing it as it won't loop. At the end of the day, no matter how you configure yourself, the key is to continuously practice and keep your air sharing skills sharp and when necessary, communicate (worst case scenario) or practice (best case scenario) air sharing procedures with your buddy, especially if it is someone that your are not familiar with, or if you are using a configuration that they are not familiar with. I did put together a video a couple of years ago about air sharing configurations including the Air 2 which you can check out here - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XUD4QZE6Rg4.html I hope this addresses your questions. If you have more questions or if you want more elaboration, then I would suggest you email me directly at greg@diveoceanquest.com and I can further assist you. Thanks!

Hey there. Good eye. Yes, holding onto the hose is good practice. In many cases when long hose sharing, you are handing the regulator off to the diver, not actually putting it in the divers mouth, in this case the out of air diver is in control of the regulator once you hand it off. If I am dealing with a less experienced diver then I would manage the situation differently. Thanks for the feedback. It is definitely a good discussion point.

I had the same thought about the handoff. It doesn't matter if the recipient is taking it or if the donor is putting in recipients' mouth. Never cover the purge.

@@scubicon1965 Sure, I can't deny that it would be considered best practices not to cover the purge button. Thanks for the feedback.

Hi Henry! You know where to find us! Greg

Thank you for the comment! I would recommend that you purchase a Backplate and Wing as a package. There are a number of brands that make good products and are priced well. For most divers, I would recommend going with a simple set up with no quick releases or large weight pockets. You will also want to make sure you have it set up properly, get advice on the best way to add weights to the unit, etc. We are in the process of putting together another video that will address many details of using a Backplate/Wing set up. You mentioned that you are getting instruction? This is very good, providing the instructor has experience with backplate/wing and long hose set ups. If you want to send me an email we can discuss more details - greg@diveoceanquest.com.

That is a good question. The bungee is there to hold the inflator in the same position at all times. When you need to use the inflator, you can keep it in the bungee and just hold it up (stretching out the bungee). The inflator does not need to go over your head to function properly. Underwater, if you are in proper trim, then you can still use the inflator (deflator), you can just arch up and raise your left shoulder a little and the air will come out fine. This can be done without breaking trim. As an alternative, divers will also use the wing dump located on the inside of the bottom left part of the wing (if using a standard wing that comes with a backplate).

Appreciate the explanation and thanks again for a top notch instructional video!

Yes, some divers who use long hose may use a yellow hose or regulator. Most do not. The configuration has been around for a few decades now so I do not think there are any inherent issues. That said, it all comes down to the fact that the long hose diver needs to take the time to educate the other divers in the team on how the configuration works and what procedures should be followed in the event that air sharing is required. In addition, as a diver using a long hose configuration, you should be building enough experience that you are extremely comfortable in emergency situations and more or less should be in control of the situation should a lesser experience diver comes to you and wants to share air. Feel free to email me @ greg@diveoceanquest.com should you want some advice on getting your first reg set up.

@@diveoceanquest Thanks for your kind answer. I was asking about the yellow hose, as an air situation can happen to someone else than my buddy and so that person will not know about my configuration. Not to mention that even my buddy, in case of emergency, can have his/her reptile brain that will want to focus on something yellow, unless that buddy is also trained for long hose configuration and use it for themself and trained, trained, trained for. I plan on doing the fundamental course with GUE, so will adopt the long hose anyway :-)

You can also attach pockets on your cam band and opt for a heavier backplate. Also, your light etc can be additional weight but that depends on your equipment. I do have weight pockets on my BPW for quick release but it only holds half of my weight. The rest is in the things described above. I don't have a cable lamp and thus no canister though. Hope this helps!

Beginner as well. The rationale, I read is that a panicked out-of-air diver will have the reflex to take the regulator that is in your mouth.

@@lutam921 Thanks for your reply. It’s odd, but in my training, I’m supposed to go for the Octo when out of air. Why someone would try to pick a fight needlessly is beyond me. Plus I would assume that the one who has air is much much stronger. The bungee one will be too short to yank to use anyway. Plus a longer cable makes swimming together easier.

@@normankoo6159 it’s not about wanting to fight, but about to survive. What we do as exercises in swimming pool or sea is one thing, but a real no air situation is another thing and in this case, our reptilian brain, might just tell us to grab the reg that we see working. Having a long hose on the octo would be tricky as hose management. Where and how would you place a 2 meter long hose for the octo ?

@@DidierWolfs Hi Didier, thank you so much for replying to my question. I’ve been trained to take the alternative, and hopefully it is what would happen. My thoughts are that if someone tries to grab the regulator out of your mouth while you are using it, your reptilian brain might just end up fighting him/her. That would be a disaster. On the other hand, let’s just assume that they “initially” did take the primary. You could still switch them to a longer secondary after the situation has been stabilized? Or do you still feel the extra length is not useful? In terms of a longer hose, I can just make an extra loop before it is attached for easy access. I certainly understand that for those into cave or wreck diving might be concerned to keep their profile as sleek as possible, but for recreational fish watching, would the extra loop be a problem? Thanks again for following up on this topic. I’m looking forward to you wise guidance. 😉

​@@normankoo6159 this setup is a paradigm shift. It is beneficial that dive teams use the same configuration so that there is no misunderstanding. Basic training depends on the agency. This set up comes from technical diving but some agencies (e.g. GUE) have adopted it from entry level. The concept is that in the "normal" set up people have a bad quality regulator that is sometimes dangling all over the bottom and may be filled with silt which is never used and nobody know if it works. With the long hose setup you donate something that you (and gas receiver) know is working and your secondary is usually of equal quality and is always properly stowed. All team members know which regulator they should get and if you dive with instabuddies you should brief them abou this