Hookamax surface air supply - anyone with experience?

Hi Marsupial,
Judging by the response to this thread I think a large number of people would like more details on what components you've used for this. This is a great price - please elaborate!
 
fishermantwo said:
I doubt there would be anybody with a yacht in Australia that has not cleaned their boats with snorkelling gear. The major problem we have in this area in the fishing industry and the charter fishing business is so called scuba divers. Plenty of complaints today from operators. Boats would be circling fish then suddenly a boat load of scuba divers would appear, dive in, raise their flags and scream at the fishermen to piss off. Something in that gas sends these turkeys troppo. The fishing grounds I'm talking about are 8.2 miles offshore.

Olewill, chatting to one of the original ab divers in Australia a few years ago. His first Hookah was something similar but he used peanut oil. Reckons he can't go near peanuts now.
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Fisherman....We to are having issues between the pro. and rec. fishers over scuba diving for rock lobster. As the pro. quota gets cut back to protect to stock, they are saying the rec. divers should be banned from taking the fish.

Quite messy and a fair bit of agro involved.

Hookahs are the air supply of choice in these waters.
 
djbreeze said:
Nice turn of phrase! I think I may have touched a raw nerve by virtue of being a "so called scuba diver"?

Anyway, good luck sorting out the issues...
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The dive industry in Australia is big business. Well known and infamous, come to Australia and dive with an accredited company and we will try not to leave you behind!

Australia has the largest marine parks in the world, 8 times larger than the nearest other
country. Divers and dive companies are behind instigating some of these. The idea being to ban amateur and pro fishermen from these areas. Locally the Jervis Bay park banned divers as well from certain areas, shot themselves in the foot on that one. Big stink, eventually they had to allow extra access to every one.
 
Scarey stuff. What what it's worth and IMHO, I wouldn't touch these pieces of kit with a proverbial barge pole. I've been a recreational diver for many years and it's a great adventure sport. The excellent safety record is built upon a foundation of training. You can cause yourself an awaful lot of injury in the shallows. Pressure - volume relationship has its greatest impact in shallow depths.

I hope people reading the thread don't think "what a great idea, I'll put something together myself".

Professional divers using a surface supply are trained to use it and have a great detail of back-up based upon a risk assessment.

I dive my hull several times a year and I'll gladly do odd jobs for others in the marina. It's not normally an insurmountable problem to get an air fill. I always make sure my kit is regularly serviced. It's not melodramic to claim that underwater, safety is parmount.
 
"You can cause yourself an awaful lot of injury in the shallows. Pressure - volume relationship has its greatest impact in shallow depths."

I think you're holding your dive planner upside down, it gets worse the deeper you go.

You would be correct in suggesting that the ability to stay submerged for long periods even at shallow depths would have a deleterious effect on your nitrogen take up and this must be taken into consideration when using a permanent air supply.

My diver instructor thought they were a great device for the intended use - but then she wasnt from the UK and had only been diving for 52 years.

Why is there such a phobia about these things in the UK?? see a lot of negative on dive forums but only in the uk . . . . .

Anyway I'll be OK as I use mine is used out of the UK :-)
 
Some confusion here....

If I remember my physics from school in BFPO Cyprus ....

Boyle's law basically says this:
When you increase the pressure the volume decreases.
When you increase the volume the pressure decreases.

So this is correct:

"You can cause yourself an awaful lot of injury in the shallows.
Pressure - volume relationship has its greatest impact in shallow depths."

quote
"I think you're holding your dive planner upside down, it gets worse the deeper you go."

Confuses the 2 seperate issues which are

(1) Boyles law and the danger of sufacing from a shallow depth with a lungful of air, in lessw than 3 feet of water can cause embolism and possible death.

(2) Gas being absorbed into the blood and tissue that exists slowly, hence the decompression table guides for safe ascent.
 
ianabc said:
If I remember my physics from school in BFPO Cyprus ....

Boyle's law basically says this:
When you increase the pressure the volume decreases.
When you increase the volume the pressure decreases.

So this is correct:

"You can cause yourself an awaful lot of injury in the shallows.
Pressure - volume relationship has its greatest impact in shallow depths."

quote
"I think you're holding your dive planner upside down, it gets worse the deeper you go."

Confuses the 2 seperate issues which are

(1) Boyles law and the danger of sufacing from a shallow depth with a lungful of air, in lessw than 3 feet of water can cause embolism and possible death.

