I cant find anything online about oxygen systems in raceboats. Does anyone have a dealers website that I can browse?

The only kits i can find are the portable emergency air systems that divers use..

are the oxygen canisters mounted to the boat or to the driver?

oxygen tanks mounted to the boat (pretty much just scuba tanks), lines run up to the occupants with a regulator on the end. that is the part time air system, as in you use the regulator only when you need it.

full time air is rigged up pretty much the same way, you just have a full time mask, think fighter pilot.

out of morbid curiousity, how long can the air last on a tank that size with two regulators? Looks like only minutes!

and what happens if you get knocked out and have part-time air? and a lifejacket?

i think you can get 20 minutes out of that ( i believe that is the minumum in the rules as well) some teams run a tank for each person, so 40 or so minutes. but remember, in a race, there is a helo overhead with diver waiting to jump in if you don't surface pretty quick. so really needing more than a few minutes probably isn't a real concern (especially in cats with escape hatches on top and bottom). if you ran full time air you would need more obviously.

if you get knocked out without full time air (and you are upside down) you are hoping your partner didnt and finds your regulator for you, or that your canopy doesn't fill that fast. and usually, if there was no failure, they take a while to get that much water in them.

you have to use canopy jackets, designed to let you get out then inflate it. inflating your jacket while you are still in the cockpit or wearing the wrong style would be a very poor choice.

So a lifeline style jacket wouldnt work? I assume you have to use the auto-inflate style suspender jackets.. What about when you're running in a poker run and theres no helos or safety divers, what setup do you use then?

For canopy style cockpits, a 'switlik' manual inflate jacket is required. As far as air supply, the scuba 'manual' type is less expensive as compared to 'full time'. Check 'tigerperformance.com' for equipment.

thanks richard, thats just what i was looking for.. and thanks sean for the PM's..

Also believe they would be air systems as opposed to straight oxygen.

I realize that..


i doubt anyone had the idea they were feeding the drivers pure oxygen..

Some new raceboats have a connection on the outside of the hull that allows the divers to attach an additional tank to supplement the system when a boat finds itself upside down.