I had been considering a more minimalist sidemount system since DEMA two years ago and considering it even harder since a cave diving trip to Mexico last year where my Nomad was overkill with 2 AL 80s and a stage.
I have been diving a Nomad and while it does everything ok and will carry a lot of weight (a pair of steel 95s, two stages and a deco bottle if I ease up on the bungees constricting the upper portion of the wing) it is a little bulky for some of the SM diving we are migrating to.
I like the razor concept, but I also wanted a small wing and quite frankly I like a small tail plate. I was leaning toward a razor clone and then planned to add a DR tech tail plate.
However, on this just completed most recent trip to cave country I bought an SMS 50 as it was basically what I wanted - a minimalist razor style harness with a fairly streamlined 25 pound bladder and a small tail plate.
I used it on dive three of our three dive days (which were shorter dives well suited to twin AL 72s). I found it to be very easy to set up and it trimmed out in the water perfectly, needing no more than about 20 minutes of futzing from package to water in order to set up and tune for my particular needs. It was incredibly fun to dive in the water and is very liberating compared to a larger SM rig like the Nomad or SMS 100.
It worked great with AL 72s and AL 80s and there is adequate lift for a couple of AL stages in addition to the two primary tanks. It also worked fine with a single steel LP 95, although it needs a few pounds of trim weight to keep from rolling you tank side down in a hover. With 2 LP 95's and a 5mm wet suit, it would need about 4-5 pounds more lift to achieve neutral buoyancy, but it would be easily do-able with a drysuit. I suspect there will be adequate lift to support a pair of X7-100s even in a 3mm wet suit, so it may well replace my Nomad for anything other than full on LP 95 dives, since it is incredibly fun to dive with smaller tanks.
It has bags of excess strap and should fit anyone. More importantly, it also has places for the excess strap to be neatly stowed, so there's not much need to cut the straps for a smaller person. In my case, the only trimming I did was about 15" off the left hand side of the waist belt.
The SMS 50 is a very razor like in terms of the harness but substitutes fabric and tri-glides for the upper plate. It has a back pad but it would be readily removable. I have left mine in place as it adds minimal bulk, but the only real purpose I see for it would be to add some padding between you and any hard weights you'd add to the pair of weight pockets under the wing. In that regard the under wing pockets look like they'd hold 2-3 pounds each, while the pocket in the nose of the wing would hold 3-4 pounds. I can seem some use for the wing pockets in the event you want to add trim weight for single tank monkey diving, or in the event you want to add 10 pounds or so for cold water drysuit diving, but I don't see any need for them for trim purposes.
The tail plate is well proportioned and works well with tanks and reels, with the D-rings (actually more C-shaped) being very easy to find and clip into with either tanks or reels. The bottom edge of the wing has two 1" D-rings that work great for butt mounting a canister light.
It has two 2" low profile d-rings on the bottom corners of the wing and they seem to be there just to add additional purpose to the tri-glides securing the wing to the waist strap to control the wing. I found them to be really badly placed for any useful purpose during the dive and added a pair of 2" D-rings to the waist strap in the normal location to accommodate slinging a deco bottle, and to provide lower clip off points for the AL 72s/AL80 when they get light during the dive. With that change, the SMS 50 was great in the water.
It comes complete with a normal pair of bungees, but I found the bolt snap quality on the bungees to be poor. They are stainless steel but both were rough in function, and one was very sticky and sharp enough to cut the bejeezus out of my thumb when it finally released.
In any event I am not a regular bungee fan and rigged it with a pair of 5/16" loop bungees anyway. It's well suited to that system and the existing strap works well with just a knot on each end of the bungee after passing it through the single grommet on each side of the harness. It would also accommodate a single continuous loop bungee with a fisherman's knot in the bungee between the two grommets, so it's a very flexible design.
With the loop bungees and with the lower bolt snaps attached to the D-rings on the tail plate it carried the tanks in great alignment and in the same plane as the body. The tails do come up as the pressure drops below about 1500 psi, but clipping them on the added waist D-rings worked great. With the loop bungees I used, it does require pulling the tail clip forward against some bungee pressure to clip into the waist D-rings, but it then holds the tank in snugly and again keeps it level and in the same plane as your body.
I also experimented with weighting the tanks using 2-3 pound weights on the cam bands on the lower third of the tank, but there is no real need or advantage unless you are adding weight to accommodate cold water undies in a dry suit and/or want to "normalize" the floatier AL tanks to mimic steel tanks you might normally use.
Hollis does include cam bands (with very well executed stainless steel buckles), bolt snaps and length of nylon cord to rig a pair of SM tanks. They also provide instructions to tie the upper bolt snap to the neck and attach the lower bolt snap to the cam band. This is basically what Edd Sorenson has been recommending for rigging with his Nomads and SMS 100s, so Hollis is apparently in the same school of thought. It's a great system and gives you a solid tank to shoulder D-ring (or pivot ring) connection, without the downsides (poor tank position in the water) of a ring bungee system like Dive Rite uses on the Nomad.
