Razor 2.0 or 2.1 or SMS75

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...so it's more like the Hollis SMS100 is actually a modified Armadillo....
It is very different from the Armadillo.
You could call it something new, but to me it is more a sandwich backplate system turned into a one-piece sidemount jacket.

---------- Post added August 16th, 2014 at 10:41 PM ----------

@djcheburashka
Ok, seems like it is really useless talking to you.
When someone does not agree with your wild speculations you call them uninformed.

Perhaps you should try staying civil and at least try to present constructive information.
When you always speculate about the motivations of others in such a negative way you will not come closer to any truth, you will just look irrational.
 
No, we established conclusively over a dozen posts that you're totally clueless. Please do ignore me though-you just clog up the thread with your endless verbal incontinence.
 
@djcheburashka
You are again turning this into some verbal slugging match.
Not constructive, not competent, just childish and very useless to everybody.
 
Stop responding. I ignored a dozen of your posts you just keep writing back 10 seconds after I do. JUST STOP. I'm not interested in your view. None of my comments solicit a response from you. I already engaged in an extensive discussion with you at the end of which I concluded that there was no benefit to continuing with you. Yet you keep persisting even as I ignore you.

JUST STOP!
 
Stop responding. I ignored a dozen of your posts you just keep writing back 10 seconds after I do. JUST STOP. I'm not interested in your view. None of my comments solicit a response from you. I already engaged in an extensive discussion with you at the end of which I concluded that there was no benefit to continuing with you. Yet you keep persisting even as I ignore you.

JUST STOP!
I think this thread needs to get shut down.
 
I think Steve had more or less 'gotten over DIR' long before developing the Razor.

From the marketing standpoint I thing he had thought about cooperating with UTD first, when they came to him for teaching and probably brought that up.
But after them releasing a directly competing system (with some parts he would not approve of, in my opinion) he probably got a bit irritated.

I do not presume to know Steves thinking myself, but I do not see the strategy as faulty.

Razorista, you really do need to stop. Remember my comment about you being an internet diver and "the partially sighted leading the blind"? You're still living up to that standard.

This is straight from the horse's mouth: There was no intention to cooperate with UTD. Bogaerts taught 2 cave instructors affiliated with UTD how to sidemount who then showed AG. A few months later the UTD rig appeared and it was a direct copy of the Razor. The 2 instructors involved denied having anything to do with it, but the visual evidence is compelling. The wing, according to Steve, was a design that he threw away because he saw the flaws in it. The funnier thing is, Hollis decides to copy that wing (and harness) for their SMS50.

Perhaps I'm a little biased towards Hollis because of that. They've copied 2 flawed designs from others. Nothing original and nothing to improve the flaws until a third party modded one to be like the Armadillo.

Sidemount diving is big business in the Yucatan. When I started, it was rare to see other sidemount divers. Now, unless you're GUE, it's rare to see back mount divers. Most of the new caves being opened up for the public are "sidemount only" because of the tight restrictions. There are 3 groups that dive the SMS50. Those that don't know any better. Those that find it to be a cheap alternative (some guides asked us about it because they saw they were on sale at divegearexpress). And those involved with the gentleman changing the lines down there. He can't support the Razor or Stealth, but needs to offer something to jump on the bandwagon. Perhaps this gentleman was testing me, because he started asking me to explain how to sidemount to him...I didn't bite.

DJ, I think you're on the right track regarding the financial side of it. But there's also the politics. The Florida cave community is like a rebreather - it's closed circuit. I see that in the politics of the cave organizations. You either need to be "one of the boys" or have one of them vouch for you. I think one of the reasons you see a resistance to the Razor and Stealth is the "foreigner" aspect (even though the Razor is manufactured in the States). The acceptance of the SMS50 is evidence of that.
 
Hah! Good analogy. You're surely correct about the politics. I have a sneaking suspicion about the north Florida folks that the politics change the second there's a possibilit of greater income. And not by much.

SB did undertake other efforts to pitch the razor to the dir crowd, including a major and well-attended talk at the GUE convention. He also picked standards, like the hose routing, as analogous as could be to the DIR config. He also tried to get as close as he could to following DIR "rules," even silly ones like "continuous webbing." And from his description, his classes, at least at one point, were closely modeled on GUE fundies.

Then there's trying to get that "Boegaerthian" name to stick. And working with DSS, one of the very few non-halcyon manufacturers the dir guys respect.

I think there's a strong case that "become the sidemount of the dir community" was his business plan.

As for UTD... Yucky. *If* they had actually gotten it to work where the independent tanks behaved as manifolded doubles without introducing dozens of new un-recoverable and vulnerable failure points in a location it's impossible for the diver to reach... Well I would have had to take that seriously. Of course they never got close.
 
Steve was nice enough to come over and give us that presentation right after he gave it to the GUE convention. Dennis Weeks arranged that for us. Really nice guy (both Steve and Dennis). My impression was that he was asked to talk about the benefits of sidemount rather than starting a chapter within GUE.
Quite a few of the instructors there run their sidemount and cave courses to very high "GUE" like standards. I know in my advanced course with Patrick everything was done neutral in a set position. We'd advance forward to be in front of him, demonstrate the required skill, and then reverse kick back to our original position when we were finished. Lots of video analysis also. Demanding but rewarding!
 
Razorista, you really do need to stop. Remember my comment about you being an internet diver and "the partially sighted leading the blind"? You're still living up to that standard.
If you think so.
I on the other hand see a lot of people having their own agenda beside the topic.

I agree with the 'partially sighted' comment.

Internet diver is a nice insult. Does not fit though, so why should I feel hurt by it?

---------- Post added August 17th, 2014 at 01:35 AM ----------

Stop responding. I ignored a dozen of your posts you just keep writing back 10 seconds after I do. JUST STOP. I'm not interested in your view. None of my comments solicit a response from you. I already engaged in an extensive discussion with you at the end of which I concluded that there was no benefit to continuing with you. Yet you keep persisting even as I ignore you.
JUST STOP!
You seem to have a severe problem somewhere.
First of all you should learn what 'ignoring' means. You know about ignorance, it cannot be that hard for you to get your brain around the concept :blinking:

You started this and continued after me giving you several chances to stay civil, now you will have to live with the consequence of me not taking you seriously.
 
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Steve was nice enough to come over and give us that presentation right after he gave it to the GUE convention. Dennis Weeks arranged that for us. Really nice guy (both Steve and Dennis). My impression was that he was asked to talk about the benefits of sidemount rather than starting a chapter within GUE.

Yeah I think that's right. He did spend a lot of focus on details of the razor design. It's a good presentation. I definitely got the sense that he was trying to show how much it conformed to dir ideals though.

I'm not knocking that by any means. I think it would have been much better if Gue had picked the razor up, and it bothers me that they had to wait for halcyon to develop their own imitation. It really undermines them as independent and makes me think less of Jj.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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