View Full Version : D.P.V. underwater scoota training
Fresh back from sunny Marsa Alam, big smiles and glowing sunburned nappa.
For the first half of the week I cherry picked my favourite site Elphinstone reef mourning and afternoon for thee glorious days. Mint diving but the fast drift left macro photog out the question and I didn’t pack a wide angle lens. Still I figured that the end of the week would be fine for house reef photog intensive therapy. Big mistake, the wind picked up to Scottish standards and grounded all boat trips. It also whipped the vis to most photog unfriendly levels.:(
So what to do, two choices. The sensible one was to take an enriched air nitrox course. The second fun choice was to take a dive propulsion vehicle speciality course.
So being a sensible chap fun won hands doon.:D Vids and write up of the scoota fun to follow soon. The training and cert was from the SSI training agency so hope its ok in the UK.
Did my training on the Apollo AV2. It’s a sit on model unlike most of the hand held or tow rigs.
http://www.apollo-europe.com/scooters.html
The training was fun and hands on. Two scooter dives and one maintenance session. It cost me 150Euro inc certification.
Before starting I figured it would just be a toy gimmick, but soon found out it was a serious piece of kit. The AV 2 could go faster than I was comfortable for extended periods. It felt like I was travelling about four times faster than I could fin at top speeds. It was not mask ripping performance but it was enough to make the air lines hum and vibrate. Could only keep at full power for about ten minutes before I was fatigued.
We covered a vast area with ease. We went at least quarter of a mile up the reef and back no probs. The speed allowed us to easily outrun rays and turtles. We couldn’t keep up with sharks but could easily sneak up on them for a good look.
One real nice interesting plus point was effortless 60 min tank times. Not having to fin left a surprising amount of air to breathe.
One bad point was it was so easy to make rapid adjustments to depth. Horrendous dive profile if not moderated. In conclusion I enjoyed the experience so much I want to buy a unit to use for shore diving at home. The sit on hands free ride position of the AV2 was a bit like travelling like an underwater superman. You steered by body swerving. It’s a pity the Apollo is so expensive cos the hands free was a useful way to ride. Don’t think the hang on Seadoo jobs will be so usable.
Vids to follow when downloaded from camera.
Lizardland
15-04-08, 09:38
Scooters are bloody great!
Did my training on the Apollo AV2. It’s a sit on model unlike most of the hand held or tow rigs.
The Apollos are nice little scooters. A mate of mine has one with a motor that has been re-wound and is seriously fast. It'll keep up with a full sized scooter easily, it'll out run some.
It felt like I was travelling about four times faster than I could fin at top speeds. It was not mask ripping performance but it was enough to make the air lines hum and vibrate. Could only keep at full power for about ten minutes before I was fatigued.
That's probably about right, I count swimming at 10m/min at a comfortable speed and I work on 40-45m/min for the scooter. Full power is a bad idea on most scooters anyway, about 75% power is most efficient, the drag increases so much compared to the increase in speed on full power that you just end up wasting battery. Streamlining becomes really important and you need to have all your regs dialled right down because it's very easy to make them freeflow on a scooter -- I lost about 100bar in about 30s last week. Tow behinds are loads more comfortable than trying to hang on, once you relax into position then it's just effortless. Ironically, it's only walking pace on land even though it feels incredibly fast underwater.
We covered a vast area with ease.
That isn't always a good thing, I ended up right in the middle of the oil terminal when I was playing with one at Finnart :rolleyes: But you're right, it makes long dives effortless. I've done a few dives on the Kintyre on one, go in off the beach, nip round to the pipe and down, back up then out the beach again. No climbing over rocks, no parking hassle, dead easy entry, feck all deco and tonnes of air left.
One real nice interesting plus point was effortless 60 min tank times. Not having to fin left a surprising amount of air to breathe.
I couldn't believe it when I started using one. The downside in the UK is that you get very cold very quickly, you aren't moving plus you've got water rushing over you.
One bad point was it was so easy to make rapid adjustments to depth. Horrendous dive profile if not moderated.
Yeah, you really need some sort of visual reference. Trying to use one midwater isn't easy.
The sit on hands free ride position of the AV2 was a bit like travelling like an underwater superman. You steered by body swerving.
Tow behinds are loads easier to steer. You just use your fins like a rudder for small changes and one hand for big movements, you can do a full 180 with almost no effort.
It’s a pity the Apollo is so expensive cos the hands free was a useful way to ride. Don’t think the hang on Seadoo jobs will be so usable.
The build quality looks loads better on the Apollos. I'm a bit suspicious of the figures on the Seadoos. You often see 2nd hand Apollos going for not much more than a new high end Seadoo, Oceanics/Teknas are similar to the Apollo and are superb, again they come up 2nd hand now and again.
My babies:
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n233/lizardland/DPV/silent-sub-01.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n233/lizardland/DPV/gavin-01.jpg
There's a Silent Sub like mine for sale on YD that you'd probably get for the cost of a new Apollo.
IS this the advert your talking about Stewart? http://www.yorkshire-divers.com/forums/personal-adverts/70038-ss-uv-18-a.html
I tried googling for UV18 but couldn't find it.
edit: found it http://www.silent-submersion.com/pictures/index.htm
Lizardland
15-04-08, 09:57
Yep, that's the one. I'd bet the price could be knocked down further. Brilliant scooters, they beat everything in terms of reliability and build quality.
http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h39/ranchuolddog/?action=view¤t=P4080216.flv