Nomad ?'s

[paddler3d]

A couple of weekends ago, I saw a gentleman at one of the local watering holes diving side mounts. He was using the Nomad system.

It looked very comfortable, and he looked very relaxed. What I thought were the worlds largest pony bottles sitting in the waters edge, turned out to be his main bottles.

I started to poke around and see what this was all about. I watched all the videos on the DR website about side mounting, very interesting.

My question is, do you have to use the Transpac to dive the Nomad, or can I simply use my hog harness (somehow rigging up something for a sternum strap) with the Nomad?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Sea Spartan]

I too have looked at sidemounting due to my back and knee pains and have found out a few things

to answer your question, check out this ArmadilloCCR sidemount kit

also, there is a type of sidemount harness that has no bladder what so ever. it is a simple webing harness Go Side Mount - Steve Bogaerts
im guessing you could simply use that under your current bc

i hope this helps. i am not a sidemount diver, only one who has researched a lot about it, so someone with sidemount experince could probably help you out more ( shouldnt be hard to find. you can find any kind of diver on SB :balloons

good luck and happy diving

 

[paddler3d]

I hadn't seen the Steve Bogaerts site. I've seen him mentioned in a lot of articles. The video of him doing that wreck dive was the first side mount video I found.

There are also a series of good videos are on the Dive Rite website where (Tech Talk/Solution Finder) where Lamar Hires talks about their Nomad system. It is about an hour to watch all his videos.

I really like the simplicity of the Razor system.

I dive a BP/W set up and the wing would taco under the Razor, I speculate.

My dive buddy and I are looking hard at this.

 

[Sea Spartan]

here i think i found something

Sidemount, Nomad and CCR - Rebreather World

it seems the diver has bolted his wing between his back and the plate and strung bunguess over the wing to prevent wing taco. he has a small attachment thing on his crotch strap. im guessing its a compact butplate

hope this helps

 

[micklock]

I took the harness out of my al plate and sandwitched my trec wing between my al and ss plates, hooked some bungie straps with quick links in the top holes of the al plate and wrapped them around the wing and the tank valve and clipped them off to my shoulder d-rings. Then for the bottom I just clipped off to my back waist d-rings. The trek wing has tabs to keep the wing from tacoing at the bottom and I have 4 d-rings on my waist strap, two in front and two about 1 1/2 inch from the plate that I connected to the wing tabs with a quick link. It worked fine but I didn't have the right hose lenghts for good hose routing .

 

[ianr33]

I took the harness out of my al plate and sandwitched my trec wing between my al and ss plates, hooked some bungie straps with quick links in the top holes of the al plate and wrapped them around the wing and the tank valve and clipped them off to my shoulder d-rings. Then for the bottom I just clipped off to my back waist d-rings. The trek wing has tabs to keep the wing from tacoing at the bottom and I have 4 d-rings on my waist strap, two in front and two about 1 1/2 inch from the plate that I connected to the wing tabs with a quick link. It worked fine but I didn't have the right hose lenghts for good hose routing .

A setup like that will probably work fine in open water,but most sidemounters would avoid a rigid backplate anywhere that gets tight.Too much chance of getting keyholed.

 

[paddler3d]

I want to ditch the whole BP thing. It seems like a huge benefit of sidemounting is the flexibility you gain by not having that rigid piece on your back.

What I want, is I want to use the Razor Harness with the Nomad wing and butt plate.

Frankly I don't care for the Transpac or the Transplate. There is just way too much crap on them. That is my personal feeling and I'm not imposing my views on those of you who use the Transpac or Transplate. Personally I started off in the Transplate and switched to a Hog harness and love it.

I'm not going to give up on this one

 

[Cave Bum]

I'm a little surprised Kathleen, from Dive Rite has weighed in on this one... maybe she's off this week.

Anyway, for most of us, using a stiff backplate would negate some of the reason for sidemounting in the first place. If you're going to use it in tight places you really don't want anything that can get wedged in and keep you from backing out. If a plate catches backing out of somewhere, it can 'lever up' and cause problems.

One difference also between the Nomad and other systems is lift and fit. The Nomad comes in several sizes and can be purchased to fit pretty much anyone. Some of the other systems are a one-size-fits-all (that doesn't).

Just a couple of thoughts for you. I have a Nomad and dive it. It's the only side mount rig I've used, the only one I've needed and has let me go everywhere I wanted to when sidemounting.

 

[Dive Rite]

A couple of weekends ago, I saw a gentleman at one of the local watering holes diving side mounts. He was using the Nomad system.

It looked very comfortable, and he looked very relaxed. What I thought were the worlds largest pony bottles sitting in the waters edge, turned out to be his main bottles.

I started to poke around and see what this was all about. I watched all the videos on the DR website about side mounting, very interesting.

My question is, do you have to use the Transpac to dive the Nomad, or can I simply use my hog harness (somehow rigging up something for a sternum strap) with the Nomad?

Cheers,

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting. The Razor and hog harness are great, yet uniquely designed for their specific purpose. The Nomad wing is sandwiched under the TransPac harness (in the original design referred to on our website and videos as the Nomad Expedition Harness). The TransPac is partly responsible for keeping the wing low across the back, which is necessary if you are sidemounting in small spaces.

In order to eliminate some of the "danglies" that you see on the TransPac, I modified mine once I got it adjusted by shortening the chest strap so there is no excess webbing and using bungee (actually I use a thick hair ponytail) on the shoulder webbing so the excess shoulder adjustment is lies flat and doesn't dangle.

If you simply want to sidemount stage bottles then add the Nomad buttplate and buttplate to your existing backmount setup (basic harness , metal BP and Classic wing for example) and skip the investment in the additional gear.

I would definitely stay away from creating your own rig using a metal backplate - the Nomad, Armadillo, etc. aren't designed to be worn with a hard plate...you need the flexibility of a soft pack to really sidemount.

Hope this is helpful,
Kathleen

 

[Sea Spartan]

here if u like simplicity and have some spare time to kill you might like this

sump4.com/sidemount

it seems to have plenty of room for modifications