Let's talk sidemount for a minute...

[IowaCaveDiver]

Alright, from all the previous post over the past while on this site, I see a bunch of info on sidemounting...something I've always been curious about, but have also been turned off to it because it seems so awkward and a bit confusing with all the different configurations people use...of course a backmount cave diver and all the gear they wear looked a bit odd to me as an open water diver some years ago.... so, lets get down to it, I'd love to learn to do it and set up a set of gear dedicated to this configuration... Whats the best way to learn...of course, a class right? what is the average cost? Time frame? How about cost of setting up a rig? Lets assume I have the regs and such, I just really need the BCD and hardware. how about tanks? I dive a set of 130's... the PST E8's that seem to be so hot over the past year....I think they'd be too big to dive sidemount, plus, I'd rather not split them up. I do have a set of steel 95's that I'd think would do the trick. Give me some feedback here...any suggestions? I figure if you don't understand something, learn as much about it as you can and then give it a whirl, so I figured I do that with sidemounting.
-Matt
(Iowa Cave Diver)

[Kane Overfield]

i took my class from Bill Rennaker. You will need a transpac. i bought mine from diverite. i dive with seel 130's. The class is about $450 is i remember right. I am not dir either but i dont have a problem if other people want to be

[MikeH]

I never took any sidemount class. I learned from experienced sidemounters. They helped me set up my rig, and gave me the info I needed. Then I experimented. I ended up with a much different rig than I started with, and I'm about to change it again(slightly) based on a suggestion from somebody that has been doing sidemount much longer than I have. I'll give it a shot, and see if I like it.

There is no ONE right way to sidemount. It all depends on the person. My rig is different than the guys that I normally dive with. Theirs are different from each others, as well. Bill Rennaker has some great starting points on his website...check that out first.

If you feel better/safer taking a class, DO IT! I don't mean to detract from that learning experience at all, but I feel I got a better experience by learning from many different people rather than a single instructor.

95's will be fine for sidemount. That's what I dive most of the time, though I am looking to downsize to 85's. I also have a set of steel 50's for the smaller stuff, and steel 112's for the larger/deeper stuff. I don't have a set of doubles anymore...instead I have 3 sets of sidemount tanks, plus stages and deco bottles.

Mike

I sidemount with HP 120's. My basic setup started with a Dive Rite Transpack II. Everyone I dive sidemount with has a different setup. As Mike said, there many different ways.

[lonestarfl]

A class is always a good place to start and Bill R. does a good job of teaching. As far as tanks, any of the Faber/OMS tanks work fine as do the HP 120's, PST steel 80's, aluminum 80's, even the old steel 72's. Your 95's will work, but the larger diameter, 8"... the same as the OMS 112's, and 120's, are a little more cumbersome than the slimmer 72's, 80's, and 85's. I dive 72's, 85's, and 120's depending on the dive. I have used 95's and 112's in the past with success. The tanks I would avoid in sidemount are the PST 104's and 120's and ther new E7 equivalents because they are too negative...but they are my preferred backmount tanks.
Good luck with your venture into sidemount.
Lee

[Jay]

A class will definitely speed up the process and give you a center to start from. If you could, it would benefit you to set up a rig and jump in a pool just to balance it out before the class.

How far are you from John McMacken? He is in NC somewhere now. He may be able to help you with a set up before your class.

7" and 7-1/4" tanks are better than 8" tanks. About the best tank is an 85, so anything with similar characteristics is good. I generally use 85's, I use 98's for longer/deeper stuff and 125's for deep mix (and 45's for small). Though I want to get some 112's for the deep stuff instead or split my 112 BM's.

Jay

[Widiver_Paul]

I used my E8-130's, thought they would be too monster, but I had no buoyancy or trim issues whatsoever. They sunk me right to the bottom of the cave so I could walk out just like in backmount! No seriously, just kidding. They worked great sidemount.

Oh and Tami Thomsen up here does a great job building people sidemount rigs out of used rangers, contact her at usasales@vr3.co.uk (or me if TJ edits this out due to rule 6) for more info. She also teaches that specialty and will be down this week through the 2nd (but she'll be busy diving a megalodon). If you want to see mine, i'll be down, hopefully at the CDF social.


Paul

[Line Squirrel]

Seems there is as many different ways to sidemount as there are divers. I just finished up a class yesterday, it was very helpful with the instructor doing some "tweaks" to the rig I had been diving about 18-20 times before class. Also the class showed me what I was capable of doing in a sidemount rig (Jesus, a couple of those holes were small :-D ) Too bad we can't give endorsements or reccomendations, because if we could I would tell you about the class I took with Brain Kakuk as my instructor. Very informative, very professional AND a whole lot of fun. Thanks Brian, I had a blast.

