Loop Bungees on backplates

[tbone1004]

So I came across this video randomly a few months ago. I have had loop bungees on my backplates for a while, but they were anchored to d-rings like we normally do in sidemount. I don't always have a stage/deco bottle on, and they certainly make gearing up a pain. I saw this and tried it. Good lord is it brilliant.

Curious what others are doing or thinking. @PfcAJ can you weigh in on whether anything like this is used in your circles to keep the left side bottles in line, or if not, why not?

 

[a878bob]

I like it. My sm rig is setup this way but I never thought of doing it with my breather. I might give it a go.

 

[PfcAJ]

So I came across this video randomly a few months ago. I have had loop bungees on my backplates for a while, but they were anchored to d-rings like we normally do in sidemount. I don't always have a stage/deco bottle on, and they certainly make gearing up a pain. I saw this and tried it. Good lord is it brilliant.

Curious what others are doing or thinking. @PfcAJ can you weigh in on whether anything like this is used in your circles to keep the left side bottles in line, or if not, why not?

Seems like a SM thing, which would be pretty firmly outside of my circle.

None of the guys I dive with are using anything like that in backmount for stages, either.

 

[tbone1004]

Seems like a SM thing, which would be pretty firmly outside of my circle.

None of the guys I dive with are using anything like that in backmount for stages, either.

was curious about the backmount crowd since I've adapted it for CCR use. Used it last weekend while cave diving with doubles and it was much more comfortable than letting them hang loose

 

[Dsix36]

My bungees have one of the oversize bolt snaps on it. It clips to the shoulder dring and I can hard clip my tank to the bolt snap circle to walk without the weight on the bungee. The snap can be relocated to the waist dring to aid in harness removal (but definitely not as easily as the slip knot). I leave it on the waist until I gear up and then move back to the shoulder dring.

Caves I very seldom hard clip it but ocean dives require it sometimes. It the water is rough or there are several divers waiting for you to drag your arse up the ladder, you need to be able to hand up tanks quickly. If the tank is hard clipped I can remove the bungee and unhook the bottom clip prior to getting to the ladder,. then I can use one hand to unclip and hand a tank up very quickly while holding the ladder with the other hand.

 

[Dsix36]

Oh yeah, backmount CCR

 

[tbone1004]

@Dsix36 one of the issues that I have with sidemount, and sidemounting bailout bottles on the breather is dealing with the ability to use DIR configured bottles. Sure we have ways to deal with sidemount stages, but when diving in mixed teams, or if you are borrowing bottles, etc. having the ability to use what has been accepted as standard rigging is important to me. I also appreciate hard clips for boat diving.
The way I've been using the loops is with standard rigging then just snapping the bungee over the valve to keep the neck up.

 

[JohnnyC]

I've always rigged my bungees like that, on both sidemount and with CCR. Anchoring them to the shoulder d-rings is annoying. Works great for OC and CCR if you're running gas on both sides. Although when diving OC doubles I'm running everything on the left.

Using standard stage rigging is obviously not quite as streamlined as purpose rigged SM bottles, but works well with the upper bolt snap if you need to move with the tanks on.

 

[tbone1004]

@JohnnyC well why didn't you tell me about this years ago? jackass

 

[JohnnyC]

Lol. My bad.....next time. I promise.