[JohnK]

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OK - so Santa got me a twinset, I know, I`ve talked about nothing else !!!

Up to Cape we went today for my first dives with it - bloody marvellous!!! - loads of air (obviously) no refill between dives, Trek wing held up great - even at 40lb of lift, got down to 6kg of lead instead of 16.

The difference in diving the set instead of my previous 12+3 was great in terms of balance but need to learn how to turn as the increased bulk is like turning an oil tanker - 2 mins after turning I got to turn.

So in all - great - but a couple of problems that the wiser folk may help me with:

1.  I felt `top heavy` in that the weight of the set was pushing the top half of me down - how can I correct this??

2.  I suffer from floaty feet (so being a wuss I use ankle weights) and had more problems getting the air from my feet (poss due to (1) above - again any tips??

3.  Couldnt get near the isolator valve - even with air in the drysuit (I only use Drysuit for buoyancy to affset ascent problems and it helps keep me warm) - any hints on this or will I have to get a slob knob (Yes - be a mega wuss with Ankle weights AND slob knob)

On the plus side I thought that the set weighed less than my 12+3 - probably an illusion `cos its more balanced but definitely less than I thought it would.

Any help would be appreciated - Bren are you all still up at Cape next Sat?? - I`ll join in , maybe get some more pointers

 

[Mr T.]

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Kirky,

Davey and I will be at the Cape on Saturday, 04th Jan - plus any others that want to join us, please feel free to come along!!

We're gonna be running closedown and isolation drills and will try and get two or three dives in that day. See ya there mate.

 

[Davey Willo]

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John

My first dive with my twins was in a borrowed Diverite wing and harness and like you I was top heavy, it was a complete nightmate and didn't dare leave the shallows as I had no control and floundered like a complete twat (Ask Ben) but on the second time Andy Hayhurst had raised the bands slightly on the tanks, I'd swapped to a Halcyon rig and donned ankle weights and this time the trim was picture perfect Horizontallagogo my friend....

I feel that my problem was mainly due to the position of the tanks in the bands, I'd strongly suggest making that your first move, I also recognise that the Halcyon harness was cut specifially to fit me and as I say I'd donned ankle weights ( a bit of a knee jerk reaction and these will be dispensed with this Saturday at the Cape) but I'm sure that the main fix was the moving down my back of the tanks.. If you DO come on Saturday (Hope so as it'll be nice to meet up) bring some spanners and marker pens so that we can adjust and re-adjust until we get it just perfect.... we've got all day right??

 

[Ali]

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Kirky.
I had the same problem with the top heavy part so I put on ankle weights and it made #### for a difference. Then after a few dives I had a go without them and haven't use them since.

Ali

 

[JohnK]

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Thanks Dave - Yes I will be there on Sat. In the meantime I`m gonna drop the whole twinset by one hole on the wing to see if that helps. Not much room to move the bands but I`m sure the Team will prove me wrong

See you Saturday.

 

[John Holmes]

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:wavey:
Hi Kirky,
Glad the dive with the twin set went ok - sorry I couldn't make it - I've just made an appointment for Thursday to have my back twisted, pummelled, walked upon and jumped upon from a great height so I should be ok for Saturday at Caps if you're there.
Oh John, by the way on the subject of trips and accomodation have you visited

wwww.lochalinedivecentre.co.uk ??

It looks a pretty good place. I'm sure it was Gav and Fi who entered a post about it - I went there and printed off the detail and as I say it looks pretty good for a trip sometime.
Cheers
John

 

[JohnK]

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Hi John - hope the back is bearing up

Dive was great at Cape last Sat - only a handful of divers there and the sump was clear as a bell - actually got 20m in it !!

The dive centre looks good (anyone wanting to see it, cut it and delete one of the full stops after the www)must be worth a visit some time. Also like the sound of Fort William which has something for everyone

Hope to see you on Saturday

 

[Mark Chase]

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Just to add to the above:

Take some spare lead with you and a lot of cable ties. Some of my buddies attach there lead low down in the middle of the twinset to balance the rig and they are very happy with it. I have my 4kg set on my waste band 2kg either side just behind my hip bone and that works for me.

Try real hard to perfect shutdowns and if you do then smile the smile of the richous but if you dont then get a slob knob. Chap on Saterday missed 20mins of stops having run out of air after a free flow at 50m. He didnt have a slob knob and looked cool before the event. After the event he didnt look cool at all. I am very pleased to say he apeared OK at the time he left the boat after breathing O2 on the surface for 45mins.

