DIR & Sidemount?

[Martin Nordin]

Hi

I´m about to start diving sidemount (just for fun and to learn something new), and my question is what do a DIR sidemount rig look like?
I have seen a lot off diffrent sidemout rig but none that I can imaging were DIR. Do DIR divers sidemount at all?

I´m asking so that I have as much information as posibe that day I build my own sidemount rig. Hope that you can help me.

regards
/Martin

[rjack]

It doesn't sound like you really need sidemount? Having independent cylinders (on your back or sidemount) usually isn't done since the gas management is more complicated and other reasons.

What's the rest of your team doing? The "right way" will depend more on mission specific requirements and your team than an internet derived configuration IMO.

Richard

[DeWayne]

SM is a user refined process so you will likely never see two setups exactly the same. Ergo, it is doubtful that you will ever encounter a DIR SM rig...just one of the many reasons I have for loving SM so much;)

[diverinblack]

"BY GEORGE IRVINE - Director WKPP
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.
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. 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.
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, Diving should be safe and fun, and enjoyed with friends.

Edited by moderator to remove unnecessarily derogatory text

[DeWayne]

GI3 using unnecessarily derogatory text, who would have believed it :eek:

While the setup he descibes may work for piddling around, I would hate to even think about doing a serious dive in such a configuration.

[MSD]

I would post to the CDG site to get some advice, since sidemounting is what most CDG members sepcialise in.

I wouldn't like to dive with GI's suggested SM rig either, however any SM rig tends to be adjusted and configured for a particular project. Key factors are:

a) how much gas you need to carry
b) how much time you need to spend out of the water moving between sumps and how difficult the territory is.
c) how small the underwater passages are
d) how deep you are diving to (for shallow diving a lot of people people skip having a wing or other BCD since redundancy is not really necessary)

Mark