inverted manifolded twins

[ucfdiver]

Simply add water and go dive.

It's a lot easier to just go to where the water already is. Better on the environment, too

 

[Sas]

This is almost laughable. Not everyone uses deco bottles? This is tech diving specialties forum, not basic scuba... our way allows use or nonuse of deco bottles, stages, scooters, lights, reels, lift bags, etc in ow, caves, wrecks, ocean, river, lake, shallow, deep, you name it. The same cannot be said of these other convoluted methods. Last time I did a 60ft reef dive, my equipment was essentially the same as my last 140ft cave dive with scooters, I just added the cave/ deep specific stuff. This isn't rocket surgery... On top of that, if someone wants to borrow something, it doesn't need to be adjusted, tweaked, or mess with. Simply add water and go dive.

If one uses deco bottles then this is a problem with inverted tanks as already discussed. However, as I said in my initial post, this may not be applicable to certain types of diving or the OP. There is a wide range in the types of technical diving one can do so the problems you have mentioned may or may not be relevant.

I find it simply no big deal to tweak dive gear when I borrow it and I imagine it is easy for technical divers to do this. I don't know why one would consider this a big issue...

I also do not find it a big deal to use different types of equipment. There are some dives where I want a particular setup, but for the vast majority of them I just adapt if necessary. Again, a non issue.

 

[ucfdiver]

If one uses deco bottles then this is a problem with inverted tanks as already discussed. However, as I said in my initial post, this may not be applicable to certain types of diving or the OP. There is a wide range in the types of technical diving one can do so the problems you have mentioned may or may not be relevant

I can't imagine much technical diving that doesn't require stages and/or deco.

I find it simply no big deal to tweak dive gear when I borrow it and I imagine it is easy for technical divers to do this. I don't know why one would consider this a big issue...

Personally I don't loan gear out to anyone who will change it. I've got it where I like it, and changing gear around is the part of diving I hate the most.

I also do not find it a big deal to use different types of equipment. There are some dives where I want a particular setup, but for the vast majority of them I just adapt if necessary. Again, a non issue.

I think muscle memory is VERY important in an emergency. I don't understand why people are so care-free with such an important part of their ability to handle emergencies.

 

[Sas]

I can't imagine much technical diving that doesn't require stages and/or deco.

There are plenty of shallow caves (or wrecks) to be dived where it would be difficult to incur decompression. Solo divers may not do any decompression but require redundant gas source in the form of twins (as to whether that counts depends on whether you see solo diving as 'technical diving'). I'm sure there are other examples.

Personally I don't loan gear out to anyone who will change it. I've got it where I like it, and changing gear around is the part of diving I hate the most.

Sure thing. I don't mind myself but to each their own.

I think muscle memory is VERY important in an emergency. I don't understand why people are so care-free with such an important part of their ability to handle emergencies.

I have not had a problem with handling the emergencies I have experienced in different types of gear but I do practice skills very often with buddies in various setups so perhaps that helps. My single setup is quite different to my doubles setup for example, (primary 5' v 7', wetsuit v drysuit, weight belt v tail weight, no light v can light... some times on a single setup I might have a pony, sometimes with twins I might have a deco bottle, etc) and I would find it intolerable to only dive one or the other given the range in the types of dives I like to do.

 

[Slamfire]

I can't imagine much technical diving that doesn't require stages and/or deco.

It seems the diver in question is new to doubles. In my personal case, I did a lot of dives in doubles before I started carrying a stage. The OP may have chosen to post his question here because he may have thought this is the most likely place to find somebody who uses inverted doubles. I cannot say anything about the difficulty of accessing inverted valves while slinging because I have never tried it. What I can say is that before actually slinging a stage I had serious doubts about how easy it would be to reach the hip clipped spg with an Al 80 clipped on the same D-ring. It turned out it is not that complicated for me after all. Similarly, until we either personally try it or hear the testimony of somebody who actually tried it, we are just arguing about our own personal speculations.

Personally I don't loan gear out to anyone who will change it. I've got it where I like it, and changing gear around is the part of diving I hate the most.

You and AJ may be lucky enough to have similar body dimensions. These days I mostly dive doubles in a Hogarthian rig. In December I went to FL for my sister-in-law's wedding. It was NOT a dive trip, but I managed to book a trip to Spiegel Grove with Captain Slate's. During my communication with Captain Slate's they said they had no doubles for rent and no DIN valves in their tanks. So I just packed my singles diving rig.

What's your single tank diving rig? I assume you just swap out the doubles wing for a smaller one that will not taco in your tank. You may or may not use an STA. You probably just add your long hose 2nd stage to your DIN left post 1st stage and maybe carry a DIN to yoke adapter just in case.

