I was apprehensive about boat diving with sidemount.

Before sidemount it seemed like the right thing to me, but my big worry was boat diving.

Now that I've been doing it I have been pleasantly surprised.

Here are some things I was worried about and the realities for those of you that are on the fence. I should note that my sidemount training was from a boat so my instructor helped to show me the better way to do things.

1. Getting geared up will take too long.
It hasn't taken me any longer than others to gear up and many times I am ready to go before others. Why is this? I can put on my sidemount harness and fully kit up before the pool is open. Since I don't have a heavy tank on my back I can wear my harness earlier and go help my buddy out. Then when it's time to go I just clip in my 2 tanks and hop in.

2. Double tanks on a boat will be difficult with the boat rocking.
This hasn't been a problem for 2 reasons. The first is, I don't have to put on my tanks until the last possible moment before jumping in.
The other reason is that the tanks are low on my body helping to lower my center of gravity.

3. Getting out of the water will be a problem.
Sidemount is more and more common and DMs are more familiar with the practice of handing up a tank before exiting. Also if the boat has a good swim platform and nice ladder then it is no problem to carry both tanks out of the water when exiting. Just remember to turn sideways when walking through narrow walkways.

4. There is a lot of fiddling with gear on the boat.
I don't know where this came from. Basically when I get on the boat I put my left tank in the rack to the left, my right tank on the right and connect my regs and stow my long hose. When I'm ready to dive, bungee reg over my head, inflator connected, clip on left tank. Long hose over my head and clipped off then clip on right tank. I chose to do fins last so I can get closer to the bench when clipping on tanks. Then last safety check and I'm good to go. When I get back on the boat I reverse the procedure and relax. I don't have to move regs and bc during the surface interval. On short surface intervals on shallow dives I might even leave my harness on.

Because I will do a lot of boat diving in sidemount I chose to use the Dive Rite Ring Bungie system for one simple reason. I don't have to worry about looping a bungie around the tanks after getting in the water and I don't have to unhook a bungie. This way if there is a call for a negative entry, or a current, I can hop in and descend and not have to do anything else with my tanks. I know the ring bungie system isn't ideal for all uses but I like it for boats.

On my descent down the line I do a bubble check of each tank. It's great being able to see all my connections and be confident that nothing weird is going on behind my head.

Anyway just thought I should post this in case folks in the future are worried like I was and are searching the forums for info.

If i'm only diving with 2 cylinders, i just chuck them on, sort the hoses and jump in. If i'm using 4 I do the same but stick the stages behind my back gas and throw myself in, reconfigure the cylinders in the water where it's less faff. Just takes a bit of practise

The Ring Bungie system is more than you might think of what makes your boat diving easy. Switvhing to that system (and cheating by switching to a death clip on the neck oring) made diving doubles on a boat (using sidemount) just silly easy.

Yeah the ring system is really nice.

Everyone was giving me silly looks today as I was standing around fully geared up just waiting to clip in my tanks while they were all wiggling into their bcs and waddling around on the deck.

Your account, well, is atypical. I dive only sidemount (open water or overhead). Few things work as you describe. I dive in cold waters with drysuit, heavy gloves, steels, deco bottle. I'm a tad faster than most doubles folks now but it took quite a bit of practice. Steel are very heavy. They don't just clip on by themselves. I don't know if you're a body builder type who can just sling them around. I'm pretty strong but it's far from easy. And I can go on. But anyone diving sidemount knows that speed of donning/doffing ain't one of its strong suits. I continue to see dirty looks thrown at newbie sidemounters cause they take so long. I have more sympathy but I can understand the sentiment. The resentment some doubles tec divers confide in me (apparently I'm faster than what they're used to seeing) indicates that sidemounters are getting a bad rep for being slow on boats. And I tend to agree. But you're right on one thing: DM's know the drill cause they've seen it enough times.

bada3003:

I continue to see dirty looks thrown at newbie sidemounters cause they take so long.

Click to expand...

Newbie divers in any config tend to take a while. I've seen newbie backmount-doubles/long-hose divers do a fair bit of faffing when still developing their equipment familiarity and kitting-up routines. Any diver, backmount or sidemount, should be pretty slick and fast once they've built up their processes.

bada3003:

Your account, well, is atypical. I dive only sidemount (open water or overhead). Few things work as you describe. I dive in cold waters with drysuit, heavy gloves, steels, deco bottle. I'm a tad faster than most doubles folks now but it took quite a bit of practice. Steel are very heavy. They don't just clip on by themselves..

Click to expand...

Which bungie attachment system do you use?

My instructor taught me to clip in the tank neck then pivot your hip to the bench to clip in the rear of the tank. There is no need to lift the tank off the bench and wrestle it into position.

This I think was an advantage of taking the class from a sidemount boat diver.

00wabbit

Do you switch the two tank to two fresh tanks after your first dive or do you use the same set? If you carry 4 tank onto the boat, are the boat people OK with this many tanks?

I used the same 2 tanks for both dives. I made sure to exit the water with 2000psi in both tanks for hp tanks and about 1600 for lp tanks. Today I am taking 3 tanks. I made sure to ask the boat first if it was ok. It is today but if everyone did it, it wouldn't work out.

Plan today is to exit with 2000 in one tank and 500 in the other then switch the empty tank. This way I'll have 150cuft for both dives. I wouldn't normally do this bit my buddy has 130s so he had more are than me with 100s. This will make us more even. I'll be sure to watch my Ndls with this much air.