Upper Tank mounting points: Bungees and/or chokers

[Yank]

15 minutes with an instructor/mentor will replace 150 confusing and contradictory posts.

If everyone did that, there'd be a lot less participation and not much entertainment on the board.

 

[BeijaFlor]

Thanks, Tbone, Sphyon ... these are things I needed to know, things I needed to learn.

I worked up my Transpac for side-mount diving, because it's what I have and Lamar Hires intended it for sidemount. I use the Nomad "ring bungees" because it made sense to me, at the time, to go with DiveRite's answers. I worked to solve all the usual problems, like "taco wing" and rising aluminum tank-tails; I puzzled and tweaked and figure-figured until I have a rig that works ... pretty well. But it still has the limitations of the old back-mount-doubles system that was the norm when the Transpac came to market; and let's face it, the DiveRite system is designed for what Andy calls "the Florida school," for negative-when-empty steel cylinders and drysuits and all the rest of it.

But I'm doing tropical diving, holiday diving (not local diving, not any more), with the dive-operator's aluminum-80 tanks ... and after tweaking, adjusting, configuring and trying-to-optimize my Transpac over the past three dozen dives, I can say that I've made it work well enough, but I'm running into its limitations. (Boy oh boy, have I struggled to get that horseshoe wing harnessed down so it doesn't "taco" on me!) Plus, the Transpac/TrekWing setup is heavy, and something lighter would help me avoid cracking that 50-pound weight limit on my checked bag....

Andy, thank you for describing the differences so well between the "Florida school" and the "Mexico school," and especially for pointing out how the differences stem from steel tanks vs. aluminum tanks. That cracked the code for me. Now I know that I need a rig that's optimized for aluminum tanks, and from that perspective, I need to take a second, much more serious look at the Hollis Katana.

My major "problem" with the Katana is that it doesn't have a butt-plate or even rings to mount what Tbone calls my "man purse" (that contains my snorkel, compass, slate, SMB and finger-reel ... things I don't use on every dive, but that I might NEED on ANY dive.) Well, I don't have a butt-plate on my Transpac either, but it has small D-rings on the butt of its back-plate where I clip on that stuff. And I can think of some alternative ways to get D-rings in the right place to clip the pouch to the Katana, ranging from adding a Deep Sea sidemount tail-plate to the back of its crotch-strap to zipping open the wing, pushing the bladder up out of the way, and sewing a pair of D-rings where I need them. (I have a sewing machine and I'm not afraid to use it!) The rest of it is a matter of adjusting, configuring, optimizing, and getting used to the new rig....

As the old Magic 8-Ball says, "Reply hazy, ask again later."

 

[sphyon]

I have an extra DiveRite Butt Plate that should fit on any crotch strap which could easily accommodate additional clips for that purse. All yours if you want to cover shipping from Florida if that helps iron out your decision.

 

[tbone1004]

@tursiops 15 minutes with the right instructor, the sad and very simple fact is that there are only a handful of actually competent sidemount instructors that can answer these questions since the vast majority of them out there have no idea how to do any of this whether they have the joke of a card that says sidemount instructor or not.... Sad fact, but fact.

@BeijaFlor back up real quick. The Transpac was never intended for sidemount. The Transpac was designed for hiking through a jungle with doubles on your back. The original nomad was designed around the Transpac and a modified Rec wing because that made it easier to build and kept the # of sku's and the cost down and was more similar to the DIY rigs that were being built. You are correct in that it was never intended to be used with al80's as backgas. It can work just as well with 80's as any other rig but you have to use the right attachment points. The ability to work with certain tanks or not is a function of the lower attachment points, nothing else. Steel bottles as a majority stay "sinky" when empty and they can hang from a butt plate throughout the whole dive and it's a nonissue. Aluminum bottles start barely "sinky" and real quick get "floaty" especially in the butt, so the have to go from hanging on something for the first ~500-1000psi depending on Catalina/Luxfer, and then go to some lower attachment point where they can float up and into the diver. You can put offset d-rings on the waist belt, normal d-rings on the waist belt, the sliding o-rings on the waist belt, you name it and that rig will work perfectly well with al80's. It's still big and bulky though....

The Katana as touted by the guys that designed it is the next evolution in a "Razor killer" because the Razor dominates that market with some stiff competition from xDeep. It is a REALLY nice rig and actually works quite well with steel tanks *which are the only ones that I have used it with.

Katana fully inflated with PST HP120's in a 5mm wetsuit at 15ft FFW. Not bad at all

Katana in a drysuit with steel tanks-you can see the lower profile due to less air

AL80's wlil make it look similar to the picture above. Cave Adventurers is basically guaranteed to have the best price on that rig fwiw

Now, all of that said.
DECO - Dive Equipment Company - Sidemount - BCD's
I also have one of these rigs. It is very similar to what the Razor started out as, and it is NICE for al80 diving and travel. You'll have to call Cave Adventurers to see what their price on the Katana is, but this can be built for just under $300 and it's about as small and packable as it gets.

 

[BeijaFlor]

Thanks, Sphyon, I appreciate that ... I figure I've got it covered, though.

The shop where I looked over the Katana has two branches, the one I visited and another that has an indoor training pool on-premises ... I called to see if I could try it out, on a demo dive in their pool. Waiting to hear from the owner on that.

DiveRite is holding a "demo day" at a quarry about an hour from my place, August 6 ... I was planning on trying out the LTZ. Incidentally, Andy Davis has a third-party review of the LTZ on his Scuba Tech Philippines site by Oliver Albrecht.

(But right now, I'm focused on the Katana ... however, it's going to be a while before my next tropical trip.)

 

[Coztick]

Food for thought.

 

[BeijaFlor]

@tbone1004 -- Hmmm, I remember that DiveRite was pushing the Transpac as a side-mount rig before they worked up the Nomad. (I think they had photos of Lamar Hires diving the rig, side-mount.) But that's "water under the bridge."

I know that either the Katana or the Nomad LTZ are going to require some tweaking, optimizing and adjustment before I'm satisfied with the rig, and I'll probably mount a couple more D-rings on the waist belt. I kinda wish Hollis had a Katana-specific product manual on-line that I could use to get a better picture of how best to deal with it. One advantage to the Katana is that it comes with weight-pockets in the back; that's an extra-cost item on the LTZ ... and those photos of the Katana in use, with its nice streamlined profile, are quite persuasive.

Incidentally, I don't think I did badly, adapting the Transpac and Trek Wings for side-mount use ...

This was in December, off Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic. Still got a little "taco" going on in the Trek Wings, but at least the locals weren't offended by the show; at least one of them grew quite attached to me ...

 

[Ozwald]

I've been sidemounting well over a dozen years now... before a lot of the current instructors were even diving. I might take some heat for this, but one of the huge draws of sidemount at the time was that you had to figure it out for yourself. Sure, you would get ideas from others, but the thought was that if you needed someone to instruct you on sidemount, it really wasn't for you.

Now, it's far more mainstream. There are books and curricula all about side mounting. Agencies and a few divers are trying to standardize side mount, but why? I certainly have picked up a few dos and don'ts as I have progressed, but my sidemount style has evolved over the years. I use the ring system for a number of reasons, though I am always open to learning new ways. Why? I dive sm off of small boats when I travel as well as with large tanks when I dive caves. Rather than the chokers liked by Lamar, I use large Zip Ties.

Don't be afraid of playing on your own. Develop a system that works for you. Make your own harnesses if it seems right. HAVE FUN. That's the reason we dive, isn't it?

Well Friggin said !!!!