[Diver Joe]

Matt, there are a bunch of us up here in the Raleigh area that are experienced sidemounters that could give you a hand and each one of us has a different rig that you can check out. We still get out on some weekends and go the the quarry so give us a call and maybe we can hook up for a day and help get you started. Joe

[IowaCaveDiver]

Joe...
I got an email from Jordan, an Olympus mate from last season, he is now working at dive rite and he said he'd be more than happy the get me started next time I head down that way. He is compiling a side mounting "shopping list" so I can get my gear together before heading down and if nothing else at least have the components needed to get started. Would you like to rally up a few guys to head down for a few days of caving in January? Drop me an email: IowaDivers@hotmail.com

[jpdiver]

I took a sidemount course from Bill Rennaker a year ago. I have about 50 sidemount dives and still getting used to it and making slight adjustments. The more I do it ,the easier it gets. I have an Armadillo harness and very happy with it. It comes off the shelf for sidemount so all you really have to do are the strap adjustments. No sewing required. I dive OMS 112's with no problem.

Sidemount will get you places you can't get to on backmount and does better job in tight backmount tunnels as well , less silting. I sometimes solo cave dive in which case I always do sidemount which eliminates a single point of failure.

[Gary]

I never got a course but kind of got to audit one when Kathleen took hers. Everyone told me they give me pointers but noone wanted to make a full class out of it. I had a lot of people around me diving sidemount I guess so it worked out OK.

I started with a Rennaker "T-strap" and a classic wing + delux harness and then decided I needed something a little cleaner. I could have taken up sewing at that point to clean that up but lucked into a Transpac II with all the goodies for sidemount included and a trek wing. I ended up doing some sewing to get the wing as tied down as I wanted but ended up with a better rig then I started with. As a bonus I can run my classic wings underneath for poofy comfort and backup bouyancy (or 95's + stages).

I've got somewhere between 40-50 sidemount dives now and have used sidemount on a couple penetrations over 4000' to where it got too low for backmount. Still I prefer independent backmounts for the majority of my diving and have found many restrictions where backmount fits in the square shaped hole better then sidemount. Sidemount opens up a lot of cave though - many places and even whole cave systems where backmount just doesn't belong or fit.

I've seen some people sidemount off a boat in the ocean but it looks awkward. I'd far prefer backmount for that.

I put together a Rennaker T Rig for a $100 and an old spare wing I had around. The Transpack I got for about $300 almost new including better wings. Commercial rigs new seem to go for about $500-$700 (Transpack/Armadillo) and I know you can get some nice ritgs custom built for $300-$1000 depending. Old jacket style BCs are othen cheep to convert to sidemount but few have proper attachement points so require conversion.

If you were wanting both a course and a new transpac rig I'd talk to Lamar about them since he built it, sells it and teaches it. I think the Armadillo comes with a course included.

[Gary]

And the smaller and more bouyant steel tanks are going to make sidemounting much easier. 85's are about the best combination of air, lenght and bouyancy - though something shorter still and a little fatter might be nice.

AL80's are nice but don't hold much air and are too bouyant - a #1 weight near the bottom of the tank trims them nicely.

AL40s are super light, small and almost like diving without tanks but don't have enough air in them to do much.

I imagine the bigger tanks will become easier as you get experience in sidemount. LP120s and such have good bouyancy characteristices for sidemount when near empty - almost as good as 85's. Underpumped they would be just like slightly heavy, too long, too fat 85's. ;)

[dalegray]

I dive on a side mount system (being from UK we have no choice, due to tunnel size), I always use a system developed by Martyn Farr called the Explorer 1 Harness,
available here http://www.farrworld.co.uk/harness.html
http://www.farrworld.co.uk/harness.jpg
It is simple and easy to handle in the water, the bottom of the cylinder clips onto the waist harness and there is a bungee cord around the cylinder neck, this keeps the cylinder close to your body, but allows you to push the neck away so you can see gauges, etc.

[DeWayne]

snip... I think the Armadillo comes with a course included.

As far as I know Curt, et al, will often do seminars on how to use the Armadillo but this is not to be confused as a SM course. Basically it just deals with how to fit the harness properly, attach bottles, and the like.

[mfascuba]

I built a harness out of 2" webbing and "D"Rings, and put a Trek wing on it that works well. The total cost for the webbing, hardware, bungee for the neck connections, etc., is around a hundred bucks. I'm looking at the Trek wing for conversion back to an OW rig, and am casually looking for a used poodle jacket to cut up for the next generation. I dive solo quite a bit, and it gives me good redundancy, and allows me to get into areas comfortably that are not readily accessible via backmount. I had a set of steel LP80's (PST) that I put back together for backmount, but broke up my '95's for side mount with good success. At the time I built my harness, there was a guy working at Cave Excursions East who dove sidemount exclusively, and over the course of several months, he showed me how to build the rig and harassed me into developing it as a tool that I'm really grateful to have every now and again. (Thanks Jeff - Great Map!!)

Mark

[Jordan]

Yeah Mark, I know what you mean, harassing. He has tried and tried to harass me into his rig as well. I dived it and liked it but still use the Transpac - it has less drag.

