Hybrid Tech

[tbone1004]

Says who (whom)?

maybe I'm too cave-centric, but even in NC I haven't seen that promoted in a very long time due to the inability to donate the long hose. Do you know people who still teach that when diving doubles?

 

[wedivebc]

maybe I'm too cave-centric, but even in NC I haven't seen that promoted in a very long time due to the inability to donate the long hose. Do you know people who still teach that when diving doubles?

I know very few OC tech divers but I do know tech instructors who are relatively new to the game who teach that stragegy. I can say that I never experienced long hose depoyment issues when using a LL-RR strategy but it's been a long time since I did any OC stuff.

 

[tbone1004]

I know very few OC tech divers but I do know tech instructors who are relatively new to the game who teach that stragegy. I can say that I never experienced long hose depoyment issues when using a LL-RR strategy but it's been a long time since I did any OC stuff.

I qualified the statement with technical backmount training because I personally split bottles between left and right when diving OC sidemount, and when diving with my sidemount rebreather, all of the bottles are on the right because the rebreather is on the left and it makes reaching things quite annoying and this holds true when diving with doubles as bailuent/dilout or with a sidemount bottle on the right.
It's something I'm still putting a lot of thought into though. I want the breather on the left because I do a lot of diving with it with backmount doubles and need the long hose to be free to deploy but also to keep the right hip free for can lights. This basically means the left side of my body is completely full and I can't put anything else over there. A set of LP120 doubles will get you a LONG way back in a cave, and by the time that I have to bring stages, I'm going over an hour from the door in the 4ata caves and at that point I'll just fill stages with 30/30 and put them on a leash. Since i'm on a rebreather, I'd just as soon leash the deco bottles as well or nose clip them in, but again as a cave diver, we don't carry those for very long.
In sidemount it doesn't really matter since we tend to split bottles between the left and right anyway, so they all end up on the right.

In open water for big dives, I still use a rack and all bottles go on the left per the "standard".

 

[wedivebc]

I qualified the statement with technical backmount training because I personally split bottles between left and right when diving OC sidemount, and when diving with my sidemount rebreather, all of the bottles are on the right because the rebreather is on the left and it makes reaching things quite annoying and this holds true when diving with doubles as bailuent/dilout or with a sidemount bottle on the right.
It's something I'm still putting a lot of thought into though. I want the breather on the left because I do a lot of diving with it with backmount doubles and need the long hose to be free to deploy but also to keep the right hip free for can lights. This basically means the left side of my body is completely full and I can't put anything else over there. A set of LP120 doubles will get you a LONG way back in a cave, and by the time that I have to bring stages, I'm going over an hour from the door in the 4ata caves and at that point I'll just fill stages with 30/30 and put them on a leash. Since i'm on a rebreather, I'd just as soon leash the deco bottles as well or nose clip them in, but again as a cave diver, we don't carry those for very long.
In sidemount it doesn't really matter since we tend to split bottles between the left and right anyway, so they all end up on the right.

In open water for big dives, I still use a rack and all bottles go on the left per the "standard".

Have you previewed the meg sidemount kit? I would like to spend some time with it but travelling is not a great idea right now so I'll wait.
I used to dive independent doubles and people told me I was going to die because I didn't have a manifold. Then sidemount came around and my same tank switching protocol worked with that setup as well. I still distribute my bailout tanks right and left as I have never felt balanced putting all my stages left.

 

[rjack321]

I'm a PADI Divemaster and have been diving for 44 years but in the last 5 years have been more and more drifting toward Tek. I am currently enrolled in a Tec40 course here in Canada. I am diving a "hybrid" tank configuration and thinking about doubling down on it. Whilst doubles are the standard (I get that), at my age I find them just too heavy to haul around but the idea of creating a "component" approach to tek diving makes sense to me as I can carry the various components much more easily. So, I am diving a 133 steel single tank back mounted, long hose primary, with a 40 alu slung on my left side containing the same bottom gas. Fully independent reg and spg on the 40, with 2nd stage on a necklace. This is a combination of back mounting and side mounting as I see it. I want to add a second 40 cf alu tank to my right side for deco only. That reg will be stowed and only used when doing a gas switch for deco.
The benefit of all this is that I can carry all these tanks onto the boat and rig up very easily. I can use my deco bottle only if required.
So, is this approach an acceptable tek configuration? I can't be the first person to ask this question. I'm interested in nuanced opinions, not "You're wrong because it's not DIR or GUE or whatever."
Thanks for reading my story.

I would say probably not.

The gas management for a 130+40 = 170cf so the volume is reasonable at entry level tech diving - but split in a very odd way is going to be a challenge. Which do you donate and how etc. Not a simple issue.

 

[tbone1004]

Have you previewed the meg sidemount kit? I would like to spend some time with it but travelling is not a great idea right now so I'll wait.
I used to dive independent doubles and people told me I was going to die because I didn't have a manifold. Then sidemount came around and my same tank switching protocol worked with that setup as well. I still distribute my bailout tanks right and left as I have never felt balanced putting all my stages left.

it's basically a Liberty sidemount. I haven't dove it yet, but I've seen it.

How do you deal with long hose donation when bottles are on the right when you're diving OC backmount though?

 

[wedivebc]

it's basically a Liberty sidemount. I haven't dove it yet, but I've seen it.

How do you deal with long hose donation when bottles are on the right when you're diving OC backmount though?

I was an early adopter (at least in my area) of using bungy to tuck my stages under my armpit. My long hose was routed in front of the stage bottle and tucked under my primary light. I would always have an AL 80 for this setup since my first bottle always went left, rich or lean most of my OC diving involved only one or two stages. It wasn't until I went CCR that I started to venture below 100m.

 

[Lostdiver71]

I believe that would be acceptable under PADI Tec standards as long as you have an H valve on your larger tank with a redundant regulator attached. Finding an instructor that would allow it is a different story. From what I can see it would also be acceptable under TDI course requirements, but again you would have to find an instructor that would accept the use of that setup.

 

[DiveClimbRide]

Even with classic rigging the bottom clip off shouldn't be a problem as long as both side of the long hose are on one side. Then you just have the top clip off in the way which uses up 0.5m max. So donate then unclip the top clip to free up the additional length then reclip and you're all good? What I missing? Honest question.

 

[tbone1004]

I was an early adopter (at least in my area) of using bungy to tuck my stages under my armpit. My long hose was routed in front of the stage bottle and tucked under my primary light. I would always have an AL 80 for this setup since my first bottle always went left, rich or lean most of my OC diving involved only one or two stages. It wasn't until I went CCR that I started to venture below 100m.

so hip d-ring was behind the canister light and the top wasn't clipped in?