I finally got a chance to go side mount diving after DEMA. Jerry Murphy, our Product Manager, and I did Rock Bluff and had to dig the entrance out just to get in. I felt this would be a good test for the JetStream Regulator. I wanted a regulator that I could breathe from the left side without running it around my neck when side mounting. The JetStream worked very well. It secures to the left shoulder with a bungee strap around the webbing to keep it high and out of silt. I had our new regulator necklace (debuted at DEMA) on the right side regulator. The adjustable regulator necklace let me pull it up tight for side mount…a little tighter than most divers would wear a regulator for back mounted cylinders.

Observations

1. Both regulators – I had to dig some small rocks out of the first stage caps - yeah it was very tight.
2. The necklace works just as designed, but I am having the manufacturer change the crimps before production is released so it will be another 30 days before we have stock.
3. Nomad bottle placement is good with the new chokers on the necks. This was my first chance to use them in a small restriction situation. I had tested them, but had not had the chance to test the tank placement with chokers in a tight body squeeze.

I routed the Jetstream second stage hose downward in order to make the standard 28-inch hose length lie flat. It pulls up easily for use.

Lamar

The Nomad is working well for people who want to sidemount. Over the past few months I have taught a few classes; both sidemount and CCR. One of the common problems I began seeing is getting the bungee routed through the regulator, around the tank neck and then clipped to the harness. It can be a pain to hold up the tank, while stretching the bungee enough to get it attached. The easy way to use it is to leave it clipped to the harness and just pull it over the cylinder neck. This appears to work, but depending on your attitude in the water the cylinder may slip out of the bungee. As I thought about this while watching a few students struggle and I remembered my problems diving out of a Zodiac on the Black Sea in Russia this summer. Sometimes the neck connection can be a real pain. The bottle needs to float under the arm to find the sweet spot for sidemount position, but there should be a secure and easy connection to keep the bottle in place.

After a few test dives I introduced my students to a new way to secure the neck of the cylinder in the bungee with 100% satisfaction from the divers. It’s very simple, use a standard stage strap with XL bolt snaps on the bottle. You need the XL snap because you are going to clip into the bungee. We have added a choker to the neck of the cylinder. It holds the top clip up against the neck of the bottle. We make the chokers but you can make one out of line as well. The key is to have the gate of the snap against the cylinder neck. I like the chokers because they are adjustable so they can work with your sidemount setup and or be loosened if you use the cylinder as a stage bottle.

The point is now you clip into the bungee rather than wrapping the bungee around the cylinder neck. The bungee needs to be 4” shorter than what you would normally use. I used to use the 17” bungee and I had to shorten it to 13”. Now it is easy to clip in and keep bottles side mounted for CCR bailout or 95’s on a sidemount dive.

So to see if anybody is actually reading my blog, I will ask interested divers to call Dive Rite and tell the guys you want the latest sidemount modification for your Nomad, you want the chokers. Send back your straps and we will shorten them and give you the chokers free of charge. I want people to enjoy it as much as I do.

Lamar

Today I am writing about fins after overhearing a diver at one of our Tech Tours complain that the Dive Rite fin is too heavy, and walked away with her split fins in her hand. I thought about her comment and realized the problem. Most divers are looking for what is easy, rather than what is efficient. Efficiency is the cornerstones of cave diving training; the average diver cannot appreciate the discipline cave divers use, yet it is the premise for all technical diving disciplines.

I was a test diver for the original split fin, the Apollo Bio fin. They completed their test in recreational environments and I got to play with them in the caves of North Florida. I was not impressed. The split fin is designed to give the diver forward propulsion with the least amount of directed effort. Essentially, this means wasted energy and still there are results. The split fin is designed for the diver doing a modified flutter kick and nothing else, which is the kick used by newly certified divers. Instructors spend hours teaching new divers not to bicycle kick because it is inefficient. The split fin takes advantage of the bicycle kick mentality, giving divers a method of inefficient kicking, yet still with some movement forward.

