Sidemount provides many benefits for divers but is best suited to cave diving. Sidemount was in fact invented by cave divers. These are just some of the benefits.
Sidemount rigs also include tank bands, clips, bungees, and likely some more to store your regs. The clips are attached to your harness. Also, their position will affect the position of your tanks.
International Training, the parent organisation for Technical Diving International / Scuba Diving International (TDI), offers both SDI (and TDI) versions of their Sidemount Diver courses. Both courses are very similar. Both courses share the same learning materials (which were written by us). What is the difference?
New gear means new techniques. Diving sidemount, if it's easy, require some new skills (easy to learn).
There are three parts to certification: knowledge development, skill practice and open water dives. You can complete all three parts locally, on holiday, or split between the two.
These are the options for you if you're looking for alternative diving lessons and classes, or if you want to find out what next steps should be taken.
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The shift from backmounted doubles into sidemount has been one of the biggest changes in the equipment that cave divers have used since the turn of the century. A large number of cave divers sidemount. Additionally, there may be more sidemount cave divers than open-circuit backmount cave divers.
If you worry now about how this will all come together, don’t – a big part of the course is learning how to set up your Sidemount equipment as well as to measure and adjust bungees and clips to make sure your tanks are in trim next to your legs. And of course, your instructor will help you with all of it!
Gear – While the gear is fundamentally the same, divers in their introductory tech class (Intro to Tech, Sidemount or CCR Air diluent) will notice some fundamental configuration differences. Instead of 2 second stages on one cylinder they’re split between two, with a separate first stage on each. Gas planning becomes an in-depth thorough process and the harnesses seem to have more chrome.
Due to the issues with single-orifice doubles or backmounted independents (which are not as common in modern diving), backmounted doubles were invented. Independents are two independent cylinders attached to one's back, with independent regulators for each. One cylinder was sufficient to take care of a failed 1st Stage. Single orifice duplicates were two cylinders linked with a valve and one regulator. A single orifice doubles set would cause all gas to be lost if a first stage fails. These problems can be eliminated with the modern isolated manifolds. Each cylinder can work independently but divers can also inhale gas from both of them through one regulator. These doubles are typically held together with metal bands. The valves can also be linked with an isolation device, which allows them to be seperated if required. Backmounted doubles diving offers a profile that's vertically identical to regular single-cylinder backmount.
Sidemount has many benefits, but it is particularly well-suited for cave diving. (It was cave divers who invent sidemount. These benefits include:
The next day it was on to technical sidemount, which means adding our deco 50-percent oxygen and 100-percent oxygen tanks on either side. This increases your profile underwater so you must keep the tanks as trim as possible against your body. You have a couple of clips on each side of your waist. As you breathe down your tanks and they become positively buoyant, you adjust your tank position to the second clip position. The aim here is to be as streamlined as possible. Every few minutes you also switch your breathing from one tank to the other. That way the pressure in each tank runs down at roughly the same rate, and if there is a failure with either tank or regulator, you’ll still have gas to breathe. As with all new things, building up experience is key to comfort and enjoyment. I spent the next few days doing deco dives with the sidemount rig, buddied up with Evolution co-owner David Joyce — a hugely experienced Tec diver and Trimix instructor. On one dive we visited the Japanese Mogami wreck down at 164 feet, where I was beguiled by the bits of old gas masks, uniforms and even a few bones we saw.
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According to experts, approximately 40% of technical divers enroll in additional education and training programs. This yields a reasonable estimate of approximately 160,000 active technical divers worldwide.
from 170 to 350 feet
While conventional scuba diving has a recommended maximum depth of 130 feet, technical divers may work at depths ranging from 170 feet to 350 feet, and sometimes even deeper.
The depth range of oxygen rebreathers (simple closed circuit) is limited to approximately 6 m, beyond which the risk of acute oxygen toxicity rises to unacceptable levels very quickly.