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Captain Calamity · April 30th, 2007, 01:55 PM

Firstly, hello everyone. Time to stop lurking and make my first post.

Earlier this year I moved to a wing/BP as my six year old BCD was beginning to get tired. I also changed my regs to a long hose system at the same time.

Most of my diving is to less than 30m, but occasionally I will go deeper, and as I have gained experience over the last few years I realise that some of my early exploits (46m on a single breathing air) were just plain dumb. As my future plans don't include deep (>40m) or deco diving, I thought I could increase my safety margin ad dive skills by swapping to twins, doing a fundies course with my regular buddy, and doing a recreational trimix course (this seems would be the simplest way to get a trimix qualification for recreational depths without doing a whole load of other courses first which I would likely not ever use - I still wish to make min/no deco dives, just less narked ones).

Anyway, enough background, here is my dilemma:

When I look at minimum gas requirement I only really need twin 12s beyond 25-30m - and I don't go that deep often. One option would therefore be to hire twin 12s on those occasions when I really need them, but then what do I do for the shallower dives?

If I dive a single then I have to reconfigure my regs each time I swap over, and if I only dive a hired twinset a handful of times each season my valve drills will get rusty (AFAIK even getting an H valve won't let me practice shutdowns a la twinset).

If I dive twin 7s then these would be about right for the majority of my dives, would allow me to keep practicing shutdowns, I would have a fully redundant system at all depths, and my kit would always configured the same.

I thought that I had talked/reasoned myself into buying twin 7s, but I am aware that twin 12s are the far more common UK choice. Am I missing something here, or do the twin 7s be a better choice for me? Finally, would a 10L stage cylinder be a reasonable way to increase my gas reserve on those deeper dives without needing to hire twin 12s?

CC

April 30th, 2007, 01:55 PM	#1 (permalink)
Captain Calamity(Offline) New Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Weymouth Posts: 4	Twinset Advice Firstly, hello everyone. Time to stop lurking and make my first post. Earlier this year I moved to a wing/BP as my six year old BCD was beginning to get tired. I also changed my regs to a long hose system at the same time. Most of my diving is to less than 30m, but occasionally I will go deeper, and as I have gained experience over the last few years I realise that some of my early exploits (46m on a single breathing air) were just plain dumb. As my future plans don't include deep (>40m) or deco diving, I thought I could increase my safety margin ad dive skills by swapping to twins, doing a fundies course with my regular buddy, and doing a recreational trimix course (this seems would be the simplest way to get a trimix qualification for recreational depths without doing a whole load of other courses first which I would likely not ever use - I still wish to make min/no deco dives, just less narked ones). Anyway, enough background, here is my dilemma: When I look at minimum gas requirement I only really need twin 12s beyond 25-30m - and I don't go that deep often. One option would therefore be to hire twin 12s on those occasions when I really need them, but then what do I do for the shallower dives? If I dive a single then I have to reconfigure my regs each time I swap over, and if I only dive a hired twinset a handful of times each season my valve drills will get rusty (AFAIK even getting an H valve won't let me practice shutdowns a la twinset). If I dive twin 7s then these would be about right for the majority of my dives, would allow me to keep practicing shutdowns, I would have a fully redundant system at all depths, and my kit would always configured the same. I thought that I had talked/reasoned myself into buying twin 7s, but I am aware that twin 12s are the far more common UK choice. Am I missing something here, or do the twin 7s be a better choice for me? Finally, would a 10L stage cylinder be a reasonable way to increase my gas reserve on those deeper dives without needing to hire twin 12s? CC Last edited by Captain Calamity; April 30th, 2007 at 02:02 PM.