new aqua-lung mistral

[duckbill]

What can modern gear do that vintage can't?

I dive the cold pacific surf in vintage gear with no problem, and can't understand this statement. In heavy surge I can still manage to orally inflate my horsecollar, if I even need to at all. My DAAM breathes just fine for the most strenuous fights with currents. My vintage jetfins work as well as today's. The harness still holds my tanks on my back. I have an SPG on a banjo, and even so, J-valves still work in rough conditions. When I have an insecure buddy I can dive an octopus off of the hookah port. What, exactly, is it that rough conditions require that vintage cannot fulfill? All my gear seems to work just fine.

 

[Nemrod]

What can vintage equipment do that modern gear cannot, well, for one thing a rigged out Phoenix requires the packing space of two single hose regs. For another, most of my vintage plate require a lot of packing space and don't work well with 80s.

You must not have seen the part where having the harness tied under my horsecollar and the harness slipped off my shoulders and nearly resulted in my passing out. I am not kidding. I nearly blacked out. I could not get my hand (singular because the other had a camera) under the horsecollar to release the safety loop and when I finally did the safety loop popped out and all I did was manage to tighten it further. Not only, but the current required a hand over forward to the buoy line, kind of hard to do struggling with a loop under a horsecollar and holding a camera. I will not use that type of harness again with a horsecollar BC, IMO, it is dangerous. When I go get back on the boat, there is something bad wrong, and there was.

I will be diving the windward side and deep walls if available. If I am going to spend that much money and time to get to a dive resort then I will want to experience the full spectrum of available diving and be comfortable doing it, just me maybe.

I will not transport but one set of gear between my wife and I, one set of gear each will be it and that gear will have to be able to do everything. If I can get a 50 Fathom in the suitcase for dives off the pier, I will try, if not, I will be single hosing it, BP/wing. My camera is heavy underwater, I need a BC to handle it and stay off the reef.

A horsecollar put the feet down and head up, always have, the nature of the beast, bad for the reef and bad form to touch the reef.

At this years SD, on the afternoon of the first day and the remaining days some of the SD divers bailed or went to shore locations (BHB) I assume due to the rough conditions which were similar to last year, if not as bad actually, as in the Bahamas. Maybe folks only intended one dive, dunno, but the boat seemed to get roomier, lol.

I just go to dive, I am hardcore, if there is diving to be done, I want to do it and the equipment I use, as long as it works is secondary. As long as the equipment is transparent to the diving, great, when it is chocking the life out of me, it is not transparent, it is a problem.

N

 

[oldmossback]

Nemrod,

Sorry to hear you had a bad scare.........been there, so I can understand your planned corrections........I have some suggestions you might consider........for the camera, I always am concerned i would drop mine or have to let it go with some emergency that required two hands, so I madeup a bunge cord with clips that hold my camera to my bc d-ring..............

It is true DH takes more packing space, but when packing my RAM, I take off all the LP/HP hoses for the plane ride and reassemble at the hotel. THis helps a lot.....I don't use vintage harnesses on trips either, I take a light weight Aries Reef Diver BC, this is packable in my suitcases.......important stuff, camera gear, regulator, mask go with me in the aircraft cabin.

At age 60, I only dive where I feel comfortable.......the young heros can have the rough stuff.........

 

[duckbill]

Thanks for the response, James.

I see you addressing "packing" and portability for travel. I see you addressing shortcomings of the vintage gear which do not change in varying diving conditions.
I still don't see where any of this is related to diving conditions or why a change in the severity of diving conditions alone would cause one to ditch vintage gear in favor of modern gear.

When SD first began it was held in north central Florida in the always calm, clear, shallow spings like Alexander and Ginnie. As SD has evolved into the Bahamas last year and this year the Gold Coast and next year it sounds like Bonaire the diving has become more demanding and exposed to the elements, rough seas, currents etc. Thus the reason the Sand Doggers have been ditching vintage equipment in favor of more utilitarian equipment with the only remaining vestige of "vintage" being the double hose regs.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Guys,

There was a reason that vintage gear became vintage--there are several advantages to the "single hose" systems, and Nemrod has discovered a few problems with the harnesses. I have set up two discussions on VSS, one in the General Discussion, and one in the Vintage Diving Instruction and Technique area. The harness problems can be overcome. The horsecollar BC cannot--I tried with the Para-Sea BC concept to update the horsecollar, and no one would produce it. My wife has a bit of a problem with her left hand from an operation she had several years ago, so I understand where Nemrod is coming from with the arthritis. Everyone has his or her own abilities and limitations, and we need to respect those and adjust accordingly. I appreciate Nemrod bringing up his near-miss, as we should all learn from this. I looked, and the U.S. Navy Diving Manual has a good description of the quick-release for the military harness. The New Science of Skin & Scuba Diving books (both editions that I have) describe this quick release, but in the context of a weight belt and not the harness. Nobody says anything about leaving enough of the "tail" of this quick release outside the neck of the BC/vest; this is something we learned at the US Navy School for Underwater Swimmers, but is not documented anywhere.