MSRP was $589 but I got a killer deal on mine from a local dive shop so the cost was about what a just wing for a UTD or razor harness and a pair of cam bands and 4 bolt snaps would have cost me, so the harness was basically free. Even at the MSRP it's not a bad deal.
In the water it felt exceptionally good with excellent stability and low drag. We took it through several SM tunnels and it's very clean and very comfortable even in tight quarters. I noticed the reduced drag when swimming and could quantify it some what when scootering as I had to reduce the pitch a couple notches to keep from running down my formerly same speed team mate. Some of it was smaller tanks, but much of it was the much cleaner harness and wing.
The embroidered SMS 50 on the top of the wing is going to wear pretty quickly as it is at the high point on the wing when it's inflated. Putting it 2-3" inches lower would improve longevity, but probably at the cost of some eye appeal on the wing - when it's new at least. The wing does have 2 layers of Cordura nylon over the top, so it should be pretty durable in terms of bladder protection.
The inflator and dump valve are mounted on the underside of the wing and are well protected and quite streamlined. The inflator is mounted low in the wing, so it comes up to the diver. With both dump options low in the wing, the SMS 50 rewards horizontal ascents, but I found the dump/oral inflate button on the inflator to be reasonably effective in vertical ascents if the wing is reasonably full. But since you are diving what is a balanced rig, the wing is basically just accommodating gas weight plus a little wet suit compression so the requirements for gas venting on an ascent are pretty minimal.
I did note that if you allow the tail to rise on an AL 80, the right tank will come up enough to require reaching over the top of the tank to find the pull dump for the dump valve. It's located on the trailing edge of the wing and is easy to locate, but the string is about 1.5" too long as found in the package. I am not a big fan of overly long pull dump cords as they have a bad habit of wrapping around reels, bolt snaps, etc and then auto dumping for you at inopportune times. Consequently, I shortened it to where it only has a quarter inch of excess length when the wing is fully inflated. In their defense I suspect the length is probably a CE requirement.
Other than the poor quality bolt snaps on the bungees, I found the quality and materials used to be excellent and it left me with the impression of being well made.
Given the ready adaptability to loop bungees, Hollis may want to consider throwing in 4-5 ft of 5/16" bungee and some alternate instructions for rigging it that way. And, it would make sense to add a pair of tri-glides and relocate the 2" D-rings to the waist strap - or just add 2 more if they feel there is a practical use for the pair on the ends of the wing itself.
I have been diving a Nomad and while it does everything ok and will carry a lot of weight (a pair of steel 95s, two stages and a deco bottle if I ease up on the bungees constricting the upper portion of the wing) it is a little bulky for some of the SM diving we are migrating to.
I like the razor concept, but I also wanted a small wing and quite frankly I like a small tail plate. I was leaning toward a razor clone and then planned to add a DR tech tail plate.
However, on this just completed most recent trip to cave country I bought an SMS 50 as it was basically what I wanted - a minimalist razor style harness with a fairly streamlined 25 pound bladder and a small tail plate.
I used it on dive three of our three dive days (which were shorter dives well suited to twin AL 72s). I found it to be very easy to set up and it trimmed out in the water perfectly, needing no more than about 20 minutes of futzing from package to water in order to set up and tune for my particular needs. It was incredibly fun to dive in the water and is very liberating compared to a larger SM rig like the Nomad or SMS 100.
It worked great with AL 72s and AL 80s and there is adequate lift for a couple of AL stages in addition to the two primary tanks. It also worked fine with a single steel LP 95, although it needs a few pounds of trim weight to keep from rolling you tank side down in a hover. With 2 LP 95's and a 5mm wet suit, it would need about 4-5 pounds more lift to achieve neutral buoyancy, but it would be easily do-able with a drysuit. I suspect there will be adequate lift to support a pair of X7-100s even in a 3mm wet suit, so it may well replace my Nomad for anything other than full on LP 95 dives, since it is incredibly fun to dive with smaller tanks.
It has bags of excess strap and should fit anyone. More importantly, it also has places for the excess strap to be neatly stowed, so there's not much need to cut the straps for a smaller person. In my case, the only trimming I did was about 15" off the left hand side of the waist belt.
The SMS 50 is a very razor like in terms of the harness but substitutes fabric and tri-glides for the upper plate. It has a back pad but it would be readily removable. I have left mine in place as it adds minimal bulk, but the only real purpose I see for it would be to add some padding between you and any hard weights you'd add to the pair of weight pockets under the wing. In that regard the under wing pockets look like they'd hold 2-3 pounds each, while the pocket in the nose of the wing would hold 3-4 pounds. I can seem some use for the wing pockets in the event you want to add trim weight for single tank monkey diving, or in the event you want to add 10 pounds or so for cold water drysuit diving, but I don't see any need for them for trim purposes.
