Posted by Kendall Raine on December 27, 2000 at 15:40:46:
In Reply to: Re: Perhaps, but acknowledging the roots of DIR,... posted by AADIVER on December 24, 2000 at 21:38:38:
Frank;
This issue really isn't about the environment or the means of propulsion. The issue is how redundancy is defined. In DIR, the buddy team is an integrated unit. The buddy becomes part of the redundant package. Separation is not in the plan. If you start with that premiss, and build in procedures to allow for buddy diving in zero viz, procedures for allowing for recovering contact if teams are seperated, then the concept makes sense. That's why there is so little tolerance for modifications to the DIR style of diving. It has to be looked at as an integrated whole to function properly.
Take your example of a cave team getting seperated. If team awareness and integrity is a mantra, one diver wondering off down another passage just doesn't happen. If the team leader wants to make a jump off the main line, his first responsibility is to make the other team members aware of his intention. Provided everyone is cool with making the jump, the team leader then installs a gap line into the main line. Hence, there is always a continuous guideline to the surface.
Another tenent of cave diving is always maintaining either visual or touch contact with that continuous guideline. If viz is poor, the team maintains light touch on the line at all times. If viz is really bad, the team also maintains touch contact with the next team mamber in line. Touch signals allow for communication in zero viz.
If visual or touch contact within the team or the line is interrupted at any time for any reason, the team members all stop and reestablish contact with both before anything else. No exceptions. Hence, the trailing diver would no more think of zipping off down a side passage on his own than he would of breathing water.
So, you see, with that kind of commitment to team integrity, the buddy really does become part of diver redundancy. Given DIR's minimalist approach, therefore, wearing two timers or compasses, on the body or elsewhere, is clutter and is unnecessary.
This team concept can be and is easily extended to wreck diving. You just have to want to do it.