I was also taught long hose on right. Start with long hose cylinder and breathe down 500psi and always breathe more down in the short hose cylinder before switching back to allow for more gas in the right in case of an OOA situation. That's the way I was taught and may differ from others.
Derek
All these basic questions you have would be answered in course and you should really take a course and get this kind of info from your instructor instead of reading up on stuff on the internet. So, I agree with what Ary said.
There are a lot of bad examples on youtube and on the internet in general. You need to learn the basics offline, there is no way around it. I actually don't think it's a good idea to supply these basics online for beginners... some people might read this and think they can skip the course because 'everything' can be found online... we all know that people have done it in the past. Just my 2c.
Well that was my full intention. I'm past sidemount now because we're on page 6. By page 10, I will have hopefully earned my full cave.
Unless you are wearing weights, donating a tank will send you straight to the ceiling.Originally Posted by victorzamora
And is a generally extremely stupid idea unless you're talking about a stage or bailout tank.
I had one local "hot shot" instructor in my area that beats his chest and says there's no reason any good cave diver shouldn't be able to easily donate a tank in sm and that there's no reason for a long hose. He's on my "steer people away from his instruction" list.
I certainly don't advocate or practice that. However, I was just trying to post objectively regarding his question. My point was that there are lots of ways of skinning the sidemount cat.
If I remember correctly, the "tank donate" paradigm has been taught by a fairly influential German instructor "Toddy" Wälde. There's an entire "Toddy style" established and documented, and I think some European shops even advertise selling "toddy style" equipment setups.
I don't know squat about sidemount diving, but I have noticed a few SM divers running with NO long hose. I was taken to understand this was pretty common. ?? Seems like another area where 'experts' disagree? I admit to being ignorrant on this.. but ditching half my redundency in an emergency situation seems like a bad idea.... bouancy not withstanding.
OP: did I catch you are currently set up for doubles (BM)? Why not just do your Cavern/Intro in BM? I mean.. with your relative distance from cave country, how many sidemount dives will you really need before your comfortably ready to advance? I know that cost seems to be of little concern to many tech divers, but you can really improve on the cost/learning curve by sticking with what you know for as long as possible.
Nah, I'm AOW single cylinder, though my uncle has offered me his backmounted doubles setup. I'm kind of weird about taking that though, and aside from the tanks themselves, not sure it would be relative to what I want to dive with. I think I just like SM better as an outsider looking in. Something about being able to have every bit of my gear in sight and accessible one way or another seems sweet. What do you do in a freeflow emergency situation in backmounted doubles?
You are correct. The market share of this "Toddy style" system is close to the Stealth and the second most popular sidemount system in Germany.
Tank donation is a core element of his teaching and philosophy of sidemount diving, so it should at least be mentioned.
I also heard that Toddy now teaches that his students use a long hose for mixed teams and only make use of the short hoses when in sidemount only teams.
Other than that I agree with rddvet that the tank swapping procedure is useless and probably not going to work flawlessly in close to panic situations.
Also, as Forrest noted, this should never be done with steel tanks as they are part of the weighting system. FWIW, Toddy only teaches using aluminum tanks.
If you're flexible enough, isolate with one hand and shut off the likely culprit valve with the other. And hum the Lord's prayer while you're at it.
or
Signal your buddy and have him fix it for you...
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