mbank(Offline)

i'm not a gue/dir trained diver, but am interested in dir and have been reading a lot. one question that i have relates to the carrying stage bottles. when carrying two stage bottles, how do you clip off the bottle on your right side without a d-ring on your right hip?

ppo2_diver(Offline)

The DIR way of carrying stage bottles is that they are all on the left. The only thing that should be on your right hip is your can light.

DJ

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vid(Offline)

sometimes you might see a small pack / knife attached to the belt on the right side - but cylinders as DJ says are all on the left (some may be towed behind the body, depending on the number carried)


vid

Little Pete(Offline)

As stated, all stage and deco bottles are carried on the left. Also they are almost always Aluminium bottles for the buoyancy characteristics (the only exception I know of is some of the Oxygen safety bottles that are dropped in caves).

clarktenk(Offline)

One more vote for the left. It's easy with two just give it a shot. If you need more than three start looking into a leash.

mbank(Offline)

what's the reasoning for carrying 2 bottles on the left with none on the right?

Gareth Burrows(Offline)

As I understand it, it's to keep the area around the right hand free so its always clear for donating the long hose. even if that's wrong, when I was told it I went "ahhh" as it's one of those "that makes sense" things.

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davy(Offline)

Many reasons...

- the light is already there on the right
- it interferes with the long hose on the right
- it interferes with scootering on the right
- everything is rigged the same for the left, so everything is swap able
- on the left we deploy the hose behind our neck to the mouth so our response to an OOA is the same as if we were breathing the long hose

So it standardizes gear and procedures...

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of other reasons though

JS1scuba(Offline)

A lot of its genesis had to do with balance of the the stage bottle and the big canister light. The older 14 am long burn lights worn on the right side werer almost the weight of a cylinder. So balance was important. Add too it that the long hose needs to be available without obstruction during deployment and you can see why putting bottles on the left works. You can take it further to the "finger on the trigger". The DIR method was developed to support the cave exploits of the WKPP and as such every team member needs to be configured exactly the same. Since much of the work is done with a DPV driven with the right hand, the left hand needs to be the one to manage the other things. Hence bottles on the left. It goes under the clear assumption that even if you dont use a scooter today ..... you will in the future.

Having slung more bottles than I care to remember it took me a little while to make the move from right side bottle carrying (88-91) with oxygen snuggled in the back (yeah we did that) to bi-lateral nitrox left oxygen right (right right) (91-95ish) to putting them all on the left. It gets a little ugly when i have to open ocean dive with three bottles but that's rare and I worked that out too -- I drop the oxygen to the hip with the head clip and it works and then give # 3 bottle to the support diver when done with it.

Spend a little time working the scenarios. You should try a bilateral just so you know why. Just telling you wont give you the best understanding.

Cheers

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mbank(Offline)

i appreciate all of the information that you guys provided