(2) Gas being absorbed into the blood and tissue that exists slowly, hence the decompression table guides for safe ascent.
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That's correct,
At depths of a few metres you don't need to worry about nitrogen absorption, but still need to observe the rule about never holding your breath if using SCUBA or Hookamax. I'm not against Hookamax at all BTW but would be a bit wary of getting a home-made one off a mate...
 
djbreeze said:
That's correct,
At depths of a few metres you don't need to worry about nitrogen absorption, but still need to observe the rule about never holding your breath if using SCUBA or Hookamax. I'm not against Hookamax at all BTW but would be a bit wary of getting a home-made one off a mate...
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Don't forget to tell that to the "fully qualified and experienced" guy that got bent @ Swanage in 4 meters of water...

And if your looking at surface supplied compressors the most important thing is the filter!
 
fishermantwo said:
Professional abalony divers always use a hookah system.
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We dived for several years with 2 of us on the same Hookah hose at up to 35 Feet. Just a simple 'T' pipe fitting is all you need.

Oh, then make sure your end of your hose is well secured to your belt or you will get the regulator ripped out of your mouth very often.

Avagoodweekend......:)

.
 
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Moonshiners said:
Don't forget to tell that to the "fully qualified and experienced" guy that got bent @ Swanage in 4 meters of water...

And if your looking at surface supplied compressors the most important thing is the filter!
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Yes you're right about the filter, same principle as the filter on the compressor that charges scuba tanks of course. Be interested to hear more about the guy that got bent in 4 metres of water, surely you'd have to try really hard to achieve that, got any more details?
 
djbreeze said:
Yes you're right about the filter, same principle as the filter on the compressor that charges scuba tanks of course. Be interested to hear more about the guy that got bent in 4 metres of water, surely you'd have to try really hard to achieve that, got any more details?
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Yes I'm suprised people have been overlooking the importance of filters in previous posts, oiled up air, will cause you some serious internal damage. Even air supplied hoses in car spray booths are heavily filtered for contaminants and to remove excess moisture and that's at atmospheric pressure...

As for the Bent guy, I'm pretty sure it was reported at the time, but as I remember, he'd had a few shandy's the night before and mentioned he had a bit of a headache that morning, went down anyway as "it's only shallow" (the whole of the pier is no deeper than around 4 meters, unless you take a spade), came up bent, luckly lot's of experienced guys about to organise rescue. Evac'd to a deco chamber in Poole I believe. It's not the only case of shallow bends, although it is rare, it does happen.

I only mentioned the shallow bent guy as a reminder, you don't have to be -43m for things to go wrong.

I agree those Pony's are a waste of time for continous use, we tend to use 7L tanks for this kind of thing, but have reasonable access to re-fills.

Much more important to the thread is the use of very, very good filters!

:-)
 
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Marsupial said:
"You can cause yourself an awaful lot of injury in the shallows. Pressure - volume relationship has its greatest impact in shallow depths."

I think you're holding your dive planner upside down, it gets worse the deeper you go.

You would be correct in suggesting that the ability to stay submerged for long periods even at shallow depths would have a deleterious effect on your nitrogen take up and this must be taken into consideration when using a permanent air supply.

My diver instructor thought they were a great device for the intended use - but then she wasnt from the UK and had only been diving for 52 years.

Why is there such a phobia about these things in the UK?? see a lot of negative on dive forums but only in the uk . . . . .

Anyway I'll be OK as I use mine is used out of the UK :-)
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Perhaps it's time for your diving instructor with 52 years experience to hang up her regulator if she hasn't succeeded to teach Boyles Law to you :o

I'm afraid I don't understand your comment on nitrogen gas loading in shallow water. I've read the paragraph a dozen times but I can't make any sense of it :confused:

Contemporary nitrogen loading and off-load algorithms, for breathing air, assume than an infinite stay at 6m or less will not result in a decompression incident. BSAC 88 Tables, Level 1 shows this clearly. From memory, NOAA Tables say the same thing. Getting a bend from a 4m dive must be exceptionally rare. I've just searched the BSAC website but could find no reference to it. Was an Incident Report submitted....any reference information? I'd like to read the findings?

Many years ago, I recall watching a TV documentary about South East Asian pearl divers (or something similar). They added fresh orange juice to the sump of their tyre inflation compressor to make the taste of the oil more palatable. Oh dear.
 
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