Stage Bottle or Backmount Doubles

[TotDoc]

When I saw the title of this thread, I came here to say "hands down, do backmount doubles." But now that I see the situation in which you are diving, I am doing a 180. Having done some shore dives from the big island in Hawaii myself, I don't treasure the thought of wearing a set of doubles while walking across the lava rocks down to the water. Using a stage bottle - or even better, side mount - would let you carry the bottles down separately, and would be a lot easier to manage. A single 80 stage is super easy to trim out, and it wouldn't require any additional gear purchase other than an additional reg set. If you ever decided to pick up a sidemount rig, it would be a relatively cheap transition at that point, too. Also, if you decided you wanted to just do a single tank dive, you wouldn't need to disassemble anything to make that happen...just leave the stage at home.

 

[Peter69_56]

I normally use twin manifolded, however have also used twin independent and when recreational diving often sling an 85 on my BCD for extra gas. Cheapest option is to sling in particular if you mainly use a BCD over a wing with tech harness.

 

[2airishuman]

I am a rec diver here in Hawaii and want more air on my dives. (My air usage is pretty good already)
My goal is to moderately longer dives in shallow shore diving spots.

Currently I do about 1 to 1:20 hr dives for shore diving around 30 to 40 feet. I want to add another bottle to this and do longer dives and see more and do the whole dive site in one dive.

Good for you. Consider also a larger single cylinder, 120 or 149 cf.

I currently have a backplate and wing setup and thinking about either attaching a stage bottle or doing Backmount doubles. My question is which would be better to start with? I was planing on doing a independent double setup or staging a al80 to my side and going that route. How hard would trimming out be for only one stage bottle? Any guidance?

I've done both.

Backmount doubles are easier to trim out side to side at least at first. They tend to lead to floaty feet compared to singles, which is its own problem trim wise. Backmount doubles are more difficult to handle on the surface, both to and from the dive site and also to and from the dive shop while getting air and in and out of your car or whatever at home. Though it may seem like a trivial matter, if you just can't handle the weight without risk of injury, it's a big deal.

A stage will pose side-to-side trim problems, though these are solvable with experience and experimenting.

You could also consider a large single, like a 120, 130, or 149.

 

[Shotmaster]

First thing is figure out how much air you burn per minute for this dive profile. I dove doubles and always had more gas left than needed. I finally figured out my average dive profile and switched to single LP95s. I get them cave filled and have plenty of bottom time for my type of diving. a set of steel 72's is 144 cubic feet of air. Step up to LP95's and you have 190. You also have to lug them around. I would look at the weight issue, it gets old real quick loading and unloading them because they never get any lighter. You could look at aluminum, but I'm not a fan due to their buoyancy characteristics.

 

[Caveeagle]

I dive back mount double 95's as well as sidemount HP100's occasionally, but find myself diving single tank (BM) here and there with other divers just based on circumstance. There have been several times when I wanted a little more gas and redundancy and find it very convenient to sling an alum 40 under one arm. I won't get into reasons for this, but it's really pretty easy and does not seem to impact stability. As others have said, when you clip it off sidemount style to the waist & chest D-rings, it sort of just disappears when Underwater. (meaning its not really in the way)

 

[Ghetto Diver]

@OP
I was having the same thought process when I wanted to do what you describe.
I went with BM Independent Doubles for my extended shore diving. I already had a set of Quickdraw doubles adapters, then I found a NOS doubles wing for $80 and my route was set. These adapters retain the tanks [al80] with cam bands, so tanks are installed on the fly.
No lava rocks to traverse down here, but sometimes a 250 yd walk is required.
These dives now are limited by parking, not me now.

 

[Diver0001]

I am a rec diver here in Hawaii and want more air on my dives. (My air usage is pretty good already)
My goal is to moderately longer dives in shallow shore diving spots.

Currently I do about 1 to 1:20 hr dives for shore diving around 30 to 40 feet. I want to add another bottle to this and do longer dives and see more and do the whole dive site in one dive.

I currently have a backplate and wing setup and thinking about either attaching a stage bottle or doing Backmount doubles. My question is which would be better to start with? I was planing on doing a independent double setup or staging a al80 to my side and going that route. How hard would trimming out be for only one stage bottle? Any guidance?

Have you considered just using a bigger tank?

R..