SeaRat

 

[simonbeans]

One of the reasons that Nemrod may have had an issue was when the harness was set up on the travel bands. When Luis and I designed the travel harness it was designed so that it could fit all sizes of tanks. Within that concept lies an issue that we discussed. When the top shoulder straps are positioned on the top band, they need to be very close to each other and centered on the tank. We have found that if they are spaced too far apart they tend to come off the shoulder unless you are build like the Hulk. Even double tanks have the shoulder straps positioned toward the center of the bands.

 

[captain]

One of the reasons that Nemrod may have had an issue was when the harness was set up on the travel bands. When Luis and I designed the travel harness it was designed so that it could fit all sizes of tanks. Within that concept lies an issue that we discussed. When the top shoulder straps are positioned on the top band, they need to be very close to each other and centered on the tank. We have found that if they are spaced too far apart they tend to come off the shoulder unless you are build like the Hulk. Even double tanks have the shoulder straps positioned toward the center of the bands.

I agree that it could have contributed to Nemrods problems. I noticed the spacing of the straps on several travel harnesses being used and the thought crossed my mind that it might be too wide to keep the shoulder straps in place.

 

[Paladin]

What can vintage equipment do that modern gear cannot, well, for one thing a rigged out Phoenix requires the packing space of two single hose regs. For another, most of my vintage plate require a lot of packing space and don't work well with 80s.

You must not have seen the part where having the harness tied under my horsecollar and the harness slipped off my shoulders and nearly resulted in my passing out. I am not kidding. I nearly blacked out. I could not get my hand (singular because the other had a camera) under the horsecollar to release the safety loop and when I finally did the safety loop popped out and all I did was manage to tighten it further. Not only, but the current required a hand over forward to the buoy line, kind of hard to do struggling with a loop under a horsecollar and holding a camera. I will not use that type of harness again with a horsecollar BC, IMO, it is dangerous. When I go get back on the boat, there is something bad wrong, and there was.

I will be diving the windward side and deep walls if available. If I am going to spend that much money and time to get to a dive resort then I will want to experience the full spectrum of available diving and be comfortable doing it, just me maybe.

I will not transport but one set of gear between my wife and I, one set of gear each will be it and that gear will have to be able to do everything. If I can get a 50 Fathom in the suitcase for dives off the pier, I will try, if not, I will be single hosing it, BP/wing. My camera is heavy underwater, I need a BC to handle it and stay off the reef.

A horsecollar put the feet down and head up, always have, the nature of the beast, bad for the reef and bad form to touch the reef.

At this years SD, on the afternoon of the first day and the remaining days some of the SD divers bailed or went to shore locations (BHB) I assume due to the rough conditions which were similar to last year, if not as bad actually, as in the Bahamas. Maybe folks only intended one dive, dunno, but the boat seemed to get roomier, lol.

I just go to dive, I am hardcore, if there is diving to be done, I want to do it and the equipment I use, as long as it works is secondary. As long as the equipment is transparent to the diving, great, when it is chocking the life out of me, it is not transparent, it is a problem.

N

Your problem (in bold above) with the old style harnesses is why I switched to backpacks back in the '70s. My horsecollar goes on first, then the weight belt and the backpack last, in the order I might have to remove them in an emergency. The old harnesses were difficult to remove in a hurry and the backpacks had quick release buckles. I have three of them and use them all the time exclusively.

 

[SwimJim]

The old style harnesses were easy to remove if you had them rigged properly.

 

[Nemrod]

The old style harnesses were easy to remove if you had them rigged properly.

Not really, the cotton swells up, trapped under the horsecollar which is not really of the same era of that type of harness, the sternum strap is difficult to reach which resulted in the safety loop being pulled through and my nearly passing out. The DM did not know how to work the strap either. My buddy was not with me yet either. Equipment has to work, it is one thing to do local diving in benign, familiar conditions, another to jump off a boat into a heavy current in 150 feet of water.

I did not like a harness in the day and as soon as I saw a Voit Snug Pack I got one. Those are not ravel friendly either, don't pack down, don't accept 80cf tanks.

A horse collar BC is not vintage, why if we are not going to dive sans BC, then might as well use a wing or a poodle jacket as a horsecollar, a wing is just as vintage as a horsecollar IMO.

Most of you guys drive to local diving in California or other auto friendly locations 15 minutes from your house, when you have to travel by air it is a different situation. A dive bag weights about 8 pounds, that leaves you 42 pounds for gear. Jet Fins or UDTs weight nearly twice what a Mares Avanti fin weighs as an example, it is really easy to be over weight. Being over weight, over 50 pounds, results in a 60 dollars overcharge for each bag. A rigged Phoenix or worse the MkII (??) is heavy and takes up a lot of sapce, nearly equal to two single hose regulators. This makes it impossible to carry multiple sets of gear to air travel destinations.

Me, I am not going to fly all the way to a Carib resort like Bonaire with a 40 year old rotten oval mask, rotten rubber flippers and a cloth harness. If I am going to a world class dive destination at great expense, effort and time I will be diving world class, light weight, travel friendly equipment. If I can get a harness and a double hose in the suitcase without being overweight, I will, otherwise, it will likely stay at home. This is reality in a post 911 world and now with increasing carry on restrictions outside the US it is only getting worse.

N