Hey guys,
I keep seeing people using aluminum tanks in their drysuits. It's seem to be fairly popular in Europe for some reason and youtube is full of skill and 'playing around' videos with people in drysuits/AL tanks. So, why is that? It doesn't seem to have any advantages. You can carry less gas but the tanks are larger, you need tons of weight that you have to strap right onto your spin basically. One guy I know got trained by a Razor instructor here in Germany needs 18kg/40lbs to dive his AL tanks in the Baltic Sea. He was told 'it's better'. He couldn't really say why.
I kind of suspect the reason for this is that lots of Europeans learn about sidemount either on youtube or in Mexico and therefore think you need AL for sidemounting... but I'm just guessing here. The Florida/North American-style sidemount seems to be much better for cold water diving.
Any thoughts?
I keep seeing people using aluminum tanks in their drysuits. It's seem to be fairly popular in Europe for some reason and youtube is full of skill and 'playing around' videos with people in drysuits/AL tanks. So, why is that? It doesn't seem to have any advantages. You can carry less gas but the tanks are larger, you need tons of weight that you have to strap right onto your spin basically. One guy I know got trained by a Razor instructor here in Germany needs 18kg/40lbs to dive his AL tanks in the Baltic Sea. He was told 'it's better'. He couldn't really say why.
I kind of suspect the reason for this is that lots of Europeans learn about sidemount either on youtube or in Mexico and therefore think you need AL for sidemounting... but I'm just guessing here. The Florida/North American-style sidemount seems to be much better for cold water diving.
Any thoughts?