[ARY]

Jordan, could you share your rig config: what are length of your LP second stage hoses? Is there difference in length on right and left sides? Do you route the hose from left cylinder over your neck or it goes below through harness? Do you use swivel on the reg.second stage (from the left cyl.) or it is specific left sided second stage? From which cylinder you inflate your drysuit, what length LPH you use? Do you think zip-ties would be ok for trimming details of rig?

Do you have standard wiring on cylinders like it is on stage bottles? In case you have to donate your cyl. to backmounting buddy how can it be attached at the cylinder's neck (i figured out that i would just use rubber band and a carabine clipped into it but you might had a better idea)?

[Jordan]

Hi ARY,

1st of all, I had a good dive with you at the stroke pit.
2nd, let me say that everyone has their own way of sidemounting.

I am at home in the frozen North right now so I can't measure my hoses but I think they are as follows: Left cylinder - 36" LP hose that goes around neck with no swivel (I would like to change this because I don't like anything going around my neck), 22" inflator hose that goes to aircell. Rt cylinder - 26" LP hose with swivel and a longer (I don't know) inflator hose that goes down under limiting strap to drysuit. As far as air sharing goes, I have a h-valve on left cylinder with a 3rd reg on a 7' hose (I would not give my buddy one of my primary tanks). I can also give this reg away to one of my buddies if they have a problem with one of their regs and we can continue the dive. Now, let me say there are tons of variables and I can't possibly cover them all. For instance, the simple dive that we did. I just had my 80's with no h-valve. My buddy was my other tank - yours was your buddy. It all depends on the dive (the dive plan, the cave, the configuration of the team, etc). I hope I answered some of your questions. Instead of this internet questioning stuff, I'd suggest you find yourself an experienced sidemounter that is willing to learn ya, and go from there.

[DeWayne]

Happy holidays Jordan. I still have a fairly vivid picture of your rig in my mind from seeing you at JB a couple of months back, I really liked the newer transpack setup. I'm curious as to why you prefer not to have the hoses routed behind your neck. Also, what do you think about having the regs necklaced with bungee like we do with our backups when backmounting? I was originally thinking about setting up a rig using unidirectional regs such as posiedons looped around the neck, but after seeing how clean your rig was I'm rethinking this. Hopefully this upcoming year will see me putting together a rig of my own so any comments you may want to share will be greatly appreciated.

[ARY]

Instead of this internet questioning stuff, I'd suggest you find yourself an experienced sidemounter that is willing to learn ya, and go from there.

Thank you Jordan, your tips are helpful. I'm currently building my sm rig and planning to get use to its bouyancy control and get rid of big bugs in harness so when i go for sm training i can concentrate more on trim details and tactics. I also want to be prepared to gear parts replacements that is why i'm asking questions here.

Happy holidays to you and your family there! Keep yourself warm :-)

[IowaCaveDiver]

Hey,
I called dive rite today looking for you...no answer... you guys must still be on holiday break... probably diving! Any word on my computer? Is it all better yet? How about that side mount shopping list... i'd love to get that stuff ordered soon so I can get it wet and start playing with it before I head down your way. Also, email me your telephone number, I'd love to pick your brain a bit.

-Matt

Iowadivers@hotmail.com
or
MattM@olympusdiving.com

[Jordan]

Hey,
I called dive rite today looking for you...no answer... you guys must still be on holiday break... probably diving! Any word on my computer? Is it all better yet? How about that side mount shopping list... i'd love to get that stuff ordered soon so I can get it wet and start playing with it before I head down your way. Also, email me your telephone number, I'd love to pick your brain a bit.

-Matt

Iowadivers@hotmail.com
or
MattM@olympusdiving.com


PM sent - I hope you are excited to enter into the wild and wooly world of sidemount.

[BillGraham]

I've been diving sidemount for everything for about a year and I don't think I'll use backmounted doubles again if I can possibly avoid it. I find it to be much more comfortable in the water and it can obviously take you places you just can't go in backmount. I think it's probably safer too as you've got two completely independant gas supplies.

A friend helped me sew up my rig which is based on a Zeagle. We flipped the wing around so that the corrugated hose is on the inside, and lowered it about four inches to get more lift down where the tanks are. We then cut off the pockets and the integrated weight system and attached a "Rennaker" plate. You can sew a couple of D-rings on the sides of the vest for carrying bottles.

I use LP 95's because they seem to be a good size, they are not too long. You adjust your trim by moving the hose clamps on your tanks down lower to put your head down more and vice versa. In situations where I need weight, like in salt water with a drysuit and heavy underwear, I put some small weights on the tanks themselves with cam bands.

I kind of like the Poseiden Odin regs for sidemount because they can be used from either side and have that +/- switch. I cross them over on my chest so that the hose points to the tank I'm breathing from, and secure them to the shoulder straps with surgical tube loops with big balls on them so I can find them easily. I didn't find it too hard to adjust, it just takes a little while to get your trim correct and then you'll likely love it.