new Sidemount diver trying to do drills with us at BHB....Problems beyond belief!

[danvolker]

Yesterday Sandra and I were doing some drills in doubles at the BHB, trying to leverage as much of Fundies into new tools for photography and video.

We had a friend of Sandra's show up, in a new sidemount system. I won't name her, we like her..but wow...what a CF!

Also, Jax or any other sidemount divers I know, I'd like your feedback on this, because I really doubt this girl was set up by an instructor that rerally knew sidemount well enough to teach this or configure her.....and the scary thing is the goal was to use this in cave, because her back was too uncomfortable with back mounted doubles.

1. First issue...This girl, we will call her SM'er, can not really tell which tank she is breathing off of. She tells me she has to periodically switch tanks, so that she maintains a good margin in each. As she showed me her difficulty in knowing which tank she was breathing from, I took an immediate dislike to the system AS SHE WAS DIVING IT. In fact, after about 2 hours in water, she was breathing off the wrong tank, and almost got to OOA in one. This is in 12 feet of water where little stress can occur..... I really don't want to imagine her task loaded in cave with this problem,
2. Bungee on necklace reg was so tight it was uncomfortable for her. Whoever helped her set it up, did no favors here.
3. When in horizontal position, the large clips she was using to attach the bottom ends of the 2 side mounted tanks, allowed the bottoms of the tanks to hang almost 8 to 10 inches below SMer's stomach. In other words, she would be dragging the tanks in the sand and silt at the BHB, any time she tried to get close to the bottom to see a nudibranch. In a cave where you might like a SM system for a restriction, I would have expected the tanks would be even with your body, and not hanging far below your stomach. The system she has would create a silt storm if she ever needed to be near the bottom--she told me it was not going to be a problem, she would stay far off the bottom in cave....Again, this is way off in thinking for cave. In fairness, this girl is a great Nudi hunter, but I don't see her as a cave diver. No way. But this gear is making a bad situation, even worse. The desire for cave appears linked to some boy-friend of hers.
4. She claims that she is too short to wear a Halcyon backlate and harness, and that her "cave" instructor was unable to make this anything but painful for her. I had a hard time buying this, and had her sit next to Sandra on a bench. They were almost exactly the same height sitting, and SM'er has wider shoulders than Sandra....Now Bob Sherwood took a Sandra that was sure a Halcyon Harness could not fit her, and made it the most comfortable BC system she has ever worn. It took a few hours and some tweaking, but it was worth every second. I have a near certainty the same would occur with SM'er. However, SMer had some instructor that did not know how to properly configure a BP/harness at all, telling her it would never fit her, and then selling her on the Sidemount system....If that is not bad enough, I have a really hard time believing that her system is set up correctly.
5. There is no possible way I with my diving background, know anything close to enough to help a diver rigged sidemount like SM'er, if we were on a 100 foot dive or deeper. Sure I could pass her my long hose, but we are supposed to be far more proactive than that... I had a hard time being able to see which tank she was breathing from, and all of the issues she was having with the tanks hanging badly, and a host of other minor problems, were unlike any problems we face with our DIR related gear..... The whole episode was humorous at the Blue Heron Bridge, but it scares me that she may enter a cave with this mis-configured and wrongly arrived at "solution".

 

[PfcAJ]

Rule number 1 and 2.

 

[danvolker]

Rule number 1 and 2.

Very funny, but since she is a friend, we are inclined to try to get her to Sherwood.

 

[Jax]

Oh, no! Dan, that's terrible!

First, is she wearing a backplate? That right there says the bottom clips of the tanks are not clipped to her butt, where they should be. What kind of harness is she in? a Razor?

Introduce her to SB, and have her check out the Sidemount thread. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/side-mount-divers/348900-my-venture-into-sidemount.html

I got dialled in pretty close prior to going to class. Here's one that isn't too bad: 20101024 SM (5) Light on.MOV - YouTube

The bungee is just like any other diving - it just sounds wrong.

As for the gas switching - that is just part of awareness. Rob had me swapping every two hundred psi to just get into the practice, and he had me clipping and unclipping my primary when I wasn't on it. You become aware of which one you are on by practice, practice, practice.

Have her take videos and join our thread! The guys are pretty nice to newbies!

 

[Teller]

If sidemount is done properly it is very easy. I have done dives where my buddy was in BM and I was SM and he has no issues telling which cylinder I am breathing from. Good instructor is key in my opinion and really helped me pick it up quickly but even after my SM class it took another 20 or so dives to get everything dialed in. Even today I find myself tweaking my rig. It seems this divers instructor doesnt know very much about SM. In my opinion a good SM instructor dives SM on a regular basis and not just when teaching. The diver needs a new instructor/mentor.

