Sidemount VS Backmount

[atedeschi]

o ok, but i still think it better to have an iso then just a straight crossover.

[Cali Knucklehead]

The last SM diver I dove with, I had to wait for both out of the water and in the water...I promise Bruce, no names... Lol, the out of the water part didn't have much to do with his SM configuration though...Now I understand that SO-Cal means SlOw-Cal. Couldn't resist it Bruce - had fun.

Bob

Next time, I'm making you wait 4 hours for me to get to the dive site!

In my defense (read: excuse) I had just started diving a new harness and that was my first attempt with the stage on that rig. Still a work in progress.

Regarding SM vs BM, I doubt I'll ever go back to BM. The learning curve has been a bit longer, but I'm happy with the results so far.

Bruce

[cavemark]

I had an oportunity a couple of weeks ago to dive a friend's Nomad, just to get a feel for the rig to see if I really wanted to make the transition. Dave helped me get set up, I used his reg setup method with the regs up and the gauges pointing forward. I did two dives in the Eye to the Keyhole and on the second dive I took a 140' (it would have been more with a bigger reel) trip in the Catacombs.

An hour and a half after my second dive, and Dave had left, I did a third dive in backmount in the Eye to the 1,300ft marker on the goldline.

In sidemount:

• Nomad rig with LP85s, crushed neo drysuit that fits like a glove and no extra weight;
• I didn't like the way the gauges stuck out, I was constantly having to hold them up and out of the way;
• The bungies were too long, allowing the top of the tanks to hang down too low;
• The hose routing definitely needed work as the left hose came in front of my body and hung down low and the right hose wasn't long nor was the reg on an angled swivel.

In backmount:

• Doubled LP85s, ABS backplate w/ basic harness, Classic wing, same drysuit and no extra weight;
• I've always felt as streamlined as I could get, hoses neat and tidy and trim perfectly horizontal;
• My instructor has always been happy with the way I'm configured;
• I carried an AL80 buddy bottle using a rubber band over the valve to pull the tank back and tuck the neck into my arm pit and out of the flow. I've never noticed much of a difference in drag or trim with or without the buddy bottle.

Even though I could have made some major improvements to the sidemount configuration (ie: shorter bungies, valves pointing back and folded forward) it felt like the flow had more than doubled for the backmount dive. I did a lot more kicking and much more pull and pull instead of pull and glide. I felt like I could have gone another 500ft in the Nomad, and possibly farther with the above-noted improvements.

I'm diving my new Nomad this weekend. I've broken one set of doubles apart and will separate a second once I breath them down. I am going to keep one set of tanks doubled, though, for simplicity during multiple bottle dives (Deep (trimix), stage, etc.).

[FW]

I'm diving my new Nomad this weekend. I've broken one set of doubles apart and will separate a second once I breath them down. I am going to keep one set of tanks doubled, though, for simplicity during multiple bottle dives (Deep (trimix), stage, etc.).

Welcome to the dark side

[techdvr]

After I switched many years back, I immediately liked the ability to move my head around much easier with SM. You don't have to worry about banging your head on that damn isolator.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

In sidemount:

• I didn't like the way the gauges stuck out, I was constantly having to hold them up and out of the way;

If you are keeping the guages out in front of you, look into finding some of the Genesis angled valves. They angle up a bit so that the SPGs won't drag the bottom if they start sagging. The guages end up sagging horizontal to your body.

I like keeping my guages forward as I can just look down and monitor my pressure. I'm running the Genesis angled valves on both my sets of sidemount tanks to keep the SPGs from hitting bottom.

Lots of people run SPGs down along the bottoms of their tanks, and they end up sagging and draggin when the tunnel gets low...

[phillip1]

I have my gauges pointing back and with the Apex DS4 I pivot them tight against the tanks and they never drag down.

[ae3753]

I have my gauges pointing back and with the Apex DS4 I pivot them tight against the tanks and they never drag down.

I have the gauges back as well, and they definitely don't drag. They sit on top of the tanks and next to the body.



I do need to change the bolt snap location on my long hose though, that'll drag Though for the small number of tight passages I've been in, I'll breath from the long hose since I want to minimize danglies.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

The issue isn't when the guages are run along the top or side of the tanks, its when they are run along the bottom.

[deepdiverbob]

The only experience I have with SM is in a pool, doing a discover side mount seminar. Maybe its because it was new to me, but I found it to be very cumbersome, and uncomfortable. I think some of that would go away with experience, and fine tuning my own rig. But as of yet, I dont have a reason to switch from BM to SM. Everywhere I dive BM gets me where I need to go. And like others have said, the few times I have dove with SM divers, I find myself waiting for their multiple trips, trying to gear up etc. Maybe they was just inexperienced at diving SM, I dont know.