Good luck

Mark Chase

 

[Ian Murray]

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Dear Kirky,

Most of your problems are likely to be caused by only using the drysuit for buoyancy. For me this is fine with a single cylinder but with steel twins you really need to use the wing for buoyancy and the suit to just take off the suit squeeze.

With twin twelves you are carrying in the region of 5kg of gas so at the start of the dive you are this much overweighted (neutral with near empty tanks at the end of the dive)

This extra weight is spread over the top half of your body in the tanks and tends to give you a head down feeling at first. To offset this with the drysuit only means that you need to have too much air in your suit and this air 'bubble' tends to move around a bit so if you are 'head down' then this migrates to the lower legs and feet and gives you the floaty feet feeling and tips your upper body further down adding to the head down position. If you use the wing for buoyancy then its acting in the exact position where the extra weight is and corrects the falling head first feeling. The drysuit is used to just take off the squeeze. Warmth is kept by using the correct underclothing. If you have the wing inflator at the correct length then you can operate the wing and the drysuit inflate with one hand whilst equalising your ears or holding on to a shot line with the other hand. Because you don't have lots of air in your suit, when you ascend then keeping control of your buoyancy isn't really an issue as the autodump or cuff dump can take care of the drysuit and you just concentrate on dumping from the wing. What it does do is make for really slow ascents which aren't a bad thing. What you'll find at the end of the dive is that at shallow depths you'll hardly have any air in your wing as you've become more neutral as the dive has progressed.

Shutting down the isolator is mostly to do with practice and does take a little while to master. I found that pool practice is very useful for this and can also point out if other things may be a problem. Sometimes the undersuit is the problem and doesn't allow for the range of movement needed to perform the shutdown. Sometimes the drysuit is just too small.

Go and have a pool dive with your drysuit on (but without the undersuit) and see if you can reach the valves. Then try it again in the pool with the undersuit on as well ( yeah, real boil in the bag stuff). This may give an indication whether the undersuit is too small) Then just practice in the pool and have someone else guide your hand to the correct positions and keep trying it and build confidence that you can do it. Then when you can just keep practicing and adding the rest of your gear (tourches, dsmb's, reels etc ) until you're fully kitted and comfortable with where all the stuff is stored. You do get a few odd looks from others in the pool and it is very hot in the pool in a drysuit but  it makes all the difference for open water dives and then you can have a laugh at the others floundering around. whilst you just get on with the dive.

hope this helps,

Regards, Ian.

 

[JohnK]

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Thanks Ian - I`ll give that a go !!!!!

 

[Mdemon]

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Kirky,

Silly question (maybe!), but now that you have the twins, is it really a) more comfy and b)worth the hassle compared to the 12+3?  Think a while before answering!

I'm sorely tempted to get a second 12 and follow in your footsteps, but there is the nagging doubt in my mind...would I be better just getting a pony of my own and staying 12+3? (I'm borrowing at the mo...) And I used to use a 15 before and liked the extra air - 15+3, or 12+12?  Never was any good at maths...

Any thoughts?

John

 

[JohnK]

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Hi Mdemon

I thought long and hard before going to twins (cost,weight,isolation etc). In some respects I now think that the twins are better - like you I like the extra air and would rather carry air than lead.

The twins are much better balanced than the 12+3 - i kept finding that I was a little imbalanced, even with the lead redistributed to compensate - more drag on the 12 side. I even considered front mounting the pony but wanted room in front and not filling it up with another tank.

I`ve now done 4 dives in them and have tweaked the set up so it doesn`t push me forward. Only problem is I cant reach the isolation knob or tank knobs. For me, I MUST at least get to the isolation knob to conserve whats in one tank in the event of a cock up. With the 12+3 I always had redundancy built it for escape (always had the pony air on so I could just switch. So my main problem is getting to the isolation valve - this will need more practice and worst case the purchase of a slob knob.

Overall I`m happy with the set up. Like most kit you need to tweak so you can get it to work the way YOU want it. I guess I`m now in that phase.

So yes, for me its more comfy and the hassle is worth it !!

 

[Mdemon]

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Thanks for that Kirky.

Do you find the twins more awkward on land?  Is it a pain taking the wing apart for refils?  I am using a cam band system (on a Buddy Trident) for mounting so there will be no quick options for me...