I only have one wing that is sized for doubles. My single tank rig is my old trusty Aqualung Wave BC jacket -- yes, poddle jacket. My single tank reg setup has a yoke SP Mk10 and short (28"?) primary and secondary hoses. It used to have a console until I took out the depth gauge and put some bungees so that it could be worn on my wrist as backup during solo dives with twins.

It turned out that by pure chance I met a fellow SB member, GUE trained, that invited me to dive the Clinton in Pompano. He generously loaned me the equipment to build a a hogarthian doubles rig for me. Because our sizes are very different, I had to do major adjustments in the backplate webbing. By all means, it was easy working on a configuration that we were both familiar with. But it was definitely not a matter of just picking up his rig and using it.

Personally, the setup I enjoy diving the most is a single tank with a plastic backpack, no BCD, no neoprene, no weights, no shirt, just some shorts because decency demands it. The sense of freedom is unrivaled. Unfortunately I cannot do that kind of diving in Canada. Over here, I dive, 7mm+7mm wetsuit, 7mm back entry neoprene drysuit and a Fusion shell suit. I've dove all three of them within the last month. I have no problems in any of them. I can keep bouyancy, backkick, reach valves, etc.

 

[ucfdiver]

It seems the diver in question is new to doubles. In my personal case, I did a lot of dives in doubles before I started carrying a stage.

Me too. I went to people who were doing the dives that I wanted to do, and asked them for advice. They all taught me how to keep the end in mind.

You and AJ may be lucky enough to have similar body dimensions. These days I mostly dive doubles in a Hogarthian rig. In December I went to FL for my sister-in-law's wedding. It was NOT a dive trip, but I managed to book a trip to Spiegel Grove with Captain Slate's. During my communication with Captain Slate's they said they had no doubles for rent and no DIN valves in their tanks. So I just packed my singles diving rig.

What's your single tank diving rig? I assume you just swap out the doubles wing for a smaller one that will not taco in your tank. You may or may not use an STA. You probably just add your long hose 2nd stage to your DIN left post 1st stage and maybe carry a DIN to yoke adapter just in case.

AJ and I aren't really the same size....actually all 3 of us discussing swapping gear are different sizes-

Doubles rig-

PFCAJ's doubles rig-

Litehedded's doubles rig after our Manatee Dive-

Singles Rig-

PFCAJ's singles rig-

Litehedded's singles rig-

Pooling resources together-

Beyond safety, being able to swap gear makes it MUCH more enjoyable diving when you can carry 1 spare of everything instead of 3. I won't say that it's the only way to do things, but when you're new, standardization makes a ton of sense, because you don't have as much gear as you'll want, and the ability to switch back and forth is a HUGE plus.

Another nice thing is that if one of our 2nd stages free-flow, the buddy knows instinctively which post to investigate, rather than how it would work if one diver was inverted. By all diving DIN first stages, there's no issue if a deco bottle fails and we have to swap regs underwater (done that). If one of our scooters break on a dive, we can swap the tow cord over and exit on a fresh scooter....this list really goes on and on.

 

[LiteHedded]

dont post pictures that make me look fat, james.

 

[Slamfire]

:shocked2: OMG! You guys are using tank boots!!!

Nice pics. The only reason I mentioned similar body size, is because I had to end up adjusting my FL friend's backplate/harness. You have to take it off the tanks and it can easily take 20 mins to adjust it. But other than that, you make very valid points about the benefits of standardization.

 

[elan]

Constantly changing the gear is just a trouble waiting to happen. One of the cases happened to us recently when we had a diver with us who was tweaking his BC. Well we drove 3 hours to the site. We into the water and his inflator turned to be leaking because the elbow nut was not screwed properly. Yes we reset it and he was fine but when it's time to dive it's wrong time to experience those stupid failures that can be prevented. The more changes you make the more chances something might be screwed, as simple as that. for that very purpose before we do any deeper dives we usually do a shallower one to make sure all gear worked and the changes work as expected.
Doing constant changes does not promote safety.

 

[Slamfire]

Constantly changing the gear is just a trouble waiting to happen. The more changes you make the more chances something might be screwed, as simple as that. for that very purpose before we do any deeper dives we usually do a shallower one to make sure all gear worked and the changes work as expected.
Doing constant changes does not promote safety.

I'm not constantly making changes to my equipment. I dive different equipment at different times. Driving a car involves danger. I build muscle memory driving my own car. That does not mean I am unsafe on the few occasions when I drive my wife's car. If I was I would not have her nor my 1 yr old son in the vehicle while I drive a car that I am not optimally familiarized with. If I am to go up to the mountains and I know I will most likely need to climb over rocks, wade through rivers and negotiate mud pits, of course I will take my car and not hers because my car is so much better suited for the mission. Just because I like the 17 inch wheels in my car, it does not mean I swap them and put it my wife's car when I drive it. I am not constantly making changes to our cars. I just drive different cars at different times.