Bungee and weighting ideas

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chironomidkraut

Contributor
Messages
244
Reaction score
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Location
Alberta, Canada
# of dives
25 - 49
I would like to see your bungee setups, and your ways of weighting!
looking for some ideas and pics
I am a cold water drysuit diver that wears 32lbs of led
UTD delta wing on a S/S backplate and al80 tanks
Just getting started on side mount and looking for some input
 
I have provided shots of my rig. You can see that I have attached a weight pocket to the back of my nomad for lead. When I am diving caves in warm water I just remove it. I dive HP 100s so lead really isn't an issue. The only reason I add some–6 pounds is to offset my fears of being lite in deco near the surface. I dive a dry trilam pinnacle and also a 7mm Bare dry suit with this set-up in 52F water year-round. I also provide shots of my ring bungee set-up. I'm sure other divers are going to comment–there are lt's of ways to accomplish what it is you want to do. See the post by Netdoc on choker ssystems. Good luck.

PD
 

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I just want to do sidemount recreationally for now with tech defiinantly in my future after I log quite a few more dives and get comfortable with my sidemount rig!
because I need a lot of weight I was wondering where the heck to place the led..
do sidemount divers tent to not wear weight belts?
 
Depends which camp your in. I think a lot of people on this board are diving wet so don't need much lead. Some of us haven't got that option, dive dry and so need lead to sink us.

I'm 6'5" and with 4th Element Artics on underneath I need about 20lbs in fresh water; 24bs in salt. That's a heavy belt, so I'm looking at alternatives, try to move some our it around the rig.

I dive a nomad, so first thing I'm looking at is the weight plate. Might work for other rigs if you've got 11 inch holes on the back.

Other than that, all I can come up with is things like harnesses, but that still puts all the weight around my waist.

Sang other ideas out there?
 
I am not a metal backplate fan for side mount, but the nice thing about side mount is that what works for you works for you and it does not much matter what others might think.

With that said, as your side mount diving evolves (lower, tighter, etc) what used to work for you may no longer work well at all, so in that regard developing a configuration that will work well in all the environments you anticipate diving in is worthwhile.

I dive a Nomad XT - one that's evolved through two wings, three bungee configurations and a couple weight configurations to reach a sweet spot for the diving I do.

I need enough wing to float cave filled 95's, 1-2 stages and a deco bottle on some of our dives - which almost by definition are not "side mount required" dives, at least initially. The downside is that this much wing involves more bulk that is optimum for really tight side mount diving - and that's ok as removing tanks, no mounting, etc is not something I do. If I end up doing that, a Steve, B. style harness is probably what I'd use.

I also generally prefer to dive wet in FL and in MX, due to the comparatively warm water. Same with offshore diving in FL. For that purpose I have no weight on the harness at all. The only weights I might use are 2 pound weights on cam bands when using AL 80s, for both trim and adequate weight at the end of the dive in anticipation of the exceedingly rare and never happened yet emergency where I may breathe all the tanks near empty.

Up north in Labrador current diving or in the Great Lakes a dry suit becomes necessary. In that case, 16 to 20 pounds (depending on underwear used) in a weight plate on the Nomad works fine.

Some divers add weight to the shoulder areas of their rigs for trim purposes. You can thread them in the webbing (a real PITA on some rigs) attach them with a pair of large zip ties, use small weight pockets threaded into the webbing (also a real PITA but once done it's easy to add/remove weights) or, if you can find them, use old school weights with the cut in the middle to allow them to be added to the middle of a strap.

I am no longer a ring bungee fan. It worked well for hard mounting the tanks for walking the tanks to the sink, boat entries and exits, etc, but the tanks rode too low and the trim was never quite right.

I now use this:

Old School Kit

It allows the same hard connection as a ring bungee but using either a stage style tank kit or a bolt snap attached with the neck with paracord and does not require a choker. It then has a bungee that comes around the valve in normal side mount fashion. It gives you the best of both worlds.
 
I dive the Nomad EXP and use the Dive Rite weight plate for the first 20 pounds and if necessary I added two weight pockets on the waist belt. I can put up to 32 pounds (2x3 lbs in each weight pockets). I used that amount once because I had to dive a dry suit with 2 AL80 but now I'm considering using my steels when diving drysuit because 32 pounds is a lot on the back.

The only issue I have with the setup is when comes the afterdive clean-up, you have to dip and hang the 20 pound bcd or spend a couple minutes to untie the weight plate...
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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