I'm trying to picture how this works. Does your light end up pointing off to the side when you're reeling? With your thumb holding the Goodman handle to the reel handle?
No experience with flow yet as I've only dived Mexico caves (and that's where I'm going back later this year). I recall, with the side handle reel, my light was mostly pointed at an angle downwards but I can see how it would point straight forward and up if you lose concentration with it.
a lot of people don't take their light off of their right hand when reeling back in so the light rattles around the cave like a distress signal. There have been many a rapid exit from many of us as we are nearing the EoL and seeing lights flashing around.
Don't be like this guy, it's obnoxious
If you're like this guy, your light is in the right spot, but you have no means to put tension on the line other than pulling on it. This can be obnoxious if your buddy is trying to help undo wraps/ties/etc. and if you're being pushed out faster than you can reel in *i.e. high flow caves*, then you don't really have any way to get the line with your left hand fingers to put tension on it. If you can reach it, then it puts all of the line on the handle side and it's just generally annoying.
This is unreeling, but you can see that the light is held on top of the handle. If you are reeling in, you do the same, which points the light forward without holding onto anything else, and you can hook the line between your index and middle fingers which controls the tension going into the spool itself. What happens ahead of you is largely irrelevant *so long as you don't get wrapped up*, but you can hold the spool and line if you have to let the current push you out of something, then quickly reel in the slack with no ill effect. With the sidewinders you don't really have that much control and it's almost a 2-man operation to reel back in. It's also not really a natural motion to reel in since you are creating a lot of torque against your hand during winding since you are holding onto both sides vs. the middle.
@Schwob I only use these for primary reels so if I have one it is unclipped almost immediately after I duck my head under. I use finger spools for just about everything else.
To each their own, but the sidewinders are not the ideal general use primary reel and I think have only really made as much of a mark as they have because they look cool. Great for laying stupid amounts of line in exploration, nice for towing buoys/flags and stuff since they don't have a hook on them and hold more line than a finger spool, but for a primary reel in a cave? No thank you
