GUE and Sidemount position ?

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I totally understand.
So even if Sidemount is not official supported by GUE there are no problems to goahead and enroll a Sidemount course.
I believe I will have to found those instructors myself can I get some names by any chance please ?
Thanks.

Sidemount has been discussed more than once within GUE, and I think that naturally sometime soon they'll offer a training scheme for it! Even George Ervine, one of the DIR philosophy founders did acknowledge that they used to dive sidemount during the early days of the WKPP, although they only did for decompression as it was more comfortable and it provided more mobility for moving out of the water into troughs or habitats. Lately, Steve Bogaerts proposed the
"Bogaerthian" approach, during a GUE conference, to standardise the equipments choice, configurations, skills, and procedures. So, I guess we are getting there sometime soon!

As for instructors; Steve Bogaerts and Steve Martin are among the top and most famous SM instructors out there. I was trained by Erik Brown who is also very good. Other good choices would be Tom Steiner, Sameh Sokkar or Moe Shetta, but it mainly depends on your location! My advice on this matter would be to look for someone who is always diving sidemount, and have that "Sidemount Passion" to guide you through the different techniques and configurations out there.

Good luck with your training, and you won't regret it as it is a very nice and helpful skill to poses :)
 
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Sorry for the late answer.
Never heard about "Bogaerthian" approach do you have by any chances any ressources about it ?
Googled and found this :
The Bogaerthian Configuration | Deep-Sea Sherpa -- posted Novembre 2009
and several forum threads about it.

Some of those "recommandations/suggestions" are already withing the DIR backmount approch, right ?

Have you heard about those instructors - there are also popular for what I can see on forums, facebook, youtube..
http://www.santiagodivingmexico.com/
http://www.sidemountsilesia.pl/
Andy Davis
Bruce Konefe
 
A few thoughts on the interoperability of the Z-system in a DIR mixed team setting

 
the Z-system is cramming a square peg into a round hole. Best off to treat them as different systems and not make unnecessary compromises

Which compromises do you mean, please?
 
You guys need to quit being haters, the Z system is great. You get all of the cons of diving sidemount combined with all of the cons in diving a manifold all in the same package. What an amazing thing!
 
Oh and with Z-System 2.0 you get to add the failure points of over pressure relief valves too!

It's genius I tell you!
 
Which compromises do you mean, please?

the z system is great in theory. The theory being that whatever gas you plug into it will provide you with primary, secondary, and inflator access from one bottle. Super slick for the ability to just plug in whatever bottle/s that you want to breathe from and off you go.

Where it breaks down is that it is positioned on your back, you have no way of isolating one side from the other in the event of a second stage or manifold block issue, you can't see the manifold block in order to figure out what's wrong, you have to use quite expensive quick connects on there, and there is water ingress every time you make a wet connect which is lovely when diving in salt water

All of that to avoid a problem of 50% of the time when on backgas. In a cave environment the risk can be mitigated with proper gas planning.

Start the dive on long hose, breathe it down a sixth. You want to start on the long hose since the highest risk of failure is going to be in the beginning of the dive.
When at a sixth, switch to the short hose and breathe that down to a third.
Switch back to the long hose and you are on the long hose for the last push of the penetration. When you hit thirds, you turn the dive.
From this point, depending on the cave, the flow, etc. you can actually just stay on the long hose for the rest of your dive. You won't have balanced tanks at the end, but you are only on the short hose for 25% of that dive at that point if you're that concerned. Carry a transfill whip and you can balance them out before filling.

So, what does the manifold do?
Increases o-ring count and complexity which DIR advocates argue against for swivels/elbows on second stages. Let's assume using the UTD regulators, so you have 7 ports in total with 2 hoses. 14 total o-rings there. Can't get away from that since that is what you'd have in a normal sidemount system, but they do add an OPV to each first stage since there is no downstream valve to release pressure in the event of IP creep.
You then at 8 ports from the manifold. They balk at 2-3 for a ball swivel, but then put 8 on a manifold?
Add the isolation knob which has a couple as well.
You have a minimum of 4 extra hoses for the quick connect lines.

Depending on how you set it up, you also have to carry a spare second stage that has the quick connect on it, or use a quick connect on one of the second stages on the manifold so you can breathe direct from the bottles in the event of a manifold failure.

They choose to use QC6 connections which are only available in NPT fittings, so you have that extra potential leak point in the adapters to go from reg hose to NPT


So, add in $350 for the manifold, $80 in extra hoses, $400 in QC6's *for 2 bottles, add $100/bottle for the male side only*. You can lower the quick connect price considerably by going to the Omni-Swivels where the connectors with check valves are $54 each, so you'd be at $220 for the standard two bottles and manifold, and $54/bottle after that. Total cost is $650 with Omni's or $830 with QC6's, not including another either one side QC plus second stage or another two side QC for the primary regulator for bailout.


So, minimum of $700 OVER the cost of a standard sidemount system, and almost $1k over the cost of a standard sidemount system to go the proper UTD route, with all of the added failure points and complexity, and all it does is force the always primary donate peg into the truly independent regulator system hole.
 
You forgot that while diving a Z system you have to alternate shutting down and opening bottles because otherwise you will be only breathing from the one with the higher IP until it is empty (increasing task loading). And if you lose a first stage, you lose access to the gas in that cylinder (the biggest con in sidemount). And if you rupture a hose, you've probably fubar'ed yourself (the biggest con in a manifold).

And to keep yourself from experiencing an exploding hose, you need to add over pressure relief valves on your first stages, which of course introduce a failure point.

BTW -- The water ingress on the QC6 thing is minimal, I use them on my CCR with no issues, did so in the ocean even.
 
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