Rebreather Info Night with Joe Dituri

  • Rebreather Information Night

    Saturday, Nov. 28th,1998, 7.00pm at Southern Cross Divers, 255 Stanmore Rd, Stanmore. Joe Dituri, from Hawaii, presented an overview of rebreathers. Click here to find out more about Joe.

    Below are some pictures and a report of the evening.

    Last Saturday night we had our rebreather meeting with Joe Dituri presenting a most informative talk to a group of rebreather enthusiasts and interested divers in Sydney. Joe was only out here for a week but in between sightseeing and feeding wild Kangaroos managed to fit in some time to talk to us. His 1 hr presentation covered all the basics of rebreather design, or how they work, for those who knew little about them or only the basics, as well as maintaining the interest of the many well informed RB divers present. He discussed how the various changes to parts of a rb can effect performance ie. different bag placement, gas addition etc. He also discussed the many safety issues one must be aware of before diving a certain design.

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    The latter part of the talk involved Joe presenting a number of questions to the audience to get them thinking and open the floor for discussion. Questions such as, "What is the most important part in a rebreather?" and "What level of prior training, if any, should be required before rebreather training?", brought forward a number of interesting issues and viewpoints from the audience. All in all a most interesting and professional presentation which managed to raise the awareness of everyone there.

    After the talk we had a BBQ and some beer and lots of interesting discussions on all sorts of diving related issues. We still weren't able to totally convince Joe he should be diving heliox all the way but Jason Rodgers and Joe did have an interesting conversation on gas physics and gas choice.

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    Above you can see my TopGun CCR up against the drink machine and Jasons homebuilt next to it, the yellow cover of the FGG can be seen between and behind the two on the right. Joe is smiling because he has spotted a stubbie of VB on the table? ;)

    A number of rebreathers were there including:

    Barry's Inspiration, which looked like it had been used alot but not cleaned in a long long time;)

    My TopGun, which now has an excellent new mouthpiece which I can shut off with one hand thanks to C2 Products, a new supplier I have found.

    Jason McHatton's FGG (semiclosed, originally designed for deep water bailout to a bell) for which he has built another scrubber with O2 sensor so he can dive trimix.

    Jason Roger's homebuilt SCR which looks most unusual with a ffm and various suspect looking features ;)

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    Above you can see Jasons RB with horizontal scrubber and foam covers for the car radiator hoses that join to the breathing bags. He has his hands on the valves of the two small drive gas bottles. He also straps another small cylinder beneath the scrubber. In the front shot you can see the ffm.

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    Bruce Stewart's TP-2500. Perhaps the highlight of the night! Yes, he has payed Smithers squillions for the rights (well we assume Smithers will demand squillions when he finds out), and copied the TP-2000 design but modified it. A great design for a bailout which can only be truely appreciated when you see one in the flesh. And those tp rolls in the breathing bags sure do make you feel assured that you are covered for any unexpected emergencies. To the left Bruce is attempting a Smithers like pose but with a much poorer choice of wine;)

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    Paul Davis from Drager was also there with a Dolphin and we passed the scrubber round during that section of the talk covering scrubber design. It certainly is quality manufacturing.

    A number of other homebuilders and divers were there including;

    Dave Apperly who is currently preparing to dive his Inspiration on the 'Niagra' wreck, in deep water off NewZealand, and the Pierce Resurgence.

    Paul Anguin, who is in the process of building his breather.

    Brendan Halliburton who is currently using one in a dry caving environment to get through CO2 soaked sections of the caves he is exploring.

    I know everyone that attended would like me to thank Joe for taking the time out of such a short holiday to talk to us and I know everyone got something out of the night. I'd also like to thank his beautiful and charming wife Amy for putting up with all the blokey rebreather talk.

    Finally, thanks all those people who were there for making it such a fun and interesting night. It certainly was a blast to finally put some faces to names and to hear about their different diving experiences. Thanks to Barry Hallett too for putting on an excellent BBQ and providing his premises for the event. We'll definitely be having another AARG get together sometime in the future.

    Scott Leimroth

    P.S.
    A lesson learned:

    Unfortunately I learned a lesson in electronic failures today when I tried to download the photos I had from the digital camera I had borrowed. The batteries died and erased all the photos from the camera as I tried to download them. I guess electronics aren't even reliable for taking photo's of rebreathers. If anyone else got any pics can you contact me.

    The Photos above were kindly sent to me by Joe and Amy. Below you can see me and Amy with the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

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    Ask the A.A.R.G.