Globally fillable scuba diving tanks?

[hellosailor]

Dave- You might check with Faber in Italy. They do make a lot of the HP steel tanks sold in the US (DOT certified) these days, and I suspect that they also supply tanks to Canada and other parts of the world, each carrying just one certification. But, they might well be able to supply tanks with multiple certifications, or at least to tel you if that's legally possible in some way. They do respond to emails in Colonial, sometimes a bit slowly but they do respond. Amazing how things that are perfectly safe and legal and certified in one part of the world, are condemned as killers in other parts of the world, isn't it? (sigh)

[captmikem]

I have a small Bauer compressor that I carried around the world, it was well worth the space.

Willing to sell it for a good price, I just had it overhauled a few years ago and hardly use it now so thinking of selling it. It will run on 110/220 or you can put a small petrol (gas) engine on the frame.

Michael

[Symphony]

My experience with the world tells me that in some places you could have any tank filled at any time, maybe a high or low price. At other places no tank you have would be good enough for them to fill at any price.

So, no matter the what the laws say, the only way to be globally filling your tank is to be filling your own tanks. Guess that means you be diving with air unless you have lots of room to bring gas on long trips.

[a64pilot]

I was at the hangar today and took a couple pictures of tanks to try to show relative sizes



Left to right are a steel 130, steel 100, steel 80, aluminum 80 and aluminum 60.

You can see just how much smaller the steel 80 is than the aluminum 80 and it's lighter too, yet since it displaces so much less water, it is more negative in the water, meaning that often times, you don't have to carry any lead, so you end up with a whole lot less weight to carry into and out of the water and especially on shorter folks (women) they don't end up with a tank hanging way down on their butt.

Friends don't let friends dive aluminum

[gilligansail]

How much do you want for the Bauer?

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Sidemount works.... diving trimix it makes sense

scooter behind my Silent Submersion Magnus

Not sure I get this - why does diving sidemount make sense for mix? Setting aside the view that you should be on a rebreather to dive mix, if you are going to stick with OC, I dont see any benefit to sidemounting. With 4 tanks, its not like you are going to fit through any tight stuff anyway, so isnt 2 backmount and 2 stages easier to manage?

Certainly anywhere you can take a scooter you could fit happily with backmount.

Ive only ever used sidemount to get into places where I wondered what the hell I was doing once I got there... and wondering how much gas I had left and whether Id fit back out.

Interesting looking at your tanks, mostly fatter than the ubiquitous 12.2 liter faber steels here in Aus. Which are approx 100 cuft, and trim out really nicely. I do also have one high pressure steel, designed WP of 270 bar. It still uses a normal valve and O ring, the 7 thread Din rather than the more usual 5 thread. Heavy bugger so rarely gets used, we just pump the fabers up a bit instead.

Cant fit a compressor on my 37' sloop... not with 2 kids anyway...

Mike

[a64pilot]

Sidemount makes sense with tri-mix as you have greater capacity and they are easier to manage, you have of course independent systems with no interconnection, and you have separate pressure gauges right in view and easy to see, if your travel gas and your bottom gas are different then it's harder to breathe the wrong gas in sidemount in my opinion.
Rebreathers I don't think are there yet, too many deaths. Maybe whenever we get to where CO2 can be monitored, but as of now you can't. Yes I know one manufacturer does, but CO2 cells do not live in a moist environment and that means a breathing loop, plus I did not dive enough to maintain the necessary level of training to dive CCR, in my opinion, the risks just are not justified to me. I didn't do much tri-mix, and most of it that I did was relatively shallow and I was diving a light mix to keep the END shallow not so much for deco.
Scootering of course is a means to get to a restriction, you don't scooter through a restriction, you push the scooter through, then you go through, or drop the scooter at the restriction and continue on. You just cannot swim a mile back into a high flow cave, no one can, but I can hang onto a scooter and let it pull me a mile back into a cave. There is just no reason ,ever to dive backmount in a cave. There is no advantage to backmount, however there are several to sidemount, some more important than others.
All those steels are the exemption tanks, the 3442 PSI, I have other LP tanks, but everyone fills all of them to 3600 PSI and I have never heard of a failure, and the dimensions are the same for a LP 108 and an exemption 130, weight the same too, many think they are identical tanks but I have found out that at least Worthington uses a different steel or maybe it's a different heat treat, but there is a difference.
keep your deep valves, they are sometimes hard to find and many think they protect the regs better, especially if you dive backmount as they are vulnerable there, especially if you scooter.

I don't have room for a compressor either, be nice if I did though, as it is it's going to be tough to find room for the gear and the tanks, I'm thinking mount some kind of racks and put the tanks on deck on the guard rails, like I carry my outboard?

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Sidemount makes sense with tri-mix as you have greater capacity and they are easier to manage, you have of course independent systems with no interconnection, and you have separate pressure gauges right in view and easy to see, if your travel gas and your bottom gas are different then it's harder to breathe the wrong gas in sidemount in my opinion.
Rebreathers I don't think are there yet, too many deaths. Maybe whenever we get to where CO2 can be monitored, but as of now you can't.