Positioning - I bought the wing (and dive a single) in anticipation of twinning, so balance-wise I'm fairly up to speed on correcting the forward tip.  I am also cetain that I will dive inverted indies before trying a manifold.  I like the concept of a) redundancy and b) the easy reach.  Have you tried this?

I HATE the idea of carrying lead - I would rather carry a heavy torch as weight and get some use out of it rather than an inert blob of metal.  ...but do you really lose that much lead when twinning?  I need around 14Kg at the mo, and I've been told I'll be lucky to dump 4Kg twinning 12l steels. How much did you dump?

RE pony mounting - I like to keep the front clear too.  I have been through all sorts of configurations on paper - tweaking is half the fun though, isn't it?!

John

 

[Ian Daly]

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Hi there Kirky and Mdemon,

Just my 2p's worth.  I too have just moved into twin 12's, at one point was considering 15's, the weight wasn't gonna be a problem but after calculating my SAC over a period of 40 dives and watching it come down and settle at 15L/min decided to settle with the 12's.  I used to dive with a 15 and a pony and never felt unbalanced, although Mdemon it find it amazing that you have to have 14Kgs of weight, I am 6'1" and weigh 16st 10lbs and only need 16 lbs with my old set up, so I have shed a few more pounds of the weight belt  What really made me switch was not the amount of gas I could carry in my normal sort of dives 25 - 35m range but the amount of gas I should now that I am moving into the 35 - 45m range and in about 40 dives time possibly 50m, but we shall see about that

After I finished my OW course afew years ago a good bit of advice I was given was get equipment that your diving will grow into not out of.

HTH

Ian Daly

 

[JohnK]

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The twinset on land is a bit more awkward to lug around - when I had the 12+3 I would add the 3 just before kitting up. Having said that I balance the set in my car boot and its ideal - sit on lrdge, kit up, lean forward and stand up. Total weight of set + lead is about the same as 12+3.

For fills, I leave the wing attached - just make sure that all the dangly bits are stowed somewhere. As far as the wing is concerned I check it after each fill just in case the filler has damaged it.

I, too am thinking of inverting if I cant reach the isolation knob or go off the idea of a slob knob.

As far as weight is concerned, when I used the 12+3 I carried 14 - 16Kg - based on empty tanks. Now I`m carrying 8KG with the twins and expect to lose maybe another 2KG with experience. However, in winter and with extra layers for warmth I`m sticking with 8

Overall the whole set up out of water is a bit heavier BUT because most of it now is on my back instead of my waist it FEELS lighter/more comfy.

 

[Mdemon]

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I know what you mean about having the weight on your back, not your waist - I dive like that currently.

OK. I'm pretty much convinced now. When's the next dive show?!!!

Ian, I bought a dry bag with plenty of room (i.e. there can be a lot of air in it).  The other reason is that, ahem, I haven't been to the gym as often as I should!  That will change shortly, and with it my own buoyancy. Maybe.

 

[Driftwood]

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</span>

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from Mdemon on 7:15 pm on Jan. 5, 2003
When's the next dive show?!!!

<span =''>Dive Scotland 2003 at the SECC (Glasgow) March-time.

 

[Mdemon]

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Glasgow.  OK.

[sob] I live in Devon...

Guess I'll have to choke back those tears and support my local dive shop...

 

[Lou]

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Lids - March 3rd-ish??  Docklands, London.  Bit handier for you!

 

[Driftwood]

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Ooops! Forgot about LIDS....

The London International Dive Show
ExCel - Docklands, London
Saturday 1st March 2003 - 9:30am-6:00pm
Sunday 2nd March 2003 - 9:30am-5:00pm

See Diveshows for info about both.

And just for Willo

</span>

Quote[/b] ]A new name at LIDS but one well-known to anyone familiar with the Doing It Right school of diving is US diver Jarrod Jablonski. President of extreme diver training agency Global Underwater Explorers (GUE), he also runs specialist equipment makers Halcyon and Extreme Exposure. His visit coincides with the planned launch of GUE-UK. Jablonski has carried out more than 3000 dives around the world using mixed gas, rebreathers, underwater propulsion vehicles and extreme exposure techniques. He and GUE Training Director Andrew Georgitsis will give a video presentation with the intriguing title: Scientific Exploration: From the World's Longest Cave to the World's Largest Wreck. The cave is Florida's Wakulla Springs (nearly 6000m in and 90m down) and the wreck the Titanic's big sister the Britannic, which lies in 120m near Athens.

<span =''>
Yup, JJ and DIR will be there