Wreck vs Cave mounting of suit inflate

[Padowan]

I have heard of Wreck and Cave mounting options for suit inflation bottles, and from what I recall, the wreck mount is alongside the backplate (in front of the wing) in bands, and the cave mount is strapped onto the back cylinders (behind the wing)?

What's the rationale for these 2 configuratons, and are there any other configuration differenced recommended between Wreck and Cave dives? I can see that for ferretting inside wrecks, the wreck mount would be less in the way and likely to catch on wreckage, but surely this would also be good in a cave situation?

Just interested, no more than that...

[RichW]

Originally Posted by Padowan

I have heard of Wreck and Cave mounting options for suit inflation bottles, and from what I recall, the wreck mount is alongside the backplate (in front of the wing) in bands, and the cave mount is strapped onto the back cylinders (behind the wing)?

What's the rationale for these 2 configuratons, and are there any other configuration differenced recommended between Wreck and Cave dives? I can see that for ferretting inside wrecks, the wreck mount would be less in the way and likely to catch on wreckage, but surely this would also be good in a cave situation?

Just interested, no more than that...

Cave tends to need larger argon bottles due to the length of dives, and the often up-down nature of the profile. The larger bottles don't fit under the arm so well.

There's no hard and fast "rule" on it. I tend to use the back mounted argon bottle all the time now. I'll probably use the little backplate mount again for some stuff when the mood takes me

Rich

[Janos]

[In the style of the Private Eye letters page]

I seem to remember a photo showing how to mount it on the waist band. Does anyone have a photo?

[/Private Eye]

Seriously though, I think sometimes the Cave Fellers have Big Argon Bottles (3 litres plus) which are obviously impractical to mount on the BP / waist strap.

Janos

[Padowan]

Originally Posted by RichW

Cave tends to need larger argon bottles due to the length of dives, and the often up-down nature of the profile. The larger bottles don't fit under the arm so well.

There's no hard and fast "rule" on it. I tend to use the back mounted argon bottle all the time now. I'll probably use the little backplate mount again for some stuff when the mood takes me

Rich

That makes perfect sense, I'd not though about the up/down profiles. Thanks for the clarification. I take it that using Deco-Gas (50%) for suit inflation is frowned upon?

[RichW]

Originally Posted by Padowan

That makes perfect sense, I'd not though about the up/down profiles. Thanks for the clarification. I take it that using Deco-Gas (50%) for suit inflation is frowned upon?

Very much so. In a cave, you wouldn't carry a deco cylinder past its MOD, so it would be useless for that purpose. In open water, we really don't like the idea of having a high pO2 gas "live" at depth.

Rich

[Padowan]

Originally Posted by RichW

Very much so. In a cave, you wouldn't carry a deco cylinder past its MOD, so it would be useless for that purpose. In open water, we really don't like the idea of having a high pO2 gas "live" at depth.

Rich

Again, makes sense. You can tell I've not thought about the finer points of diving OC for a couple of years! And those pesky Caves keeps throwing spanners into my traditional thinking

[Bardo]

Originally Posted by Janos

[In the style of the Private Eye letters page]

I seem to remember a photo showing how to mount it on the waist band. Does anyone have a photo?

[/Private Eye]

Seriously though, I think sometimes the Cave Fellers have Big Argon Bottles (3 litres plus) which are obviously impractical to mount on the BP / waist strap.

Janos

There are effectively three methods of mounting an argon bottle that can be considered 'DIR compliant'. These are...

1. Cave Mount - The cylinder is mounted on the side of the twinset via a pair of bands like so...



2. Wreck Mount (GI3 style) - The 'GI3' wreck mount uses a small loop of webbing on the cylinder to allow the argon bottle to be threaded onto the harness waist strap (left hand side)...



3. Wreck Mount (AG style) - The AG-style wreck mount is the type of mount favoured by most of the UK DIR 'Tech' (rather than 'Cave') community. It uses a small loop of webbing to mount the bottle (usually a small 1.0litre) to the left hand side of the backplate. The image below shows you what I mean but I have to say that the bottle shown in this image is mounted far too high - I personally mount the bottle a lot lower than this...



For more info on all these mountings (including a list of pros & cons)...

DIR Argon mounts Dive Tek Adventures Technical diving

[DanE]

I mount a Luxfor 1L cylinder in a similar style to [3] and I find that when the wing is fully inflated on the surface the cylinder digs into my side. Is this common? I'm reasonably thin, so it's not that I'm wider than average or anything.

It's a Halcyon SS backplate and Explorer 40 wing.

Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong? I thought I might have it too high (not as high as [3] though - top of my cylinder was around the same height as the top of the blue band above), so will be trying it lower down this weekend.

Cheers,
dan

[Clare Gledhill]

Hi Dan - try moving it down so that the webbing strap is on the last hole in the side of the backplate. That should helP.

[DanE]

Thanks Clare, I'll give that a go.

dan