3mm & 7mm wetsuit with a hog harness?

[jeraldjcook]

I'm considering switching over to a bp/w with a hog harness but I'm concerned about how easy it is to adjust. I've read that it can take 5-10 dives to get a harness fitting right. Half of my dives are done in a 7mm suit and half are done in a 3mm suit. Would I have to adjust the harness every time I changed suits or could I get by diving both suits without adjusting it? I just want to make sure I'm not spending my vacations trying to get my rig fitting right.

And in case this comes up, I would like stay away from adjustable harnesses.

 

[RJP]

I'm considering switching over to a bp/w with a hog harness but I'm concerned about how easy it is to adjust. I've read that it can take 5-10 dives to get a harness fitting right. Half of my dives are done in a 7mm suit and half are done in a 3mm suit. Would I have to adjust the harness every time I changed suits or could I get by diving both suits without adjusting it? I just want to make sure I'm not spending my vacations trying to get my rig fitting right.

And in case this comes up, I would like stay away from adjustable harnesses.

It can take 5-10 dives to get it fitting right INITIALLY but once you've gotten everything where you want it minor adjustments - taking up a bit of slack going from 7mm to 3mm - are no problem.

 

[Jim Baldwin]

I'm considering switching over to a bp/w with a hog harness but I'm concerned about how easy it is to adjust. I've read that it can take 5-10 dives to get a harness fitting right. Half of my dives are done in a 7mm suit and half are done in a 3mm suit. Would I have to adjust the harness every time I changed suits or could I get by diving both suits without adjusting it? I just want to make sure I'm not spending my vacations trying to get my rig fitting right.

And in case this comes up, I would like stay away from adjustable harnesses.

I would say less than five minutes to let the bottom glides out and maybe adjust the buckle. I go from a 3mm to a 7.5 mm drysuit with no problems.

 

[halocline]

You could probably find one setting where the shoulder straps are a little snug with the 7mm and a little loose with the 3mm and you'll hardly notice the difference. You'll be surprised at how secure the tank feels even with loose shoulder straps. But if not, it's easy to adjust.

 

[ClayJar]

I dive with a 5/4 and with a trilam drysuit with thick fleeces, and I don't adjust mine at all (other than having more or less free webbing through the buckle). Perhaps it's a bit loose when I'm wet, but I haven't noticed any difficulties, and it's not at all over-tight in my drysuit.

 

[jeraldjcook]

You could probably find one setting where the shoulder straps are a little snug with the 7mm and a little loose with the 3mm and you'll hardly notice the difference. You'll be surprised at how secure the tank feels even with loose shoulder straps. But if not, it's easy to adjust.

This was the answer I was hoping for. We'll see if it works out this way for me.

Does anyone here use a chest strap? I realize one isn't needed, but I was thinking it might be an easy way to get around needing to make any adjustments. With a 3mm you could just tighten up the chest strap and not adjust the shoulders.

 

[TravisD]

My Deepoutdoors bp/w came with the non-hog harness including the chest strap. I have about 10-12 dives on it at this point. I started out using the chest strap, but felt it was causing me discomfort. The past several dives I've been forgoing the chest strap, after taking in the shoulder straps a bit.

Prior to the adjustment I felt that it was just too "dependent" on the chest strap and plastic buckle. Breaking it wouldn't have resulted in anything catastrophic (at least not with the single HP80 that I use) but the hard buckle sitting there in the middle of my chest just never felt right.

 

[Nemrod]

Fit it such that the shoulder straps fit just barely snug with the thicker suit, then when diving in the thinner suit or no suit just cinch up the waist strap and crotch strap to pull the rig down thus tightening the shoulder straps. I like the shouldere straps loose anyways, others may vary but as long as the rig is not slopping around or floating up your OK.

N

 

[bolantej]

I think places like DSS sell little T-shaped brackets that you connect to the hog harness shoulder straps and it allows you to run a chest strap across.

 

[RonFrank]

I doubt you will be doing diving where you are going to alternate between your 3mm suit, and your 7mm suit on a given day.

Adjusting these is not that hard. You may find you don't need to adjust them at all.

I have the Dive Rite Hog Harness, and it has pockets (not sure how to describe this) that go around the webbing and are inserted into the plate rather than using keepers like a more traditional Harness. This makes them easy to adjust by just straitening out the webbing, and pulling a bit one way or the other.

Even if it takes 5 minutes to loosen this or tighten it down, it's just not that big of a deal. Another option is to go with the dreaded adjustable harness. There is certainly nothing wrong with those, but the DIR folks may throw rocks at you!

The notion that having an adjustable harness is wrong, and going to break is kinda silly as 99% of the diving world uses them, and guess what... they do NOT break. Plastic has come a long way in 20 years!

A chest strap is another option, but I don't like them. They feel to restrictive for some reason, but that is just my preference. The DARK side has other opinions about this as well, but unless you are going to go for that type of training, who cares. Do it style! :10: