What would you do?

[kingfisher]

Stick in a better mix and pretend you missheared the maddog request

I feel you should suggest the guy gets his mix somewhere else as you would only give the correct mix and give your reasons. I would also question whether you should be diving with someone who is not responsible enough with their own safety - you might need him in an emergency and you need to feel confident in him.

I had a difficult discussion with my brother some years ago as he was just an occassional recreational diver whereas I had moved on to more regular technical diving and his standard of diving was very poor. I told him straight I would not dive with him again until he undertook further training and if he didn't want to do that he should pack in for his own safety........ He packed in diving.

[Woz]

Well there are no dive police of course. If you warned him and he still wants to dive then that's fine although some sort of written trail may be a good idea like what you get in a shop. Let's face it he could go into a shop and ask for a mix and not discuss the diving at all with them and walk out with a fill.

Just to put it into context, I was at the stern of the Wilheim in Norway about 10 days ago at 70m with a rebreather, a couple of 80cf bailouts and a scooter, the total of which weighed nearly 110kg. The French divers who were on the boat doing the same trip swam past me at about 65m, one of them on a single 15 of air...

[heland]

Well there are no dive police of course. If you warned him and he still wants to dive then that's fine although some sort of written trail may be a good idea like what you get in a shop. Let's face it he could go into a shop and ask for a mix and not discuss the diving at all with them and walk out with a fill.

Just to put it into context, I was at the stern of the Wilheim in Norway about 10 days ago at 70m with a rebreather, a couple of 80cf bailouts and a scooter, the total of which weighed nearly 110kg. The French divers who were on the boat doing the same trip swam past me at about 65m, one of them on a single 15 of air...

Hey Woz - I saw the pictures :-) Looked great!

Yeah I agree, Ironically, I have referred to my buddy as a diver that dives like a Frenchman (in relation to cave divers - "apologies in advance to French Divers :-)"). The difference here is that I'm his buddy so I can't claim I didn't know what he wanted the 20/20 for and I'd be mixing his gas.

[Energy58]

Well there are no dive police of course. If you warned him and he still wants to dive then that's fine although some sort of written trail may be a good idea like what you get in a shop. Let's face it he could go into a shop and ask for a mix and not discuss the diving at all with them and walk out with a fill.

Just to put it into context, I was at the stern of the Wilheim in Norway about 10 days ago at 70m with a rebreather, a couple of 80cf bailouts and a scooter, the total of which weighed nearly 110kg. The French divers who were on the boat doing the same trip swam past me at about 65m, one of them on a single 15 of air...

Yeah - different strokes for different folks. I have done 50m on a single 15 but I wouldn't do it now. Its weird that despite having some of the most restrictive diving practice in terms of qualifications France seems to produce more than its fair share of divers with a death wish. For comedy gold though its pretty hard to beat the two Italian divers I saw in the Med a few days ago having a physical fight under water about which way to go on a dive!

As for the question of what would the courts think about the OP if he did supply the mix in question and there was a bad outcome, a massively experienced litigator told me years ago that if you get to court, even with an apparently rock-solid case, there is at least a 10% chance of the judge having some form of brain-fart and making a completely irrational decision on the facts (this has subsequently proved to be an underestimate as far as my own experience goes) so my advice would be don't do it if you have any doubt about it. A shop could legitimately claim ignorance - that he has the badge so they simply supplied what was asked for and it isn't their job to second guess people or police their diving practice - it is different for you: you know what his plan is and are going to take part

[Woz]

Hey Woz - I saw the pictures :-) Looked great!

Yeah I agree, Ironically, I have referred to my buddy as a diver that dives like a Frenchman (in relation to cave divers - "apologies in advance to French Divers :-)"). The difference here is that I'm his buddy so I can't claim I didn't know what he wanted the 20/20 for and I'd be mixing his gas.

If you are mixing the gas and are only covering your costs and not charging anything for the "service" part, then if anything were to go tonto this would fall under the "duty of care" stuff, which is much more fluffy than, say, the "at work" or "sale of goods" regulations. If he asks for 20/20 then you have to do your best to provide that with clean air etc, and I would have some sort of paper trail to show that he has tested the gas and accepts it "as is". That's the "gas supply" part handled.

If you then know that you are buddying this feller, then he has the same "duty of care" to you as his buddy not to purposefully be A Dick and put you at risk. So if he is diving outside of his agency ticket guidelines, then you have to look at where the buck stops- if something were to go wrong and the 20/20 was a contributing factor, the agency would say "well he's outside our guidelines so tough" and the buck would stop on your buddy's shoulders- so your family could sue and have his house/possessions as again any insurers would walk away as it's "outside the agency guidelines". If anything were to happen to him and him alone then the same would apply- the buck stops with him and goes no further so if he has any dependents, they would get precisely diddly squat.

It's a bit like solo diving. It's not illegal, and plenty of divers do it and are fine to accept that the responsibility stops with them and goes no further. But even the "solo diving" courses have wiggle clauses that state that it is more "self sufficiency within the buddy system" when you read the weasel words in the small print.

For the cost difference (admittedly on OC quite a bit these days, but CCR not so much) I'd call him a tight twat and tell him to stop being a dick head and add some helium. Mind you at 8p a litre it doesn't half stack up

[taz]

.

As a friend you should be able to say NO I'm not comfortable mixing that for you.
As a friend they will say Ok and life will go on as normal.

Non of that might happen but the saying NO is your choice.

taz.

.

[notdeadyet]

Yeah - different strokes for different folks. I have done 50m on a single 15 but I wouldn't do it now. Its weird that despite having some of the most restrictive diving practice in terms of qualifications France seems to produce more than its fair share of divers with a death wish. For comedy gold though its pretty hard to beat the two Italian divers I saw in the Med a few days ago having a physical fight under water about which way to go on a dive!

I've dived with a lot of French cave divers over the years, been on quite a few expeditions with them. They dive their own way, no question of that. I remember spending the morning with the local fire brigade dive team and nothing was getting done before the wine had been drank. But equally they've also achieved some incredible outcomes. I've seen two divers with a twinset of air and 2x12l stages of air each do the same dives that challenged everyone else on rebreathers, mixed gas and scooters. Certainly in the cave diving world they worked a long time without access to the same resources we take for granted in the UK. Equally, they have also broken ground in the use of mixed gas, sidemount rebreathers, etc. I also think the language barrier had a big part to play. If you couldn't read Techdiver or Rebreatherworld or any of the other discussion forums then information is going to filter in slow and it's going to be misinterpreted. I definitely saw that with the rise in DIR-style diving and the way deco practices changed. I can only speak about cave diving, French cave divers are absolute maniacs but I wouldn't hesitate to dive with them as what they lack in adhering to agency guidelines they more than make up for in other abilities.

[witchieblackcat]

As a "paper trail", I guess this thread might be useful for the prosecution (i.e. your mate's wife) if something was to happen to him.