Rental/Teaching Equipment
Survey Results
Imagine, for a moment, that you learned to dive in 1959. In those days there were no pressure gauges, no BCs, no alternate air source second stages and no dive computers. The regulator you learned on would have had two hoses: an intake and an exhaust hose.
Double-hose regulators had no purge buttons. Your instructor would have taught you that the way to purge your regulator was to remove the mouthpiece from your mouth, point it downward, then hold it up over your head. At this point, the pressure differential between the second stage and the mouthpiece would be sufficient to cause the regulator to begin free flowing. This is what would clear water from the mouthpiece if you lacked sufficient breath to simply do so on your own.
Now fast forward to 1969. Double-hose regulators are largely a memory. Students in training now use single-hose regulators. Imagine, though, that your instructor for some reason fails to mention that your single-hose regulator has something called a purge button — and that, to purge the second stage, he tells you to take it out of your mouth, point the mouthpiece down and hold it up over your head. That wouldn’t make a lot of sense, would it?
Believe it or not, a similar situation exists today. There is a growing disparity between the equipment our students are buying and renting, and what we are teaching them to use.
During the last week in June, DiveRetailing.com conducted a survey of dive stores in the United States. The survey asked questions pertaining to the equipment dive stores have in their rental and teaching inventory, and the equipment students are taught to use in entry-level training. The results may be surprising, to say the least.
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