During our testing of split fins and our fins, divers using split fins could not maintain the pace set by average cave divers. One test diver suffered severe cramps using split fins in an attempt to maintain a normal pace for a dive he had done many times before. Split fins can propel an open water diver with a single cylinder through the water to the divers satisfaction, but it is out-classed in technical dive environments. For technical diving, the diver needs a fin that can perform in various conditions including high flow, tight areas and moving mass thru the water. A technical diver needs a fin that is an extension of the foot for complete control and application of various technical fining techniques such as, modified flutter, frog, shuffle kick and ceiling walk. A split fin just can’t compare. Whenever you increase the mass of a diver from single cylinder to doubles, side mount or staging the split fin does not measure up.

Why did I buy the molds for the Apollo Prestige Fin? We bought the molds for the fins in 2001 because I believed they were the best fins on the market. I dived it for two years and was very impressed with the performance-to-weight ratio of the fin. It actually looks like the old Farallon fin with the rounded blade that was considered the best fin on the market in its day. I owned three pair of them, but it took an above-average diver to take advantage of the power you could extract from the fin. For cave divers battling upstream in caves with outflows of 1 to 2 knots you needed every advantage you could get.

The Dive Rite fin is designed with two materials, a plastic and rubber combination to give it strength and flexibility in water. Instead of venting the middle we have a flexible rubber insert to utilize the thrust in every stroke. We don’t believe in wasting any movement the diver may take with his fins. The blade design captures any nuance the diver may use in propulsion techniques. This lets the diver use every ounce of energy he (she) expends with a kick. This is very important to the tech diver pushing one to two miles against current. Split fins can’t capitalize on the various fin kicks to decrease fatigue and cramping like a single blade fin. Our fin is not for everyone. If you can’t swim or run a mile then stick with the split fin, but if you don’t want to waste your energy then use a fin designed to take advantage of the effort you put into the swim.

I know some may disagree because you own split fins, but facts are facts. If you question my conclusions then send me an email and join me for a dive.

Lamar

The programming to add more dive log memory has been completed as well as the fourth cell pin compatibility for the Fischer connector. Circuit boards for the Beta units are scheduled for October 9^th at the PCB house, meaning we should have our beta units by mid-October.

Decompression software is in the works and a demo version will be available soon. We will post the demo version on our website as soon as it is ready.

Lamar

We have listened to requests for more logbook memory and compatible cabling for 4^th cell CCR integration. All these things are a go, but delayed the production beta units. We had to give up our slot at the PCB production house to address the new hardware features. As soon as we can get back on the schedule at the PCB house we are days away from production beta units.

Lamar

Work of breathing varies with CCR models. The O2ptima has the shortest breathing loop on the market and because of this we can use smaller hoses. However, with this feature comes more attention to detail. The counterlung must be mounted in the right place to take advantage of the smaller hoses. The T-piece connections and ADV must be located high on the chest just below the shoulder. If you move them any lower on the chest then WOB will increase. If you feel the WOB is too great then adjust the CL higher with the attachment straps. This is critical. Once you get the CL positioned correctly, you will find that you can breathe vertically, horizontally or upside down without a problem.

Lamar

The production beta units should be ready next week. The boards are going to the production house over the weekend for programming. We will also be getting ten beta units for final testing.

We are increasing logbook capacity by adding another chip for more memory storage. We should double if not triple the 6.2 hours in the design. The 6.2 hours was worst-case scenario based on diver settings, profile sampling rate, flags, OC/CC mode and gas switches. If you’re traveling and can’t download until you get home, set the sampling rate at 30-second rate for more storage capacity.

We are using an industry-standard transducer rated to 150m. If you take it deeper than that it will not lock out, but there is no guarantee as to the accuracy or the integrity of the pressure transducer.

