Good point, thanks.Personally I love sidemount now, and now it is pretty much the only way I dive OC. In caves, it lets me get to the tight, twisty, gnarly crap that I love, as well as opens up new area I couldn't get to without SM. I have no clutter on my chest, and I gear up as fast as my BM buddies. Furthermore as I get advanced in age, its just nice to bring both tanks separately to the water & gear up.
If you are just doing goldline, then BM is fine but if you are the type of person that wants to check out every nook & cranny then SM is the way to go.
I have no worries about lines in sidemount passages that are on the ceiling in no vis situations getting caught up in my gear is another thing i don't have to worry about.
What's The Big Deal With Sidemount?
- Thread starter OMANDIVER
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Have I missed something? apart from very narrow restrictions, which don't interest me I cant see them?
First of all it is cheaper.
Second it is less hard to master.
Third it is just a lot more fun.
No need to sell anything, most things will convert well enough for starters.
But in the long run you will save a lot of money, dive saver, more relaxed and more environmentally friendly.
Skills translate easily: an experienced and skilled backmount diver will have a lot less benefit than someone new to diving, but he will soon be able to use all those skills more efficiently than he probably ever imagined.
There simply is no alternative, if you want to get the most out of every dive you make.
As long as you are not exceptionally skilled as a backmount diver you will soon surpass you own wildest imaginations.
Second it is less hard to master.
Third it is just a lot more fun.
No need to sell anything, most things will convert well enough for starters.
But in the long run you will save a lot of money, dive saver, more relaxed and more environmentally friendly.
Skills translate easily: an experienced and skilled backmount diver will have a lot less benefit than someone new to diving, but he will soon be able to use all those skills more efficiently than he probably ever imagined.
There simply is no alternative, if you want to get the most out of every dive you make.
As long as you are not exceptionally skilled as a backmount diver you will soon surpass you own wildest imaginations.
Sure, it looks fun, but its the benefits for technical and cave diving set against considerable cost, rather than open water use, that interests me.
Dhboner
Contributor
All your failure points are within your sight at all times...if you have tight shoulders and have trouble with shutdowns, sidemount eliminates the problem...in the event of a reg issue you can still access all your gas by feathering the tank valve (conveniently located under your arm)...during an air share, if necessary you can hand off a tank.
No, I am neither.
What is technical diving nowadays anyway?
I personally dive that equipment no deeper than 50m, rarely exceed 2h of dive time.
But I practiced with the equipment I own, so I know for certain that is way below the technical limit of the equipment.
Movements like that would just be silly in a cave, but those are for personally video feedback, so everything has to go fast.
The advantage in sidemount is the ability to freely position yourself in the water.
In nature cave animals often do not care much for up or down, sidemount enhances the ability to copy that for a human.
In open water environments that is less of an advantage, but it offers the ability to do things like what I do in the video: have fun testing some heavy doubles.
It is also a 'range extender' for most open water rec divers and offers several smaller advantages to tec divers.
With a good sidemount equipment you can do all of those dives:
normal evening dive, take one tank for a fast splash.
Weekend dive, take doubles or even add an extra stage.
100m wreck dive? Use every stage the boat has and drop all but two at the bottom for the penetration.
Cave dive? also no problem from an equipment standpoint, training may be a different matter.
Go ice diving in northern Europe or Canada on one weekend, then fly to the Bahamas or Mexico and use the same equipment for an extended cave exploration.
Afterwards you can visit family and dive with friends or the local club and again do not have to change anything.
I simply cannot imagine why anyone could miss all of the obvious advantages at once.
Last edited:
DevonDiver
N/A
I listed a bunch of the pros (and cons) on my blog:
Sidemount Diving | Course Notes | Advanced Scuba
For me personally, I got into sidemount purely to access areas inside shipwrecks that were either unattainable, or more hazardous, in backmount. Since that time, I grew to appreciate a few distinct advantages to sidemount; which is why I pretty much only dive sidemount nowadays. The decisive benefits for me personally are:
1. Travel: Sidemount rigs can be really lightweight and very low bulk. They cut space and weight when you are travelling. That's a great benefit for me; as I travel around the Philippines/SE Asia - in remote locations and using local transport. My most minimalistic rig rolls up into less than the size of a football (US) and weighs less than 1kg. I can tech dive 2x AL80 and an AL40 on that rig...
2. Availability: I can walk into any dive center, anywhere on the planet, grab two of whatever cylinders they have... and go for a tech or advanced recreational dive. I am no longer restricted to finding dive centers that rent manifolded doubles, or having to carry my own cylinders and hardware. If some beach-shack scuba joint can give me a couple of AL80s, I can dive doubles.
