Adjustments.

[kr2y5]

A discussion in some other thread has raised a couple of questions in my mind. I am curious what the answers look like for sidemount divers on this forum:

1. Have you ever needed, or felt like to make adjustments in your sidemount rig, or is it, and has always been, exactly as configured by your sidemount instructor. If you needed to adjust your rig again, would you feel comfortable doing so on hour own, or would you need direct hands-on help from your instructor again.

2. If you have made adjustments, whether on your own or with someone's help, how often / when / why do you tinker with your setup?

3. If someone handed you a new pair of tanks different from anything you dove so far, or you bought a new harness, or some other major aspect of your rig had to change all of the sudden, how long would it take for you to adjust it the way you want and be 100% comfortable and happy with the result?

4. How did you develop the skills to do so? Have you carried them out of the class, developed, or refined through a repeated practice tinkering with your rig? How long did it take you to develop these skills?

Thanks!

 

[DevonDiver]

1. Have you ever needed, or felt like to make adjustments in your sidemount rig, or is it, and has always been, exactly as configured by your sidemount instructor.

An expert sidemount instructor should get you very dialed-in during the initial equipment workshop phase of training. Precise fit and adjustment should then be refined over subsequent dives.

Further, user-driven adjustments or changes might be needed if other equipment and variables change.

If you needed to adjust your rig again, would you feel comfortable doing so on hour own, or would you need direct hands-on help from your instructor again.

An equipment workshop, as included on respectable sidemount courses, should be as much - or more - about educating the student on sidemount construction as it is on merely getting a rig to fit. It should leave the student relatively confident in the principles to be applied... and how things fit together and effect the diver in-water.

2. If you have made adjustments, whether on your own or with someone's help, how often / when / why do you tinker with your setup?

Personally, I've reached a point where there's very little tinkering needed. However, for the purposes of learning; I do like to test and trial new methods or ideas. Adopt what is beneficial, disregard the rest. Other than that, the only adjustment I've done recently is to swap out some standard hardware with some custom stuff from SumpUK.

3. If someone handed you a new pair of tanks different from anything you dove so far, or you bought a new harness, or some other major aspect of your rig had to change all of the sudden, how long would it take for you to adjust it the way you want and be 100% comfortable and happy with the result?

1-2 hours for configuration and set-up. It depends if the rig is basically assembled, or comes as components. I can get the sizing done very quickly now, from experience. Pretty much first time around. Both for myself, or on others. But I'd still run the rig through a couple of shallow dives to get the fine-tuning done.... ideally with a GoPro, or knowledgeable buddy, for visual feedback.

4. How did you develop the skills to do so? Have you carried them out of the class, developed, or refined through a repeated practice tinkering with your rig? How long did it take you to develop these skills?

Primarily through building and tinkering with my own rigs initially, then running many courses for students who bring a variety of off-the-shelf modern sidemount rigs for training. When a new rig is released, I make a point of trying to get hold of one... spend a day stripping and re-building it. Learn the nuances. Learn where it can be tweaked and customized. Then I'll dive it maybe 20-40 times to learn the subtleties of using it.

I've been diving sidemount for more than 6 years - pretty much exclusively and at all levels of diving/teaching, inc trimix and some serious wreck penetration.Qualified to teach both technical and advanced (overhead) sidemount. I'd estimate 3000 sidemount dives now.... but I still learn and improve continually.

 

[tbone1004]

1. i make mods all the time, though i started sidemount diving before sidemount was widespread. I do still have one mod my cave instructor made which was the reg hose zip tied to my shoulder pad. I make adjustments regularly to constantly try to improve.

2. whenever I am not 100% satisfied with something. Right now it is mostly stable, but stage and deco bottles are in a constant state of fiddling

3. 100% satisfied will depend on the tanks and which rig I'm using it with. I.e. if someone hands me AL80's which I never use and I am using my Nomad, I'll never be happy because it isn't designed for it. If someone hands me LP104's with my Razor then the same thing. Tanks only take as long as it takes to rig them. Understand how they are going to behave based on their buoyancy characteristics and it shouldn't take that long. Rigs can take longer just because of harness adjustment. If you are alone, it takes almost an hour to properly fit a complex harness between all of the adjustment points, loop bungee length, etc. This can get cut down to about half an hour if someone is helping you, so less than 2 hours if everything is new to set up.

4. Like Andy, 6 years of trial and error diving sidemount. Unfortunately I don't have anywhere near as many dives as he does in this time, but it's not my job, and I don't dive sidemount exclusively, but it is still roughly 600 hours in sidemount. Have gone through a lot of regulator configurations, tank configurations, bungee styles, different rigs, etc etc. You learn over time and experience. Constantly critiquing yourself and being critiqued by your dive buddies. GoPro is one of the best things to happen for expediting this, and if you have access to pools with mirrors that is the best thing.