OC Trimix - Are you kidding me?
- Thread starter Randy Thornton
- Start date
Steve.B
Member
Friend of mine still teaching it. In fact he just finished a 75m course yesterday. Cost them £130 (sterling) for a 15min BT. i can do the same dive twice on my JJ for around £15 - £20!! And have a good 25-30mins BT. Really cannot see the point??
As soon as ppl payout that much they soon go back to diving air. But some I notice are just card collectors. "Oh yea I'm a 60-70m diver!"
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As soon as ppl payout that much they soon go back to diving air. But some I notice are just card collectors. "Oh yea I'm a 60-70m diver!"
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.
Mark Chase
ATB=AlwaysTalkingBollocks
Mark Chase
ATB=AlwaysTalkingBollocks
In the 45-50m range there are a number of OC divers in the UK, but the majority are air/nitrox diving. However, those who do it regularly are GUE trained from my limited experience.
Gas is expensive, but not as expensive as losing my life through not being able to think clearly!
Would it be cheaper doing it on CCR? Maybe, but Chasey will be along to determine the break even points for number of dives when you consider equipment, training, continuation training, sorb, cells...
I do not do enough trimix diving to justify spending £2-5k on a unit, £1k on training, cells and sorb, and I certainly don't do enough diving to keep my skills up on a CCR for trimix diving, although why anyone would dive air on a CCR is beyond me, even in 'recreational' depths.
I also don't have a team who I would be happy with diving CCR with. As such, I am happy to burn £10 notes when diving OC trimix
Regards
Quote from Kent Diving 17/04/2014
Twin 15s 16/60 £143.00
10ltr 32% £8.00
10 ltr 80% £18.00
Total Gas for 25mins at 70m £183.00
Kent diving to Detling 36miles X 4 = 144miles divided 40mpg = 3.6 gallons
Logistical cost for a fill £23.40
Fill cost total £206.40
Twin 12s 18/45 £83.00 (60m dive)
7 ltr 80% £12.60
7 ltr 32% £ 6.00
Logistics £23.40
Fill cost Total £125.00
Asuming a average gas bill of £140 and 25 mix dives a year my gas would be £3500
My last year of OC trimix i did 41 mix dives using garrage fills and my bill was about £3600 in 2004
All tanks 02 clean and in test Twinset £135.00 (every 15 months so £108 per Year)
Active trimix divers need multiple twin sets. You need at least two sets to do a w ends diving without the limitation of getting shop fills. You realisticly need spare lets with lighter mixes in in case your dive gets canned and you end up shallow. Typicly on a wEnd trip with two dives in the 60-75m range id have two sets of 15s and four 10s for deco. I also carry two deco 7s and a twinset of 21/35ish in case we end up on an inshore 40m wreck.
You also need spare twinsets to save blowing off gas. I could have 15/60 in a set and the dive is canned so my next dive is only 50m and I dont want to blow off my 15/60 so i keep a spare twinset
When I dived OC I had two sets of 15s three sets of 12s and about 12 stages so id be looking at about £1000 a year to keep all my tanks in 02 clean and test
So being an active OC trimix diver my anual costs before boat fees were probably around £4500
CCR
CCR will use 70-80bar Trimix out of a 3ltr (8 bar out of twin 15s) = £4.97p
CCR will use 70-80 bar 02 @ 1.5p / ltr = £3.60
CCR will use 2.2kg Sofnalime for 3-6 hours = Cost £7.70
CCR dive for three hours duration to 70m cost total £16.27
Allow £20 a dive for CCR and you will cover all anual service costs in 50 dives a year (basicly Cells)
Allow to have a set of 15ltrs trimix 15/60 in 02 cleen and test. Simple whip decanting will allow about 19 dives asuming your using 70 bar per dive in a 3ltr and are willing to top off down to a minimum fill of 100 bar for a dive
02 is more of an issue because its hard to get twin 15s blown to 235 bar of pure 02. Personaly id get a J of 02 and whip from that. a 50ltr 200 bar J will allow 23 dives down to 100 bar final presure
O2 J is about 7:50 a month rental so £90 a year
Twin 15s will be the normal 02 cleen and test cost so allow £110 a year
So OC logistics will depend on how many tanks you own but CCR alowing for whip fills will cost about £200 a year asuming you dont use your bailouts and your not bothered about your 3ltr tanks being in test (none of my tanks are)
I would allow for keeping some bailouts in test for traveleing and w/ends away. I keep my trimix in Hydro and accept I can only get Heleox fills but for my Nitrox I keep a couple in test.
If we allow £750 total for tank servicing and a generous £20 a dive for per dive costs for any dive any depth up to 5 hours duration per dive my anual CCR costs would be 1750 for the same 42 OC dives I did in 2004
If we stiuck to the 25 mix dives guide I bassed the OC costing on it would be £1250
So asuming an actice CCR diver doing 25 trimix dives a year you would save aproxamatly 3250 per year by diving CCR
Allowing £5000 for a unit and £2000 for training you would get your money back in about two years.
I have been on CCR for 10 years so at a rough guess I have saved around £25,000 which I feel was worth the effort and initial outlay.
ATB
Mark
The sort of parts I've seen being welded in a He atmosphere... a dead diver would probably be cheaper than a scrap component...
I'd use it. Just make sure it's pure He not He/Ar blend TIG gas!!
