I. But being a sidemount CCR with a near cult following and heavily promoted bugs me. The winder definitely has some negatives.
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Funny enough, I think this thread is one of the first times I've really heard any of the negatives of the sidewinder. I know when it first came out alot of people called it a POS because it had no flood tolerance. Then those people became rabid sidewinder fans (several of which are instructors who obviously have a vested interest in it's success). I do wish I had heard more about the negatives prior to my crossover. Now that I took the crossover I've told a couple of people(sidewinder divers) that I greatly respect about my issues with the unit and I get the "yeah I guess I could've told you that" responses. I think alot of people are nervous to be open about the negatives to avoid any retaliation or arguments with the rabid horde.
The recent stories of peoples' loop hoses popping off the towers was a hot topic of discussion in the class and was met with "they just don't know how to dive it" responses from both instructors. I've heard of at least 5 people having the issue, one of which is a big name instructor from a group who's name you all know and would definitely not be the type to be banging the towers through the cave.