Fair enough - I assume you are comparing manifolded backmount tanks to sidemount. Part of my different perspective is maybe that I am more used to independant backmount twins - where you have the same set up of independant SPGs etc. Back gas of mix, one stage of nitrox travel, one of O2 which is pressurized and turned off I found pretty easy (maybe because it used the same stage setup I used for rebreather bailout). I did very few OC mix dives where I needed a travel mix though.

Also our caves tend to be small with no flow, I've only played with scooters, never done a dive where I really needed one. They sure are fun, and add a real safety factor in high current ocean dives though

I clearly disagree with you about rebreathers, but they do take a certain discipline and regular use. I gave mine away 12 months ago when it was clear that I wasn't diving enough to remain current - the peer pressure to jump in for a "special" dive is a temptation I wanted to avoid.
Where I think they provide a massive safety advantage is the unlimited gas supply, plus the high He % you can run. We mainly used 20/50 down to 200 ft / 60 m and then 15/65 from there to 100m. A few times I was much much happier when tangled up in something at 70m to have a EAD of 20 m ish and 5+ hours gas supply than to be on OC and a light mix.
On my preferred unit (Prism - bit old now) CO2 didn't worry me as long as I set it up correctly and kept the water out (Sometimes a challenge). Hypoxia was the only thing that scared me - my drilled reaction to any alert was to add O2 first, then work out what was going on. Being able to do 45min to an hour bottom time in the 60 - 80 m range, twice a day was where the rebreathers shone. And at a low incremental cost.
(Need to be set up with surface supplied O2 in the event of bail out for that, or run some tight team bailout approaches in the ocean.)

I got to see a bunch of cool stuff that isn't there anymore - but as per the above, diving for the next few years is mainly going to be breathhold with my 9 and 6 YOs. Just as much fun in the right place.

Mike

[a64pilot]

I understand the advantages of a rebreather, having nearly unlimited bottom time in a cave really makes working out problems a whole lot less stressful, and one of the most advantageous point of one is that with OC tri-mix, you have a couple of different gasses that you pick from, that are never actually the perfect mix, but with a RB, you have yet our own gas blender, you can dive the perfect mix, at any depth. They are smaller, lighter and less drag through the water than multiple tanks, although you must carry enough bail out gas to get out, so that is negated a little.
Just they have been way too many, very, very good divers just die on RB, often the heart is blamed, but I think where there is smoke there is fire.
Yes I was speaking of manifolded doubles, not independents, if independent, then for sure wear them by your sides and gain all the other advantages.
But sidemount is way more than hanging independent twins on your sides, there are numerous tricks to getting them tucked in tight and not hanging down loose. By myself I would likely have made a mess of it, there is a good reason to have someone that has perfected it show you how.

[Bleemus]

The great thing about all these retirees buying big cats with unlimited budgets is they often have a compressor. Never failed to get a fill from someone when asked politely.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Just they have been way too many, very, very good divers just die on RB, often the heart is blamed, but I think where there is smoke there is fire.

Sorry to beat this dead horse some more but this has been something I've spent a bit of my life involved with for 15 years or so.
There are different types of rebreathers, just as there are different types of boats.
I used to race on a Farr 52, which was a brilliantly seaworthy boat, as long as you had 6 or so competent people per watch to sail it. Now my ETAP 37 isn't as good a boat, but is much safer short handed, particularly when I can pick the weather better cruising than we could racing.

Likewise some rebreathers can be hugely capable, but take considerable work to maintain correctly (ie MK 15 or 16 / Cis / even Prism). Then there are others like Inspo down to sports kiss which are very robust and easy to use, but not quite as capable. And users who are likewise more or less physiologically and physically capable.

There definitely have been some issues caused by CO2 (from WoB or scrubber issues) which have probably caused heart issues. But it's a bit like sailing a 16 hobie cat across Bass Strait. For the right person, properly prepared, with well maintained gear, with the right weather, it would be a walk in the park. But for an unfit, semi experienced bay sailor on old gear with a howling westerly forcast, probably not a great idea.

For dives in the 50 to 100 m range, for regular experienced meticulous divers, I quite strongly think that current mainstream rebreathers are safer than OC - and having spent quite a lot of time reviewing the data, I'd suggest the current state of use vs incidents also supports that.
BUT - If I was to jump in for a 70m dive in strong current tomorrow using air dil in an Inspo or KISS, that would just be an accident waiting to happen. Wrong person, wrong gear, wrong dive. Not something 'rebreathers' as a whole should be blamed for.
(Which is why I got rid of my rebreathers, so I would not be tempted by the phone call saying "we've found this new wreck / cave. Coming?")

Oh - I think I'm OK diving sidemounts, I've been lucky enough to dive with some well sorted sidemount divers over the last 20 years or so, who laughed at me, then took pity. I just prefer backmount. I also prefer a manifold, but often dive effectively solo, hence stick with independents.