Lamar

During the Mermet Springs Tech Tour, I was asked about cold water diving with the Nomad sidemount configuration. Wearing gloves, the guys wanted the larger coldwater snaps. I personally didn’t have an issue with the standard clips, but understood the problem. We will now offer the straps with XL bolt snaps for cold water divers. Another point on the straps was length adjustment. We offer three standard sizes that fit most divers and cylinder sizes. If you need a little extra length just add another quick link to each strap. You may find this is a good way to fine tune the rig when transitioning from a drysuit with thick garments to a wetsuit. More to come on weighting in coldwater environments.

Lamar

When considering a dual bladder wing, the first question is “Why would a diver need one?” and the second is “How do I use it?”

Back in the 1980’s cave divers were using two Dive Rite Classic Wings (it was the only 60 lb wing at the time) when they needed more lift for staging or just for added reassurance when diving deep caves in a wetsuit. Wreck divers, who typically were diving in colder water, used their drysuit as emergency backup inflation. In the 1990’s, technical diving grew and wreck divers began using multiple wings for extra lift in case of emergency. Wreck divers began finding that a drysuit was not good backup for heavy double steels along with steel travel/deco bottles so they also began using the dual bladder wing.

Dive Rite and OMS both introduced dual bladder wings to give divers a more streamlined solution for backup inflation. Everyone was happy, but now we get into the management problems of how safely and effectively dive a dual bladder.

The first quandary is how to route the hoses on the backup bladder. When divers were using two wings the most common method was to put the inflation hoses back to back and bungee the hoses together to have everything at your fingertips. However, dual bladder wings have the backup inflator behind the diver’s right shoulder, rather than the left, so now there is a hose on each shoulder. For awhile, this seemed to work; then the diving community began seeing issues.

I can’t help but remember one of Billy Dean’s talks on equipment management. He called it the triangle of influence (TOI), starting at the neck draw a triangle from shoulder to shoulder down to just above the navel. In this area should only be items needed for life support, primary and secondary regulators and BC inflation. Everything else should fall outside this area so it doesn’t interfere with survival needs.

Issues began arising as confused divers began clipping the backup inflator on a dual wing in front of their right shoulder, within the TOI. They believed this provided easy access in case of emergency. However, in reality we have seen more issues with divers using the backup inflation when it was not necessary, which results in a buoyancy issue that is potentially dangerous. In a stressful situation that requires the use of inflation; many divers will use the backup inflation because it is the first button they can get their hands on. If the primary bladder has not failed, divers now have a bigger issue because they have gas in both bladders. At some point during the situation, if they forget to vent one or the other, further stress is created with out-of-control buoyancy.

This is the reason all our current Dive Rite dual bladder wings have the back up inflation hose oriented so it clips into a D-ring on the belt or on the bungee of the wing, behind the shoulder down and away from the TOI. It should be treated like any other piece of back up equipment and not positioned so it can mistakenly be used when not necessary and lead to more issues that can make a small problem a major issue. I welcome comments on this.

Lamar

The Nomad Buttplate is useful for more than sidemounting cylinders to squeeze into places a normal person wouldn’t go. If placing the bottles under the arm and along the body will let you get into tighter places, then you know it has to be streamlined. We all want to be as streamlined as possible when moving through the water in order to cut down on expended energy, which in turn means less gas consumption.

Incorporating sidemount-thinking to carrying stages for CCR bailout, decompression or extended range dives will help you dive with less drag. The buttplate is designed to let you attach the bottles approximately 6-inches lower than attaching the bottle at the waist; this pulls the neck of the bottle down so it will tuck under the arm. If you use the sidemount bungee straps around the neck of the bottle, then the bottles will float under the arm. The bungee straps attach to the backplate and clip to the chest D-ring where the bottle would normally be clipped. The bottle floats into position under the arm while the 4-inch rail on the buttplate lets the bottle find the “sweet spot”. In the water, you are only dealing with the negative buoyancy of the bottle, not its total weight.

The Nomad Buttplate is easy to attach to any harness. Two-inch webbing belt loops slide onto a standard waist belt and the stainless steel grommets line up with the bottom perimeter holes of a metal plate or the 1-inch D-ring of the TransPac.

Lamar