Posted by Joe R on May 15, 2002 at 06:48:24:
In Reply to: Re: OMS- why is it so bad? posted by Kendall Raine on May 14, 2002 at 11:54:50:
Would you call John Bennett a beginning technical diver??
He used the Phantom light and OMS wings on his 1000 ft plus dive..
can you point to even 1 case where the quick release buckle failed on an OMS harness?? How many OW divers wearing BCs have you ever heard of breaking their quick release.. If there was such a danger wouldn't you think there would be a recall or consumer warning..
If the release fails so what.. with the chest strap in place (on the oms harness) the tanks don't go anywhere.. especially if stops are put on the harness where it goes though the backplate..
I think its more important if the diver is confortable with their gear and know where everything is and how to access it under all circumstances.
Plastic buckle.. spend $10 and add a SS buckle.. simple enough..
I personally like the harness over a 1 piece harness.. (although I rarely dive OC scuba anymore)I never liked the 1 piece harness since it forces me to wear it loser than I prefer to enable ditching the gear quickly when wearing my DUI drysuit.. In a wet suit its no problem (although anything mounted on my left forearm will slow you down a bit), but I find the 1 piece suc** when I wear a drysuit. My last harness (I made) was made using Highland mills polygons, drop ds, adjustable waist d rings and a single quick release..
To bungee or not to bungee, I don't care either way.. If the bladder is redundant and 1 fails you always have the other one to inflate unless you did something very stupid and punctured both bladders. I tried an experiment to see how much air the bungee (it wasn't a very tight bungee but tight enough to collapse wings) can evaquate.. I REMOVED the dump on the bottom of the bladder to simulate a puncture, as long as I was vertical I was able to keep enough air in the bladder to give me lift (and no problem orally inflating).. I did the same with an unbungied wing and found I had to be much more careful with the orientation to keep gas in the bladder, the bungies may help deflation but they also create some resistance to trap air if not too tight.
Bottom line if you don't like OMS don't use it, but don't discount others opinions.. I personally don't like the IQ pack but I know many who swear by it, do I put it down.. nope just say its not for me..