The tail plate is well proportioned and works well with tanks and reels, with the D-rings (actually more C-shaped) being very easy to find and clip into with either tanks or reels. The bottom edge of the wing has two 1" D-rings that work great for butt mounting a canister light.
It has two 2" low profile d-rings on the bottom corners of the wing and they seem to be there just to add additional purpose to the tri-glides securing the wing to the waist strap to control the wing. I found them to be really badly placed for any useful purpose during the dive and added a pair of 2" D-rings to the waist strap in the normal location to accommodate slinging a deco bottle, and to provide lower clip off points for the AL 72s/AL80 when they get light during the dive. With that change, the SMS 50 was great in the water.
It comes complete with a normal pair of bungees, but I found the bolt snap quality on the bungees to be poor. They are stainless steel but both were rough in function, and one was very sticky and sharp enough to cut the bejeezus out of my thumb when it finally released.
In any event I am not a regular bungee fan and rigged it with a pair of 5/16" loop bungees anyway. It's well suited to that system and the existing strap works well with just a knot on each end of the bungee after passing it through the single grommet on each side of the harness. It would also accommodate a single continuous loop bungee with a fisherman's knot in the bungee between the two grommets, so it's a very flexible design.
With the loop bungees and with the lower bolt snaps attached to the D-rings on the tail plate it carried the tanks in great alignment and in the same plane as the body. The tails do come up as the pressure drops below about 1500 psi, but clipping them on the added waist D-rings worked great. With the loop bungees I used, it does require pulling the tail clip forward against some bungee pressure to clip into the waist D-rings, but it then holds the tank in snugly and again keeps it level and in the same plane as your body.
I also experimented with weighting the tanks using 2-3 pound weights on the cam bands on the lower third of the tank, but there is no real need or advantage unless you are adding weight to accommodate cold water undies in a dry suit and/or want to "normalize" the floatier AL tanks to mimic steel tanks you might normally use.
Hollis does include cam bands (with very well executed stainless steel buckles), bolt snaps and length of nylon cord to rig a pair of SM tanks. They also provide instructions to tie the upper bolt snap to the neck and attach the lower bolt snap to the cam band. This is basically what Edd Sorenson has been recommending for rigging with his Nomads and SMS 100s, so Hollis is apparently in the same school of thought. It's a great system and gives you a solid tank to shoulder D-ring (or pivot ring) connection, without the downsides (poor tank position in the water) of a ring bungee system like Dive Rite uses on the Nomad.
MSRP was $589 but I got a killer deal on mine from a local dive shop so the cost was about what a just wing for a UTD or razor harness and a pair of cam bands and 4 bolt snaps would have cost me, so the harness was basically free. Even at the MSRP it's not a bad deal.
In the water it felt exceptionally good with excellent stability and low drag. We took it through several SM tunnels and it's very clean and very comfortable even in tight quarters. I noticed the reduced drag when swimming and could quantify it some what when scootering as I had to reduce the pitch a couple notches to keep from running down my formerly same speed team mate. Some of it was smaller tanks, but much of it was the much cleaner harness and wing.
The embroidered SMS 50 on the top of the wing is going to wear pretty quickly as it is at the high point on the wing when it's inflated. Putting it 2-3" inches lower would improve longevity, but probably at the cost of some eye appeal on the wing - when it's new at least. The wing does have 2 layers of Cordura nylon over the top, so it should be pretty durable in terms of bladder protection.
The inflator and dump valve are mounted on the underside of the wing and are well protected and quite streamlined. The inflator is mounted low in the wing, so it comes up to the diver. With both dump options low in the wing, the SMS 50 rewards horizontal ascents, but I found the dump/oral inflate button on the inflator to be reasonably effective in vertical ascents if the wing is reasonably full. But since you are diving what is a balanced rig, the wing is basically just accommodating gas weight plus a little wet suit compression so the requirements for gas venting on an ascent are pretty minimal.
I did note that if you allow the tail to rise on an AL 80, the right tank will come up enough to require reaching over the top of the tank to find the pull dump for the dump valve. It's located on the trailing edge of the wing and is easy to locate, but the string is about 1.5" too long as found in the package. I am not a big fan of overly long pull dump cords as they have a bad habit of wrapping around reels, bolt snaps, etc and then auto dumping for you at inopportune times. Consequently, I shortened it to where it only has a quarter inch of excess length when the wing is fully inflated. In their defense I suspect the length is probably a CE requirement.
Other than the poor quality bolt snaps on the bungees, I found the quality and materials used to be excellent and it left me with the impression of being well made.
Given the ready adaptability to loop bungees, Hollis may want to consider throwing in 4-5 ft of 5/16" bungee and some alternate instructions for rigging it that way. And, it would make sense to add a pair of tri-glides and relocate the 2" D-rings to the waist strap - or just add 2 more if they feel there is a practical use for the pair on the ends of the wing itself.
