hickdive
02-06-08, 18:29
here's what I dive with and why. There are no photographs in existence anywhere of me either underwater or on the surface (well, there's one but you can't see my kit and it's all changed since the picture was taken anyway)
Nothing really original or odd in my set up;
Back Plate and wing with one-piece harness. Once adjusted to fit me that's it, virtually nothing to break. Although I do find all those dire warnings you see on some DIR sites about what could happen if a clip broke a bit OTT. Unless you're in a cave or scootering (or both) a broken clip is an annoyance that ends the dive, nothing more, for the overwhelming majority of divers; having no clips to break means less chance of losing a dive if you do break one in the boat. With a back plate and wing you have nothing that needs adjusting, you just slip into your set, connect your suit feed and fasten your waist buckle.
Twinset with a long hose off the right, back up off the left bungied under my chin, wing feed off the right, suit feed off the left and one SPG clipped to my left waist d-ring. A very simple set up with no unnecessary bits. The back up and wing hoses do cross at the back but the DIR idea that it is an advantage to do so in order to 'hear' a freeflow in either because they do is laughable. There are good reasons to rig like this though, nothing dangles, things are less likely to catch and, if your back up and wing inflator are on the left post you wouldn't necessarily know that post was off until you try to put air in your wing; putting the wing inflator on the right avoids this because this is also the post you're breathing from when you are on your primary. Donating to an OOA diver is a doddle and your back-up is right under your chin so there's no hunting round to find it and it won't be full of crud.
My umbilical torch with battery canister is on my harness waist strap at my right hip and the head is on a Goodman handle on my left hand. Until you've tried an umbilical light on a Goodman handle you just don't realise how much you lose if you have to hold a conventional torch handle. A conventional handled torch with a wrist lanyard is probably the worst possible set up. You can't put the light down but your hand is useless for any other tasks when holding the torch and if you do let go of the torch then any task you might try to do to is encumbered by the big lump of plastic swinging from your wrist by a string. I wonder how many people here, when doing their buddy-breathing training exercises in open water, opted to omit their hand-held lantern from their kit for the exercise? A conventional torch clipped to a d-ring on your BCD rather than your wrist is marginally better in that you can put it down and not have it interfere with a task. Here's a tip though if you still insist on a wrist lanyard. Don't try and tighten the lanyard on your wrist by working the toggle along the slack lanyard with your free hand. Hold your arm up so that the torch hangs by its own weight and then just slide the toggle upward. If the torch isn't heavy enough to resist the upward slide of the toggle then clamp it between your knees. This works for computers with a safety lanyard too.
Nothing really original or odd in my set up;
Back Plate and wing with one-piece harness. Once adjusted to fit me that's it, virtually nothing to break. Although I do find all those dire warnings you see on some DIR sites about what could happen if a clip broke a bit OTT. Unless you're in a cave or scootering (or both) a broken clip is an annoyance that ends the dive, nothing more, for the overwhelming majority of divers; having no clips to break means less chance of losing a dive if you do break one in the boat. With a back plate and wing you have nothing that needs adjusting, you just slip into your set, connect your suit feed and fasten your waist buckle.
Twinset with a long hose off the right, back up off the left bungied under my chin, wing feed off the right, suit feed off the left and one SPG clipped to my left waist d-ring. A very simple set up with no unnecessary bits. The back up and wing hoses do cross at the back but the DIR idea that it is an advantage to do so in order to 'hear' a freeflow in either because they do is laughable. There are good reasons to rig like this though, nothing dangles, things are less likely to catch and, if your back up and wing inflator are on the left post you wouldn't necessarily know that post was off until you try to put air in your wing; putting the wing inflator on the right avoids this because this is also the post you're breathing from when you are on your primary. Donating to an OOA diver is a doddle and your back-up is right under your chin so there's no hunting round to find it and it won't be full of crud.
My umbilical torch with battery canister is on my harness waist strap at my right hip and the head is on a Goodman handle on my left hand. Until you've tried an umbilical light on a Goodman handle you just don't realise how much you lose if you have to hold a conventional torch handle. A conventional handled torch with a wrist lanyard is probably the worst possible set up. You can't put the light down but your hand is useless for any other tasks when holding the torch and if you do let go of the torch then any task you might try to do to is encumbered by the big lump of plastic swinging from your wrist by a string. I wonder how many people here, when doing their buddy-breathing training exercises in open water, opted to omit their hand-held lantern from their kit for the exercise? A conventional torch clipped to a d-ring on your BCD rather than your wrist is marginally better in that you can put it down and not have it interfere with a task. Here's a tip though if you still insist on a wrist lanyard. Don't try and tighten the lanyard on your wrist by working the toggle along the slack lanyard with your free hand. Hold your arm up so that the torch hangs by its own weight and then just slide the toggle upward. If the torch isn't heavy enough to resist the upward slide of the toggle then clamp it between your knees. This works for computers with a safety lanyard too.