Question on 3rd's

[shellmoundal]

Peacock has a ton of exits, depending on the dive plan there will usually be an exit in your path that is closer to the one you have entered the system through.
So yes, I dive almost full thirds in Peacock if I consider it to be safe and the plan allows for it. Adding stages helps too because a regulator/tank O-ring failure is much less unlikely to make a significant impact.

I absolutely can't believe nobody is going ballistic in regards to the admission of someone breaking thirds. I'm pretty shocked to say the least.

That was the reason I posted this thread to begin with. Why would anyone break the rule of 3rd's? I guess we are finding out that compliancy is a major problem with many of our cave divers.

[EGIB]

The problem with breaking thirds in a place like Ginnie is it probably won't kill you the first time you do it. There are a lot of people that get away with it again and again which reinforces the flawed thinking that it is a safe practice. When it finally catches up with you it will either be luck that gets you out or you will die and we'll be discussing it on the forum. I've noticed that with the influx of new cave divers in recent years people are more flippant about breaking thirds. It's a cardinal rule of cave diving, it should not be broken. If you aren't diving thirds you should be diving a more conservative plan.

There have been about ten people that I have known personally that broke thirds on a regular basis. Three of them are dead now. I don't like those odds. The dive only counts if you make it out alive.

[bamafan]

If you are solo diving and break thirds that is one thing but to do it and not tell your buddy would be a really crappy thing to do. Ebro Blue is just up the street from me and I mainly scooter it but at times I take people there and my boat won't haul 2 people, stages and scooters so it is a swim dive then. It is a full single stage dive and 1/3rds on backgas to get to about 1500'. I have broke 1/3 rds in my stage there but would never do it on my backgas. Each to their own but at least tell your buddy you are going to use his gas before the dive.

[cmint]

If you are solo diving and break thirds that is one thing but to do it and not tell your buddy would be a really crappy thing to do. Ebro Blue is just up the street from me and I mainly scooter it but at times I take people there and my boat won't haul 2 people, stages and scooters so it is a swim dive then. It is a full single stage dive and 1/3rds on backgas to get to about 1500'. I have broke 1/3 rds in my stage there but would never do it on my backgas. Each to their own but at least tell your buddy you are going to use his gas before the dive.

Exactly. If you and I are diving together as a 2 person buddy team and you break thirds that's MY air you are effing stealing.

[vinegarbiscuit]

That was Andrew Ainslie (Aainslie) and it was in Ginnie. He was lucky to make it out. He made a nice write up on it and posted it in pdf on his site. His entire demeanor changed after that. I have the file some where if you don't find it.

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I really admired Andrew for being so frank with what had happened, and for the absolute transparency he displayed in writing up that incident.

[Sludge]

Yeah, I also admire Andrew's decision to post that. One paragraph really sticks out:

Put differently, it turns out that I’m not as rational as I thought. I actually do believe that I’m usually
reasonably calm under pressure. But a very difficult 10 minute scramble through a restriction started a narrowing of my perception, and every problem after that moved me into an even more panicked, illogical state of mind until the truly inconceivably dumb move – not deploying my last stage’s reg – very nearly killed me.

After reading it, however long ago it was when he posted it, I really examined my configuration, and now I solo scooter with a metric buttload of gas: untouched backgas, and one or two stages; if one, I breathe it to thirds and turn the dive, and if two, I breathe them to fourths each.

[TracyN]

Peacock has a ton of exits, depending on the dive plan there will usually be an exit in your path that is closer to the one you have entered the system through.
So yes, I dive almost full thirds in Peacock if I consider it to be safe and the plan allows for it. Adding stages helps too because a regulator/tank O-ring failure is much less unlikely to make a significant impact.

I absolutely can't believe nobody is going ballistic in regards to the admission of someone breaking thirds. I'm pretty shocked to say the least.

The CDF has become a gentler, kinder, and more tolerant forum. I guess stupid stuff has been happening so much that people are becoming desensitized to it. LoL!

[Jax]

To this newb, I cannot fathom what could be so possibly important to break 3rds for the few psi . . . .

[rddvet]

natakomi Have you dove till thirds in peacock? victormora. I am sidemount, I have a buddy. I have not soloed in a cave but have a couple hundred solo dives in open water. Agnes died with only one tank. I still think breaking thirds in Ginnie, by 200 -300 psi is safer than doing thirds in Peacock.

If I was your buddy and you broke thirds for a little further penetration, I'd feel like I was the one being penetrated.

What's your opinion on gas matching? Only in a siphon?

[vinegarbiscuit]

If I was your buddy and you broke thirds for a little further penetration, I'd feel like I was the one being penetrated.

What's your opinion on gas matching? Only in a siphon?

Do not take it for granted that everyone knows how to gas-match. I was horrified to learn on our first cave trip with an acquaintance that she did not know how to gas-match. In fact, she did not even know what it was. She claimed that no-one used dissimilar tanks where she was trained, and that dissimilar volume management was not covered in her course. (Which smelt fishy: I know steel tank use is rare in the Mexican caves, but she had a TDI certification, and their training standards include gas matching procedures.) The warning bells were screaming sufficiently for my husband and I to exclude her from our buddy team. We almost got burned anyhow: her buddy team exited the cave first, but she decided to stay and latched onto us (NOT part of the plan, I assure you). Imagine my horror when we exited Orange and I saw a reading of 500 psi on her SM LP 50 tanks. (She was not the one to call the dive, by the way; I was, in my backmounted LP85s.) I seriously doubt she would have had enough gas to get herself out of Orange under a different and stressful situation, like a silt-out or a lost line. My husband and I have refused to ever take a dive trip with her again.

Oddly, when I appraised her buddy team of the situation, they looked at me like I was insane for having an issue. One of the guys concurred there was "a difference in philosophy in gas planning" and that "some of us are more ok with coming out with less then a third then others". Believe me, there were no words.