Question Sidemount or backmount doubles?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I have no experience in either, but I'm curious that just adding a stage was only mentioned by one person and then effectively ignored.... wouldn't that be the easiest "I just want a little longer air supply" option? Stage rigging is small, throw it in with the rest of your gear, and if you want the extra time at a destination just grab 2 tanks (backmount and a stage).
Also, I know they are out of favor, but independent doubles would also solve the availability question while having the same profile/ease of adaptation of modern doubles (main change would be gas management akin to SM).

Just spit-balling ideas.

Respectfully,

James
Indy doubles are complicated because of finding the left hand valve so you can manipulate the left bottle which is kind of annoying.

I have advocated for the mix-mount where you have the right post of doubles on your back and the left sidemount bottle if you really need the gas, but to me that would be a travel only scenario and you would need to justify that.
 
There are a number of reasons and have been stated earlier in the thread, but I'll give you a few:
1) first and foremost sm divers on boats are more of a pain in the ass than bm divers. SM hardcores (which I have been for many years) will argue that that's not true. BS. It takes more space on the boat and mroe time for a good sm diver to get in the water. Add to that, imo and many boat captains' opinions, climbing a ladder in pitching seas with doubles is safer than sm. If a sm diver isn't pulling up to the side of the boat and hanging tanks, then typically they are climbing the ladder with both tanks on. A very good number even unhook bungies first. In a pitching boat those tanks are not solidly on your sides like doubles are on your back, making for a potentially sketchy exit

2) Alot of boats are banning sm

3) SM is very finicky. Even if you take a good quality sm course, sm is always going to be more finicky and fidgety with gear. For a newer, nontechnical diver there is the potential for a steep learning curve

4) There are alot of shi--y sm divers nowadays because it's become mainstream. A big portion of this is due to the fact that many OW divers jumping into sm barely have their trim and buoyancy under control. Throw in sm, and now you've got a cluster-f in the water. I've seen it many times, even in the caves where most people go in with decent skills

5) There are alot of shi--y sm instructors now putting out shi--y students because it's a cool money making fad.

6) Sm is more of a unitasker. If you're buying a sm setup, that's all you'll be using it for. If you buy a bp/w, you can dive singles and doubles with it (may just require a different wing size)

7) SM feels great in the water, but so does bm if you're properly trained or properly capable using doubles. In the water if you're not doing tight penetration dives, there is no benefit to sm over bm. Many sm divers will say they feel much better in sm than bm. I was that way for a long time, but I eventually re-evaluated my weaknesses in bm and realized it was me not the system.

8) As you move into the tech world, stage and deco bottle management is not as simple as bm. I can very easily dive 2 stages and a deco bottle in sm. It took alot of tweaking and modifying how I carried and setup the stage to get it right. It feels very good now, but it was work and it is for many people. There's about 50 different ways to carry and setup a stage for sm. Really only 1 or 2 typical ways in bm. That means in the future if you make other technical buddies, it's easier to both show up to a dive site and have somewhat similar gear setups. Less time explaining to your buddy how to address emergencies in sm if they occur if the buddy isn't familiar.

Hopefully that's a good enough bunch of reasons. I have more, but don't feel like continuing, especially because I know I'm already going to get the same couple people arguing the same points they always do. And that gets old.

And one last time: I am a very big sm proponent and have many years and 100s of technical dives under my belt in sm, and I really enjoy it. But at the end of the day if I just want to go dive and have fun, bm doubles is the way to go. Gear is setup and ready to go out of the back of my car. Just put it on and go. No fiddling or faddling around with stuff.
Learn bm first and the principles necessary to dive a redundant system (valve checks, s drills, emergency management, etc). If you find a point in your diving that sm is necessary, you're transition over to it should be very easy. SM was invented to be a tool, but it's been adopted as a fad and from what I've seen I don't think that's a good thing.
So basically, you're saying:

SM can be a PITA out of the water - like I said, that's a clear potential downside. 1) and 2)

There are a lot of ****** SM divers, because there are a lot of ****** SM instructors. That has nothing to do with the system though, does it? That's a mentality issue, IMO. And since there will be a learning curve in whatever I choose (and PROPER training is - again, like I said - a given in whatever situation), that's is not something that sets SM apart from BM. 3) - 5)

6) so? not a problem. My consideration, not a problem for me. I have different pairs of skis as well (for different circumstances), for example. Someone already said: there is not one perfect system that does everything 10/10.

And then: "7) SM feels great in the water, but so does bm if you're properly trained or properly capable using doubles." So - if properly trained - SM is not better or worse underwater. That's what you're saying. Check.

8) getting the setup right for me is not an issue. See my response earlier about proper training etc. That is part of the process. I never asked for the best solution right out of the box without doing any thinking, trying, or learning. Maybe that kind of consumerism is default too. Who knows.

And then "Learn bm first and the principles necessary to dive a redundant system (valve checks, s drills, emergency management, etc)." Why BM first? If valve checks, s drills, etc are the goal of this, why would BM be better than SM? If anything, I understand that those valve drills are easier with SM... no?

