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There is no big trick to DIR sidemount. In cold water, we use our dry suits and a normal backplate with a weight belt of our decompression backplates with tiny Halcyon wings. The backplate has two curved weights bolted through where the tanks would go , usually 20-24 pounds in two weights. The wing has enough lift to offset the plate and weights. The inflator of the wings is not hooked up to a tank. The argon bottle inflates the drysuit, and the wreck style argon location is used. The bottles are merely stage rigged with normal stages added , only on the right there is no lower d-ring, just a bungee loop that slides free on the belt . The light goes in the normal place, as does everything else on the harness. Stages are carried and breathed with the doubles being treated like back tanks. There is no long hose. If you need to share, you hand off and discard the bad bottle, if indeed it even comes to that with proper stage management, which it should not. There is no silliness with any other bondage arrangement that the strokes us. In hot water, with wetsuit, we use the same thing with no weight for fresh and a smaller version of the weight for salt. We do not hook up the inflator to a tank. This is not rocket science. The horseshit dreamed up by sidemounters is ridiculous. We don't do it unless we really need to look at something where there is no other way, and it is a logistic nightmare to set up, but it can be done right. I have done it mostly in the Bahamas, and we do it every dive for decompression in the WKPP . We remove the back tanks or rebreather and go to the sidemount rig for comfort and so we can more easily get up out of the water in troughs, or habitats. Even then, we see no reason to create some stroke rig. You act like you have some preconceived notion that I was going to say something as stupid as the Brits put on here, but as you can see, it is not necessary. I have been in plenty of no vis situations with my buddies, like JJ and Brent, and trust me, there was no problem keeping track, and any real diver knows that. For one thing, you can hear the other person breathing, and then there is touch contact. and all the other natural skills that are supposed to be taught in dive class, unless of course you were taught by assholes like whomever is teaching cave diving to the Brits, in which case they will tell you why they were so good at Normandy storming the beach and getting killed, a trait they think needs to be applied to diving. It does not. Diving should be safe and fun, and enjoyed with friends. If somebody wants to prove how tough they are, they need to get into one of those Gracie competeitions, not do it in the water, or see how far they can stick a baseball bat up their ass ( for the Brits that would be a cricket bat). That last post by one of those morons was like some confession of sheer stupidity. In scanning through it, towards the end I picked up the words to the effect of "getting some respect". I don't respect morons, and I don't respect people trying to be tough guys doing stupid things and trying to pass them on to others. -----Original Message----- From: Monaghan Tindale [mailto:montindale@fr*.co*] Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 5:09 PM To: techdiver@aquanaut.com Subject: DIR sidemount question Life is learning - yes? Following on from other posts Though is subject to debate I would welcome some top tips wrt the use of DIR sidemount in low vis pushing situations where the cave space envelope does not allow use of manifolded back mounted twins or the close proximity of the buddy. I am particularly interested in the DIR philospohy for light location, gas management, buddy communication over distances greater than 3m in zero vis and the age old long hose issue wrt sidemount. This question does not cover the use of clips etc which is obvious. Is the DIR solution in this situation just 'don't dive it'? if so, isn't this a bit self limiting? I am familiar with other systems and am particularly familiar with the 'American Sidemount' which is workable but could be improved. GI has confirmed that a DIR approach exists. I'm curious. Comments. Or flames. Regards Mon Tindale -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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