StupidDiverTricks.com

“Bronze Turkey” Award
Number One: The
Left-Mounted Octopus

The StupidDiverTricks.com Bronze Turkey Award recognizes creative non-thinking in the design or use of scuba equipment. Our first such award goes to a piece of “safety” equipment that, while well-intentioned, was not thought through entirely. That is, mounting a normal, right-handed second stage on the left side of a regulator first stage.

What Most of Us Have Come to Expect

The most common regulator configuration is one in which both second stages are mounted on the right side of the first stage, and come over or under the wearer’s right shoulder. Additionally, both second stages are generally right-handed, which means they must come around the diver’s right side if he or she is to be able to breathe from them while the second stages are right-side up. Why is this important?

If you put a conventional second stage in your mouth upside down, and attempt to breathe from it, water will enter the second stage each time you exhale. This means that, when you inhale, you are as likely to get water as air.

This is not a good thing under any circumstances. In an out-of-air emergency, it could easily cause a stressed out diver to panic.

The chief limitation of putting two right-hand second stages on the donor’s right side is that, no matter which second stage the out-of-air diver ends up getting, someone will need to remember to turn that second stage around so that it faces the receiver. Otherwise, the receiver may end up putting the second stage in upside down.

 

 

Enter the left-mounted octopus »

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