Pros and Cons of Sidemount Scuba

hi guys and welcome to safe diving so you've probably already watched my video on the pros and cons of twin cylinders here um so you're probably already sold on doubling up your tanks but there is another way to dive with two tanks that was invented in cave exploration and that is side mount side mount is where you basically clip your tanks to either side of you with bolt snaps as the side mount name kind of suggests um but hey if you're thinking about it let's take a look at the pros and the cons of sidemount diving so first of all side mounting was created by cave explorers who needed a way to dive through the water-filled sections of caves single tanks didn't have the capacity to get them very far into the cave and back mounted twins were just too big and bulky and rigid to squeeze through the odd little gaps in the cave system so by clipping the top of your tank to your shoulder d-rings and the base of your tank to your hip d-ring you can actually unclip and move them around inside the water to fit through gaps [Music] side mount gives you great flexibility in and out of the water you're no longer limited to a rigid back mount system from the beginning to the end of the dive you can literally take one tank off or both of them to squeeze through a tiny gap or literally donate an entire tank to a buddy if they actually need it so if you don't want to carry all of your tanks for the entire dive if you're diving with more than two for example then you can actually clip some off at a point and then return back to them if you're done with an entire tank and you have a team on the surface then you can literally attach a lift bag onto it and then send that tank up for them to collect side mounting is very very flexible with your tank management which is why there was a massive explosion of popularity a few years back and that's actually when i did my sidemat train [Music] the downside for this kind of flexibility is that you're doing a lot of clipping at times and for cold water diving that can be quite tricky thick gloves make side mount quite hard so it's best left for warmer waters or at least dry gloves where you have better dexterity and make sure that you can actually find your d-rings on your harness whilst you're blindfolded with all of your bulky dry suit and your undersuit and the cold water gear side mounting feels kind of cumbersome so i try to avoid it when i'm diving at home [Music] if you're good with your bolt snapping then sidemount is a very civilized way of diving because you never actually need to carry your cylinders around out of the water because they're not attached to you permanently you can clip them off onto a rope off the side of the boat and literally lower your tanks down into the water you then put on your gear make your way into the water very easily and then just clip your tanks off when you're ready when you're ready to go so the same goes for getting out of the water as well you don't need to lug those tanks out of the water anymore just clip them off onto a line so if you suffer from back problems then side mount is a great way to dive without having to carry the weight of your tanks on your shoulders when you're actually in the water and all set up the position of the tanks does give you good ballast and profile in the water because your tanks sit just underneath your arms along your body you're really nice and streamlined and you tend to sit flat in the water having your tank valves right here means that shut down drills and identifying issues is much easier too back mounted tanks have a lot of stuff behind you and if you have poor rotation in your shoulders it can be tricky to reach your valves but side mounting if you're finding it tricky to do anything just unclip it and bring it round in front of you and sort the problem out it's much much easier [Music] hose management is a new skill that you need to learn when you're side mounting tanks because you now have hoses from each side each tank that can cross over your body at points and it's important that you know which tank which hose is rooting from so that you don't switch to the wrong cylinder but in this lies another skill and a benefit and such in that you can dive with different gas mixes on each side for accelerated decompression and you can keep adding more and more tanks to it on twin cylinders once they're dry that's kind of it you have little choice but to just end the dive but with side mounts you can just ditch the empties making sure that your hoses are tucked away nice and neatly and you're good to strap another one on but the main downside to side mount is that you need a very specific bcd something like the x-deep stealth or the apex wsx you need a dedicated side mount style bcd and that's kind of all that bcd will do at least with twin sets i can side mount a stage cylinder so that i'm diving with twins plus a tank or even more but you can't back mount twins or any kind of cylinders on a side mount rig the best thing that you can do is kind of layer them up kind of either side so you have more tanks or kind of use a butt d-ring just for your empties so side mount definitely has its benefits and if you're planning to switch it up to more technical diving then i would definitely recommend you take a side mount course so that you can learn how to rig and mark up a stage cylinder properly as well as proper hose routing but if you're not clambering in and out of wrecks or caves then i'd probably stick to my standard twin set or maybe even a rebreather but what do i know let me know in the comments below if and how you use sidemount um don't forget to stay tuned for my next pros and cons video which is going to be on rebreathers um rebreathers are basically when things get much much better but there's also a lot to consider so stay tuned for that but for now let's discuss sidemount diving in the comments below okay so thank you very much for watching this video on my channel i upload videos on wednesdays fridays and sundays all about how to be a better scuba diver now i've been working in and around the diving industry for quite a long time now and i have a lot of advice that i can help you out with so if you need any help or advice with your diving just let me know in the comments below and subscribe to my channel and i'll probably make a video about it to help you out so if you want to you can click here to check out one of my latest videos on how to upgrade your equipment and your diving as well and then click here to check one of my scuba diving advice videos thank you for watching and of course safe diving [Music] you

Channel: Safe Diving

Views: 4,724

Rating: 4.9359999 out of 5

Keywords: scuba, diving, advice, dive, equipment, gear, technical, sidemount

Id: xwvrkcUvY5g

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020