 

[TSandM]

Except for the awareness problem, this doesn't sound like a diver issue, but rather an equipment/advisor issue. I think there are a lot of equipment configurations that are problematic if they aren't set up correctly. From perusing threads on sidemount for the last couple of years, it seems that this particular arrangement is especially idiosyncratic, and each combination of diver, rig and tank has to be scrutinized and tweaked until it's optimal. This gal clearly didn't have that kind of help.

I do think that anyone who tells somebody that there is no way they can dive a standard doubles setup because they're the wrong size is full of it. I know divers who range from Natalie Gibbs' 4'11" to my buddy from last Wednesday, who is 6'4", who use standard backplate and harness setups. In fact, that's one of the joys of plates -- you may need a small pattern plate if you're tiny, or a long plate if you're uber-tall, but everything else is just . . . adjustable.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Sounds like a poorly set up rig.

Awareness is lacking, but why? A lot of people do sidemount with hoses short and wrapped around your neck. This makes it easy to get confused, and difficult to donate. I'm a big fan of diving with a long hose on each tank, using a left handed second stage for the left tank, and using a 90* adaptor to allow hoses to run from the tank to your mouth, no looping required. Sure, you end up with a little bit of hoses that flexes around, it doesn't look quite as suave as diving with backmounted tanks with the long hose wrapped around your body, but it works, and makes it difficult to get confused. It's also easy to donate instantly just like in backmount.


I have dove with backmount divers who weren't good at watching air consumption, but if it's not an emergency (or if emergencies happen more than extremely rarely), I don't continue. In sidemount, just like in backmount, a diver has to have the skills to monitor gauges. I'm just surprised someone ran out of air at BHB. I've done three hours plus on an al80 there, and it still wasn't empty.

I'm not sure what the brand of backplate and harness has to do with it, but if she really was uncomfortable in a standard length system, DSS makes multiple sizes which could help her out.

It sounds like this diver needs help no matter what system she is diving. It sounds like she is incapable of making her own gear decisions and has instead let others set her gear up for her. That's ok to an extent, my first SM dive was in a borrowed rig, and I heavily copied from my buddy when I did set up my own rig. But, before setting anything up, I made sure to understand the reasoning, so I could choose whether to copy or not.

Step 1: this diver needs to take in info from other sidemount (and backmount) divers so she understands what the options are and why people make them.
Step 2: this diver needs to make her own informed decisions, and be able to explain them to others.
Step 3: this diver needs to get aware enough to know what she is breathing and how to donate it safely.
Step 4: this diver needs to dive with people and have them critique her.

I think a lot of backmount divers see a bad sidemount diver and write off sidemount diving. I think a lot of sidemount divers don't try backmount diving. You had a lot of training to get to the point you are at, I'm sure, since you mentioned fundies. Does the diver in question have any solid scuba skills or training in other rigs? Maybe she should go back to single tank backmount diving and take a fundies class. I don't think that a fundies class is at all required to make a good diver, but in this case, it might help.

 

[danvolker]

Oh, no! Dan, that's terrible!

First, is she wearing a backplate? That right there says the bottom clips of the tanks are not clipped to her butt, where they should be. What kind of harness is she in? a Razor?

Introduce her to SB, and have her check out the Sidemount thread. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/side-mount-divers/348900-my-venture-into-sidemount.html

I got dialled in pretty close prior to going to class. Here's one that isn't too bad: 20101024 SM (5) Light on.MOV - YouTube

The bungee is just like any other diving - it just sounds wrong.

As for the gas switching - that is just part of awareness. Rob had me swapping every two hundred psi to just get into the practice, and he had me clipping and unclipping my primary when I wasn't on it. You become aware of which one you are on by practice, practice, practice.

Have her take videos and join our thread! The guys are pretty nice to newbies!

Hi Jax,
Apparently she was wearing a Razor. Now she is indicating the problem was that that the cam bands had slid up which allowed the tanks to hang down way too far.
I will send her the video, and hope that it helps.
Thanks

 

[danvolker]

Except for the awareness problem, this doesn't sound like a diver issue, but rather an equipment/advisor issue. I think there are a lot of equipment configurations that are problematic if they aren't set up correctly. From perusing threads on sidemount for the last couple of years, it seems that this particular arrangement is especially idiosyncratic, and each combination of diver, rig and tank has to be scrutinized and tweaked until it's optimal. This gal clearly didn't have that kind of help.

I do think that anyone who tells somebody that there is no way they can dive a standard doubles setup because they're the wrong size is full of it. I know divers who range from Natalie Gibbs' 4'11" to my buddy from last Wednesday, who is 6'4", who use standard backplate and harness setups. In fact, that's one of the joys of plates -- you may need a small pattern plate if you're tiny, or a long plate if you're uber-tall, but everything else is just . . . adjustable.

I totally agree with you Lynn.
I am going to try to adjust a bp/wing properly for her, but this is really something she needs help from someone like Bob Sherwood to perfect. Apparently she has some friends that are instructors with very poor skills....it is a difficult situation to correct.

 

[PfcAJ]

So Dan, how long have you and Bob Sherwood been dating?