Mark Chase
ATB=AlwaysTalkingBollocks
Megangel1
Member
Mark you support our point perfectly!! Quality argument mate!
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That's without factoring in a Truk trip. The cost of He out there is mind blowing!
I worked out that if you bought a second hand vision, including costs for the training for MOD1 and MOD2 and getting the dive experience, then you'd still be saving money over doing deep trimix dives for 12 days out there OC whilst doing 2 to 3 times the dive time..
Mark Chase
ATB=AlwaysTalkingBollocks
Bloody hell????
By comparison last time I dived Mallin head 70m max fror a week, my gas bill for the week was smaller than my snacks bill
There are very few reasions to dive OC trimix rather than CCR trimix and IMHO they are:
1: you dont do hardly any diving below 30m (or if in the warm clear blue stuff arguably 50m)
2: you dont do multi day gigs that are limited gas availabuility
3: you dont do long dives.
4: You dive in a country with very stable diving conditions
In respect of the last point, what I meen is the absolute PITA it is when booked on a long range deep dive only to be told your doing a short range shalow dive instead due to wind/ sea conditions. That single thing used to pee me off more than anything else in my OC days.
WHen I dive with my gas diving team we rock up early to keep our options open, we gas for 80m. Then we look at wind tide and viz on the day and decide where we are going to dive and no one gives a toss if its 40m or 80m as both depths will cost us £20
ATB
Mark
Jim, I guess some of those "good old boys" must have more expendable income to spend on helium than me! 
Mark Chase
ATB=AlwaysTalkingBollocks
Jim trimix must be a lot cheeper in the USA
I was at the NDC doing a try dive on the Apoc a few weeks ago and I met up with Mark Powel and a handfull of his students doing OC trimix.
All the students were interested in my CCR and they ALL said i want one but I cant afford it.
To which I replied, If you cant afford a CCR you cant aford to dive trimix.
IMHO if you can affrord £1000- £4000 to spend on OC trimix each year, then dont waste your money on OC mix training.
A good friend said he wanted to go CCR but couldent afford to buy one. I told him to take out a loan and get one.
ATB
MArk
I was at the NDC doing a try dive on the Apoc a few weeks ago and I met up with Mark Powel and a handfull of his students doing OC trimix.
All the students were interested in my CCR and they ALL said i want one but I cant afford it.
To which I replied, If you cant afford a CCR you cant aford to dive trimix.
IMHO if you can affrord £1000- £4000 to spend on OC trimix each year, then dont waste your money on OC mix training.
A good friend said he wanted to go CCR but couldent afford to buy one. I told him to take out a loan and get one.
ATB
MArk
Megangel1
Member
I'm totally with Mark on this, OC trimix in the UK just doesn't cost in unless you only do the odd one or two deep dives (for which there are lots of arguments against ... same arguments are there for CCR too).
Things that always make me snigger in our club.
1. When the OC trimix guys get their gas bills and my total He and O2 bill is less than the lowest of their o2 costs!
2. When the deep dive gets blown out and they end up using their rich blend on a 30mtr dive ... or have it just sat around for a whole season or longer only to be drained for cylinder cleaning/testing. (my bailout trimix cyls don't get cleaned every 15mnths because they just don't get filled! ... am I alone in this?)
3 The OC guys complaining about having to get two or three twin sets (or more!) tested and cleaned after an average of around 20 to 30ish dives on each!
4 Complaints about the high breathing rate of one of their number which has obvious implications for gas matching/possible dive times for the 'team'.
and
5 As we don't have a booster, ... having to dump residual trimix just to get a fill out of the He remaining in the Js.
Things that always make me snigger in our club.
1. When the OC trimix guys get their gas bills and my total He and O2 bill is less than the lowest of their o2 costs!
2. When the deep dive gets blown out and they end up using their rich blend on a 30mtr dive ... or have it just sat around for a whole season or longer only to be drained for cylinder cleaning/testing. (my bailout trimix cyls don't get cleaned every 15mnths because they just don't get filled! ... am I alone in this?)
3 The OC guys complaining about having to get two or three twin sets (or more!) tested and cleaned after an average of around 20 to 30ish dives on each!
4 Complaints about the high breathing rate of one of their number which has obvious implications for gas matching/possible dive times for the 'team'.
and
5 As we don't have a booster, ... having to dump residual trimix just to get a fill out of the He remaining in the Js.
Jim Wyatt
Member
$10,000.00 for a CCR
$120 for a Trimix fill
I think the "good old boys" :shrug: just do not have the big old chunk of cash to put on a CCR but can come up with $120 every now and then.
For me I dive the CCR only whenever the dive requires trimix....This Good Old Boy managed to scrape up the cash, sold a few hogs & chickens and upped the dues to the club.:wiggle:
$120 for a Trimix fill
I think the "good old boys" :shrug: just do not have the big old chunk of cash to put on a CCR but can come up with $120 every now and then.
For me I dive the CCR only whenever the dive requires trimix....This Good Old Boy managed to scrape up the cash, sold a few hogs & chickens and upped the dues to the club.:wiggle:
Looking at the costs for used inspiration classics -(which I still use) - these can be picked up for a lot less than $10k
More like $3k or less. So I guess that's pretty much 25 gas dives worth of gas... Let's say 35 to pay for the gas and some cells for the rebreather and some training plus you have a saleable asset vs nothing. - barely the cost of a pack of pork scratching and a KFC - could have kept the hogs and chickens at this rate...
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