Trim question

[steveiemac]

Hi everyone. I feel like I’m making good progress with SM. Very comfortable diving with my steel 7l 300 bar cylinders rather than the Alis. Can I get some advice regarding trim? I think my cylinders are sitting too low and I’m wondering whether to get the butt plate to bring them higher up? Please ignore the hose on the left cylinder, I’m between SPGs at the moment. Thanks in advance.

 

[Guille G]

You can try lowering the tank band and/or shortening the snap bolt leash to bring the tank up. It also seems that you need rotate the snap bolt so that your first stage is not facing outwards - it should be facing up and with valve facing left (or facing down if you do it Florida style).

I dive a Razor so apologies if I’m just getting the rig wrong, but aren’t you connecting the snap to the pouch’s square d-ring? Is that on purpose?

 

[Curious_George]

Hey, looks great. Thanks for sharing. I’ve got a whopping 18 or so SM dives so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. I suggest most of the details with SM are about diving what’s comfortable to you and allowing easy access to everything. That being said, here is my personal opinion.

It looks like the lower bands are too low on the tanks and so your arms are forced forward/up by the valves. Can the belt drings be moved further around to your back if you want the tanks higher? My personal preference is more horizontal trim vs. yours that seems angled at 30 degrees. It would cause me to always be swimming "up" with every kick or have lots of unneeded resistance in the water. Could be driven by level of neck flexibility.

One other question, not sure of depth, but your wing looks quite full. Are you correctly weighted?

 

[steveiemac]

You can try lowering the tank band and/or shortening the snap bolt leash to bring the tank up. It also seems that you need rotate the snap bolt so that your first stage is not facing outwards - it should be facing up and with valve facing left (or facing down if you do it Florida style).

I dive a Razor so apologies if I’m just getting the rig wrong, but aren’t you connecting the snap to the pouch’s square d-ring? Is that on purpose?

Thanks for the reply. It’s an xdeep stealth 2.0. Yes it is connected there on purpose as they are steel tanks otherwise they would hang too low. The butt plate would bring the tank even further round. The leash is as short as it can go so maybe I need to move the band further down.

 

[steveiemac]

Hey, looks great. Thanks for sharing. I’ve got a whopping 18 or so SM dives so feel free to take this with a grain of salt. I suggest most of the details with SM are about diving what’s comfortable to you and allowing easy access to everything. That being said, here is my personal opinion.

It looks like the lower bands are too low on the tanks and so your arms are forced forward/up by the valves. Can the belt drings be moved further around to your back if you want the tanks higher? My personal preference is more horizontal trim vs. yours that seems angled at 30 degrees. It would cause me to always be swimming "up" with every kick or have lots of unneeded resistance in the water. Could be driven by level of neck flexibility.

One other question, not sure of depth, but your wing looks quite full. Are you correctly weighted?

Hi. Thanks for the reply. What I want to do is bring the bottom of the tanks up as I think they’re hanging too low. In terms of weighting, I only carry 2 kilos so I’m definitely not over weighted. The snaps are on the furthest point on my harness (xdeep stealth tec 2.0)so no option to bring them round any more unless I use the butt plate.

 

[Marie13]

Another option if you’re only diving warm water (aka no thick gloves) is to try slightly smaller bolt snaps. That might reduce leash length a bit.

 

[lostsheep]

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but it appears as though your bungees are positioned between your body and the tank. Try wrapping the bungee around the outside of the tank (away from your body) and over the valve knob.

I believe this will pull the valve knob up and into a horizontal position while also causing the bottom of your tanks to “climb” the lower leashes.

Move your waist strap down as far as you can too

 

[steveiemac]

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but it appears as though your bungees are positioned between your body and the tank. Try wrapping the bungee around the outside of the tank (away from your body) and over the valve knob.

I believe this will pull the valve knob up and into a horizontal position while also causing the bottom of your tanks to “climb” the lower leashes.

Move your waist strap down as far as you can too

Hi, thanks for the reply. Sorry about the pics, my 12 year old daughter took them . The bungees do go round the outside, over the valve and secure on the blanking cap on the opposite side. I think maybe the snap does need rotating. I'll try lowering the snaps position on the tank first.

When you say "waist band", are you talking about the waist band on the harness?

 

[lostsheep]

Yes, move the harness waist as low as it goes. It doesn’t look terrible in the pictures but the Lower bands are already a decent way up the tanks. Get those lower clips further down if you can.

 

[inquis]

Bungees look too long (nose too low, handle pointed down, and back clip hanging straight down). Try shortening by 5 or 10 cm, which will cause the tank to "roll up" or "climb" the bottom clip/leash.

This video may be of use.