Don't you love those agonizingly long, uncomfortable
rides by inflatable boats to the dive site? What
about staggering about on a rolling deck, trying not
to fall with a tank on your back? Or descending to the
stern swim platform toting a tank? As for climbing the
boat ladder after a dive with your tank on . . . well,
there's a fix for all that.
Just as NASA's inventions for space exploration
led to us having nonstick frying pans in our kitchens,
we recreational divers reap the benefits of inventions
for technical diving. Side-mounted tanks is one
of those, and something older leisure divers should
definitely consider.
Technical divers need to carry one gas for use on
the deepest part of their dive, plus a different gas mix
for getting there and back, and an oxygen-rich gas for
decompressing. Because they can't carry all the tanks
required on their backs, some industrious thinkers came
up with side-slinging two of the tanks from D-rings of
their technical diving wing-style BCs. Closed-circuit
rebreather divers, who need to carry open-circuit bailout
rigs, did something similar.
How can recreational divers benefit? Side-slinging a
tank means that you can access your tank valve easily,
so if, say, a regulator goes into free-flow, you can avoid
losing any air simply by opening the tank valve each
time it's necessary to inhale.
As for us older divers and those who suffer with bad
backs, there are plenty of distinct advantages of sideslinging
a tank rather than wearing it on your back. You
don't need to hitch it to yourself until you're about to
fall into the water and experience joyful weightlessness. You can sit in an inflatable in relative comfort, your
tank standing vertically next to you. It's equally easy to
unhitch a tank and pass it up to a crew member when
you get picked up after the dive. In fact, boat crews can
do all the heavy lifting, because you're only carrying the
tank while you're in the water.
So how do you do it? The tank has a fastening
around the neck and a camband around the lower part
of its body, both of which are equipped with large piston
clips that hook onto strong, stainless steel D-rings on
the right sort of BC. There are even BCs designed specifically
for sidemount diving, such as the Hollis SMS100,
the Scubapro X-TEK Sidemount, the XDeep Stealth, the
Mares XR Pure Light, the Dive Rite Travel Pac and the
Finnsub FLY sidemount wing set. They're all designed
to make the diver as sleek as possible in the water.
You may need to reconfigure the hose of your regulator.
A long hose that allows you to route it around the
back of your neck before the second-stage reaches your
mouth is a popular method. The hose of the octopusrig
is bundled up and stored under elastic straps that
pass round the center part of the tank or are worn on a
necklace. The direct-feed hose for the BC might need to
be longer, too, although the high-pressure hose for the
pressure gauge can be really short.
When you're ready to get into the inflatable (or onto
the swim platform of a bigger boat), sit on the side with
your tank standing upright beside you. When the time
comes to dive, turn on your tank and put the regulator
in your mouth, clipping the top piston-clip to a D-ring
high up on your BC. The moment before you enter the
water, bend down to pick up the bottom piston-clip,
attach it to the lowest D-ring on your BC, and lift the
tank as you do so before rolling into the water. After
you dive, passing your side-slung tank back up is equally
simple and effortless.
Cave divers like to side-sling because they can
always detach the lower piston-clip, and with the tank
still secured by the upper clip, pass the tank ahead of
them through a tight space. A wreck diver might find
occasion when that's useful, too.
For us sport divers, it means we never have to carry
the weight of a tank on our backs. I can hear many of
you "seasoned" divers shouting, "Yes!" in unison. Go
to your dive shop to ask how you can adapt your dive
gear, including your BC, to enable single-tank sidemount
diving, or what gear they have available specifically
for it. I guarantee it will take a load off.
-- John Bantin