3. Enjoyable Experience: With many hours of experience getting my rigs finely-tuned and properly set-up....and many further hours getting attuned to the system in the water - I find that sidemount is a beautiful sensation to dive with. Trim and buoyancy becomes intuitive. The rig...and tanks... feel like a part of you... a true extension of your body. The bulk and drag of multiple cylinders seems to evaporate. I feel free, liberated, and there is a grace and dynamism to sidemount diving that I never experienced with backmount (which now feels like diving with a refrigerator strapped on my back...)
And yes... I do also love that everything is now in view, more fixable, more flexible....and there's true redundancy to the system. It also helps my spine immeasurably - I need to reduce the loading on my already damaged back... and I no longer get a cronic back ache or fatigue post-dive (like i did with backmount doubles)
Sidemount Diving | Course Notes | Advanced Scuba
For me personally, I got into sidemount purely to access areas inside shipwrecks that were either unattainable, or more hazardous, in backmount. Since that time, I grew to appreciate a few distinct advantages to sidemount; which is why I pretty much only dive sidemount nowadays. The decisive benefits for me personally are:
1. Travel: Sidemount rigs can be really lightweight and very low bulk. They cut space and weight when you are travelling. That's a great benefit for me; as I travel around the Philippines/SE Asia - in remote locations and using local transport. My most minimalistic rig rolls up into less than the size of a football (US) and weighs less than 1kg. I can tech dive 2x AL80 and an AL40 on that rig...
2. Availability: I can walk into any dive center, anywhere on the planet, grab two of whatever cylinders they have... and go for a tech or advanced recreational dive. I am no longer restricted to finding dive centers that rent manifolded doubles, or having to carry my own cylinders and hardware. If some beach-shack scuba joint can give me a couple of AL80s, I can dive doubles.
3. Enjoyable Experience: With many hours of experience getting my rigs finely-tuned and properly set-up....and many further hours getting attuned to the system in the water - I find that sidemount is a beautiful sensation to dive with. Trim and buoyancy becomes intuitive. The rig...and tanks... feel like a part of you... a true extension of your body. The bulk and drag of multiple cylinders seems to evaporate. I feel free, liberated, and there is a grace and dynamism to sidemount diving that I never experienced with backmount (which now feels like diving with a refrigerator strapped on my back...)
And yes... I do also love that everything is now in view, more fixable, more flexible....and there's true redundancy to the system. It also helps my spine immeasurably - I need to reduce the loading on my already damaged back... and I no longer get a cronic back ache or fatigue post-dive (like i did with backmount doubles)
I am a very newbie sm diver..just 3 hours of bt... Comparing my hp100 double.... Its the spinal flexibility that is so nice. Gearing up is no big deal either as a bm technical diver dealing with stages or sm with stages ime. Just do it. Its the underwater experience on your body and bouyancy control that make me smile. If your buoyancy is nailed in bm with stages its sublime in sm. And surface swims. Its silly easy in sm compared to bm. Im diving bm this weekend because its the tool for the job, sm is a fun option for variety. You can never have too much gear.
Thanks all that's very useful and interesting to get variety of inputs from different perspectives. My take out from it is that there are some useful but not significantly material benefits..travel, cave/wreck restrictions, physical load, easier shutdowns. There are some disadvantages too of course, but most of all it seems to be more fun to dive, is that about right?
victorzamora
Contributor
We all know it NEVER ends
You made a few mistakes in that list. Take it from someone who dives sidemoutn exclusively: I don't use stage kits on anything (except my O2 bottle, but it's rigged like most BM divers have theirs rigged). You also don't need a new can light or first stages. I'm not trying to sell you on sidemount, I'm simply pointing out that what you've been told is not correct. If you have a BM-doubles set up, you'd need:
- SM BCD ($350-$850 in the US)
- Hoses (Maybe $100 for all of them)
- Plugs for your manifold ($30)
- Assorted bolts*line ($20, but I had all of this in my box already)
My point? Besides the SM harness and hoses you really don't need much gear beyond what you already own.
The big benefits I see is that you can see all of the failure points quickly and you get fully independent/redundant gas supplies. Other benefits are the flexibility, stability, and comfort. However, the majority of my diving (>90%) is in a cave where I think sidemount is most beneficial. Regardless, sidemount is just one specifc tool. If you don't need it, you don't have to own it....but don't claim that you need new first stages or canister lights to dive SM.
Similar threads