"SM was invented to be a tool, but it's been adopted as a fad and from what I've seen I don't think that's a good thing." this goes back to the ****** instructors and divers I think. As long as the ****** diver has back-mounted tanks, they're not ****** divers?

And if something is invented as a solution to a specific problem, then how come so many people have a 4x4 truck to get their kids from school and do groceries? If people like to drive 4x4 trucks that's fine by me. Ip someone wants to dive SM in circumstances outside the original design brief - so what? I don't get the problem.

PS sorry for the language.
 
And then "Learn bm first and the principles necessary to dive a redundant system (valve checks, s drills, emergency management, etc)." Why BM first? If valve checks, s drills, etc are the goal of this, why would BM be better than SM? If anything, I understand that those valve drills are easier with SM... no?

"SM was invented to be a tool, but it's been adopted as a fad and from what I've seen I don't think that's a good thing." this goes back to the ****** instructors and divers I think. As long as the ****** diver has back-mounted tanks, they're not ****** divers?

And if something is invented as a solution to a specific problem, then how come so many people have a 4x4 truck to get their kids from school and do groceries? If people like to drive 4x4 trucks that's fine by me. Ip someone wants to dive SM in circumstances outside the original design brief - so what? I don't get the problem.

PS sorry for the language.

The language gets ***'d out on this forum, it's fine.
Why BM first? It's a natural progression from where you are now which makes the learning curve easier. You are already used to diving a bp/w with a single tank so adding the second bottle and regulator set is a natural progression. In contrast you are not used to the dynamics of diving sidemount which makes the learning process drastically more difficult, especially compounded with how every sidemount rig really needs to be properly tailored to you as a diver. The gap between doubles and sidemount is much smaller than it is between singles and sidemount.

Poor instructors can take very experienced divers and make them look like cluster f*cks when they set them up in poorly configured sidemount rigs. The image below is taken from PADI's official sidemount course. The diver on the right is an instructor trainer who is an extremely accomplished diver and looks VERY good in the water, in doubles. His sidemount rig configuration is nothing short of an abomination however and when you see that in the water you question whether the diver is a good diver or not. This is a lot of what we see in the technical world. The GOOD sidemount instructors are extremely few and far between.

1643732344890.png


In doubles you have one accepted configuration, and there are almost no deviations when you are diving AL80 doubles in a bathing suit all the way up to a drysuit with monstrous steel bottles. You may change from a plastic/aluminum plate to a steel plate, you may add a v-weight or a tail weight, but other than that there are no real changes.
In sidemount however there is a huge difference in diving AL80 bottles vs steels based on their buoyancy shift and how they hang on your body when full vs. empty and you see that in the style of the rig itself but also how the bottles are configured. Most of the world dives AL80's because they're much easier to dive, but it also can make the surface issue worse when you have all of that lead on your harness. Most people, including many that are on this thread have accepted to dive in really ugly configurations that are not proper sidemount and what makes it worse is that you often don't know that you look a mess until someone calls you out.

Unless you have a really strong reason to dive sidemount, just learn doubles if you are adamant that you need the extra bottle. Most areas you will be diving will lend themselves to doubles more easily and since it is essentially the same as what you're doing now with a backplate and singles the only "new" skill you learn is the valve drill itself which translates directly to sidemount.
 
Why does someone use a 4x4 truck to take kids to school?
maybe they need the truck for a specific reason and can't afford, or justify, a different vehicle for daily life. It's a crappy vehicle for the job of running kids to school, but it (poorly) gets the job done.
Maybe they don't need it at all, just following the fad. Keeping up with the Jones's.
 
I voted BM (did we vote?)
 
Should we start this over with a pole?
IMHO, it's too soon. We haven't even dug into the merits of the "independent backmount doubles with one post reverse mounted regulator" system yet. Surely it deserves a spot in the poll since it's a valid configuration (see the DSMB deployment thread). Seems like an ideal system to avoid left post rolloffs due to ceiling contact while also protecting the left post first stage in instances where you faceplant into the cave floor.

8C4FAE27-A383-41DE-A537-C5E0ACC894E5.jpeg
 
The image below is taken from PADI's official sidemount course. The diver on the right is an instructor trainer who is an extremely accomplished diver and looks VERY good in the water, in doubles. His sidemount rig configuration is nothing short of an abomination however and when you see that in the water you question whether the diver is a good diver or not. This is a lot of what we see in the technical world. The GOOD sidemount instructors are extremely few and far between.

View attachment 704574
Holy crap Batman! What's that; a couple of rebreather divers demonstrating their floaty stages?!?

Have some pride man! Sidemount's flat for goodness sake
1643737274709.png
 
I'm not surprised. You don't seem to agree with alot I say and vice versa. I have no interest in trying to argue points with you because it historically is a waste of my time
We have some differences of opinion.

I'm trying to fly the flag for sidemount as a viable option against the backmount blob. There's benefits of all kit configurations and it's up to the diver to decide what's best for them.

BTW backmount comes in all sorts of non-DIR guises too. Main reg over the right shoulder, octopus under the left armpit springs to mind. Although the longhose + necklaced backup is most popular by far.

Other options not discussed here include the 15 litre single with 3 litre pony bottle.

Horses for courses.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom