Sidemount Diving - Openwater, in Wrecks, or in Caves
The term “Sidemount Diving” generally describes a technique and configuration of scuba diving where the tanks are attached on the divers side rather than on his back as in the backmounted configuration. Having its origins mostly from U.K. sump diving in the 1960´s it first appeared on the U.S. cave diving scene in the 1970´s used by Florida cave diver Woody Jasper whom due to an accident was unable to use manifolded double cylinders. So the main original use and adaptation was for ease of transportation outside of the water.
Inspired by Woody Jasper soon other divers followed in the 1980's, like Wes Skiles who not only saw the benefit of Sidemounting in the ease of carrying single cylinders rather than doubles to the water, but also understood the advantage of lateral mounted cylinders when it came to exploring smaller parts of caves and wrecks. The 1990's saw the first commercialy manufactured Sidemount equipment with the TransPac by Dive Rite's owner and Florida cave diver Lamar Hires. Soon Sidemount diving became the number one choice for most cave explorers.
In 2002 the second very commonly used Sidemount gear came on the market with the Armadillo, yet another design from a Florida cave diver, Brett Hemphill, which was specificly designed as well to be used with heavy steel cylinders.
Starting from 2006 untill now we are in the middle of a Sidemount boom all over the world with more and more people realizing that carrying your cylinders on the back makes a lot of sense outside of the water where the concept of carrying heavy loads on the back is thousands of years old. But once in the water, putting your life support equipment in a place where you can't see it and where it is hard to reach seems to be less than ideal.
In the Sidemount configuration having the cylinders behind your shoulders streamlined and not creating and additional drag, greatly facilitates moving through the water as efficient and easy as possible. Its a true experience of freedom under water.
Since then many CCR Rebreather divers using similar techniques to stow their bail out tanks in a Sidemount configuration and many cave divers changed over to enjoy the freedom of Sidemount diving without the restricting, heavy set of doubles on the back.
Lately it also became a huge trend in the recreational diving market and even large training organizations like PADI accept this “new” form of diving and support it. The ease to attach and dettach the cylinders to yourself in the water and not having to perform a balance act before and after the dive on the often shaky dive boats or long surface walks.
The year of 2008 has seen a lot of new commercially produced Sidemount rigs hitting the market with the Dive Rite Nomad, the Recon, the SM 1000 and the Razor of U.K. Mexican resident cave diver Steve Bogaerts amongst others.
When one pays a bit closer attention though they mostly follow all but one and the same principle, which features a recreational type harness with adjustable plastic buckles, a huge butt plate with even bigger door handles (used to attach heavy steel cylinders) and plenty of shock cord which help to minimize and streamline the otherwise quiet huge and dangly rigs and configurations.
The ProTec STEALTH Sidemount gear system
A note about the previous manufactuer of our STEALTH design - EQUES in Patricks words: Two years ago I was offered the great opportunity to design my own Sidemount System by Eques, a Polish company, who started right away to produce STEALTH prototypes based on my ideas. Communication with Eques was poor from the beginning as this project seemed to be very low on their agenda and so waiting for answers to my emails for weeks was not something unusual.
This became more and more frustrating as I had so many of our ProTec friends interested in the STEALTH system but simply had no support or information from Eques as to what was going on or when they can ship and so forth. Months turned into a year without anything happening. Besides that there were many things I wanted to change on the original design but never received answers or was simply ignored even after sending several emails. Then I would receive again another test model without the necessary changes I had recommended.
Finally when I went to Europe to teach and they shipped a bunch of units to my home address in Austria. The shipment was super late and arrived only days before I had to leave. Besides that the order was not only incomplete as there was one unit missing but also not compatible with the hardware I brought from Mexico as they had cut an opening too big. After complaining and asking for a fast solution to the problem they did not even return my phone calls anymore.
But as it goes sometimes in life, shortly after I was put in touch with the owner of X-Deep, another Polish dive gear manufacturer specialised in technical diving equipment. Together we were able to take my experience from the Eques system and his expertise in manufacturing and design a truly flexible system that already has tons of fans amongst the cave divers of the area.
Of course there were some bumps on the road. Eques had patented all my ideas forcing us to re-design even the bits and pieces I liked in order to avoid a law suit. And at the end Eques even used the name STEALTH for their gear and my name to advertise their equipment. Nonetheless, we are continuing with the developement, design and production using the same concept but with more experience and a better partner which made it possible in a short time to absolutely revolutionise my first design. We really can speak of a STEALTH 2.0, the next generation.
We would like to apologize to our friends, students and STEALTH users for the inconveniance caused in the past. But now we want to look positive in the future.
How came the STEALTH to be
The year of 2009 was our year and Patrick Widmann had the chance to go to the drawing board. Patrick is a sidemount fanatic since 2005 and has used this type of gear configuration in many forms and shapes during a cave and a wreck exploration project in the Egyptian Red Sea as well as for all of his cave exploration projects in Mexico. During that time he had plenty of time to see all the features he liked and did not like on the available Sidemount systems, as well as to understand the needs he had.
The STEALTH Sidemount gear components
This is by no means a reinvention of the wheel but simply an adopting and adjusting of already proven and accepted Sidemount gear, techniques, features and configurations. It was felt that the Sidemount gear should have a minimum of features.
1) Switching from drysuit to wetsuit in less then 5 minutes (As teaching and guiding in a drysuit but exploring in a wetsuit).
2) Easy to add or subtract up to 42 lbs/19 kg weight under water in specific designed compartments that help with trim. (To simplify teaching by having the possibility to weight and trim the student without leaving the water).
3) No plastic buckles, clips or other easy to brake material.
4) Adopt the simplicity of the Hogarthian Gear Configuration.
5) The possibility to add a butt plate when diving with steel cylinders in cold water or deep.
6) Multiple and flexible adjustment points to fit any size diver from huge to tiny.
7) Sufficient space to pack enough weight for heavy undergarment and soft weights.
8) A buoyancy device system that is removable under water (to give maximum safety when diving extrem small cave) and be placed where the diver really needs it: On the lower back instead around the shoulders.
9) Enough lift to carry heavy tanks, multiple stages, scooters and camera gear with minimum lift of 42lbs/19kg.
10) Power Inflator and dumb valve.
11) A buoyancy device that follows the body curve of a diver with a horizontal position and an arched back.
12) Maximum stream lining.
13) Maximum durability and high standard material (heavy duty cordura, webbing and zipper).
After six month of designing and 18 month of test diving while implementing changes and re-designing we are very happy and proud to present our STEALTH Sidemount System.
We have used the STEALTH system for long range 30.000ft/9km penetration multi-stage, multi-scooter exploratory cave dives, while diving in wetsuits and drysuits, conducting multigas technical trimix deep dives, extreme Sidmount and no-mount cave diving, Sidemount wreck diving as well as leisure open water ocean Sidemount diving with over 200 hours of diving and testing in these different environments and diving applications.
Contact us by email to make your order or click here to see purchase options and use the buy now PayPal buttons next to each item. Please inquire prior ordering about availability and exact shipping cost via FedEx or DHL to your location. As an option you can pick up your STEALTH gear here at our ProTec locations in Playa del Carmen or Tulum. We accept PayPal, credit cards via PayPal and wire money transfer.
If you plan to do your sidemount training with ProTec or pick up your STEALTH gear at our ProTec locations we offer a free gear adjustment workshop.
The dive gear, services, support, diving and training on this web site are offered by the ProTec Dive Centers in Playa del Carmen with ProTec Playa & Tulum with ProTec Tulum, Mexico.
STEALTH Sidemount gear front
If you have any questions or need any assistance please do not hesitate to contact us by email
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