Options to not wrap hoses around my neck?

[tursiops]

I agree that you can set up a sidemount rig without hoses around the neck. Hose routing around the neck is a function of Hogarthian backmounting that has carried over to sidemounting. I don't like swivels (especially those pictured in post #5) due to their tendency to fail,but prefer a 90 degree adapter on my left tank.

This!
No swivels, only elbows. I've tried 70 (also called 110), and 90; much prefer the 90.
I like it so much I've switched my single-tank recreational over to the alternate being on a necklace, and the primary coming under my right arm with a 90 deg elbow on a longer hose.

 

[Diver-Drex]

This!
No swivels, only elbows. I've tried 70 (also called 110), and 90; much prefer the 90.
I like it so much I've switched my single-tank recreational over to the alternate being on a necklace, and the primary coming under my right arm with a 90 deg elbow on a longer hose.

So you have a short hose from your left 1st to the left 2nd with a 90deg on a necklace?
And a 5' hose from your right 1st looped down and up the cylinder to your right 2nd with a 90deg clipped off?

That is the direction I am leaning and also thought the same would routing would work for single BM.

 

[tbone1004]

I would recommend getting the long hose length whatever you prefer for backmount as sidemount doesn't matter if you're going to be swapping back and forth. I use a 9' on my sidemount bottles since my buddy is 6'6" and I'm 6'4", so it's fine in a sidemount configuration. 9' is unwieldy in backmount, so I use 7', but in OW I either leave the 7' or I use a 40" with swivel because I find 5' to be pretty useless, if you want a true long hose, use a 7', if you don't, use something that routes better. I've just never understood the appeal of 5'. For 7' you can tuck it in the waist band or DSS makes a nice can light simulator for like $15 that holds onto it real well.

For sidemount I have a 40" on the left that goes down then back up and around my neck, and the long hose is on the right. Usually coming straight up and over to the left side of my face since it is a non-direction Poseidon. Could do the same with a reversed Hog or Apeks, but it makes single file air sharing a bit interesting with the hose crossing under the diver in front. With the Poseidons I have it on the left, but I rotate it under itself to donate so it works well for that.

 

[tursiops]

So you have a short hose from your left 1st to the left 2nd with a 90deg on a necklace?
And a 5' hose from your right 1st looped down and up the cylinder to your right 2nd with a 90deg clipped off?

That is the direction I am leaning and also thought the same would routing would work for single BM.

Well, for SM I've currently got the long hose on the left, shorter on the right. And the shorter is on the necklace. Still experimenting!

 

[tuk]

I haven't seen anyone with hoses feeding from underneath using a stealth... Why not start with the standard rigging and once you know what you're doing decide for yourself if it's really that big of a deal to have it around your neck?

Imo you are gonna cause more issues than what you'll solve. Anyway, answer's been given, left feed on left hose, right feed on right hose, but I wouldn't expect too much from it tbh.

I have half a dozen dives using "standard rigging." I know that's not a lot but it's not nothing. I've used two different harnesses too (scubapro and xdeep). They're night and day, as far as configuration and setup but the common thing they shared was hose routing. With two hoses around my neck, I was constantly tugging one or the other when I'd rotate my head because the hoses would shift with every turn of my head. That's just how hoses work. Push on one end and they tend to go with the direction of force. If they find themselves tucked into something that creates any sort of surface tension, they don't always slip back as easily and will either start to apply a pulling force to one end (that's my reg) or tighten the loop (that's my neck). I'm actually somewhat surprised that there isn't more discussion around straight routing and keeping streamlined because routing hoses around your neck seems like an obvious thing that can be improved upon. (That's one of the reasons to SM , right? To improve your diving while creating additional redundancy even on something as simple as an OW dive, while also looking super cool?)

---------- Post added June 15th, 2015 at 08:57 AM ----------

Well, for SM I've currently got the long hose on the left, shorter on the right. And the shorter is on the necklace. Still experimenting!

Are you using a left side reg on the long hose or are you wrapping it around your neck?

 

[tursiops]

Are you using a left side reg on the long hose or are you wrapping it around your neck?

As per earlier post: nothing goes around my neck. I use a left-side reg on the left side. This will work with the long hose on either side: the short hose is on a necklace, because if the long hose is donated, I get the short one. If the long one is in my mouth, I donate it. If the short hose is in my mouth, the clipped-off long hose is easily broken away to be used, or just unclipped if there is time for that. The keys to making this work and tidy are (1) left-side reg on left side, and (2) 90 deg elbows.

I understand and have sympathy for a SM config that is similar to a BM config, but I prefer to rethink the SM config to not be constrained by earlier non-SM configs.

 

[Diver-Drex]

I tried this in the pool and it seemed to work well with the exception of the long hose.
Left - 22" hose/90deg/2nd on necklace
Right - 84" hose/90/2nd clipped off

I still think routing a 5' hose would be cleaner than a 7'. Without going around the neck there is just too much hose, tucking in the waist strap or a fake canister doesn't make sense to me. A 40" would be fine for OW. 5' wouldn't hurt anything and the extra 20" would provide some additonal room to deal with problems. Moving around an entangled diver to cut them free comes to mind.
And I think this is consistent with BM. My wife only dives single tank BM. She has her primary on her right side which she will donate and an integrated octo on her left which is for her. In BM or SM I'll have a reg on my right that I will donate and a reg on my left on a necklace that is for me.

 

[Subcooled]

Get at least three or four feet hoses and run them along the cylinder and back. A car inner tire can be cut into nice rubber bands that keep the hose nicely along the cylinder. The U-bend on the hose allows for easy hose length adjustment (with some practice even under water). Use 90 degree fixed elbows and one right hand reg and one left hand reg. Shorter hoses are awkward as they do not allow for easy adjustment. If you pull the hose out, then putting it back may be difficult or impossible depending on your gloves (unless the rubber bands have some sort of pull handles made of bungee).

ps. If using elbows, tell your buddy to grab the regulator, not the hose, when taking your reg. A regulator upside down in mouth makes your buddy really unhappy during air sharing. Side exhaust regs do not have this particular problem.

 

[ajtoady]

Side mount is really up to the "mission" you are doing, per say. I don't cave or penetrate wrecks. I SM so as to get the weight in the water a little at a time, versus, twins on the back and it gives me all kinds of gas to lengthen my dive. Plus it's fun to mess with different configurations. I run a 40" hose on each 1st to the 2nd and bungee the excess to the tank. Hose comes up or across my chest to the 90* swivel at the 2nd. Nice, neat, and simple. Right tank is on a necklace and left tank is with a clip. If I was doing penetrations or caves I would still bungee all the excess 7' hose, due to I don't want the excess around my neck. The extra hose deploys out of the bungees easily and there is no fumbling to unwrap the excess from around your neck routing. But hey, thats my way and it may not work for you.

 

[Subcooled]

What do you use to keep your regs in place? If they're coming straight up from the tank, I don't imagine you have either of them on a necklace.

You can use a bungee as shown in the image. The overhand knot in the neck (at the top) is not the optimal knot here but it works. The plastic tube in front keeps the regulators separated. Two hose attachments are portrayed, one break away connector from Razor harness (to the left), and one comprising a maillon rapide and bicycle inner tube (to the right; wrap around hose and so on...). It is cheap, ugly, improvised, not marketable, and works really really well with those 90 degree elbows. Just make sure it is tight enough. You want the regs high up and not dangling. You will want a really small boltsnap.