To sling or not to sling, that is the question…
OK, so on Sunday at the dive show I bought myself a nice shiny new Pony and regulator setup. The first question I was asked on YD when mentioning that I had bought it was “Are you back mounting it or side slinging it?” To which my immediate thought was “I haven’t got a clue, I hadn’t thought of that!”
Side Slung Pony 
Traditionally Back Mounted Pony
So these are the two options, and I haven’t yet decided what to do. I was expecting to mount it the traditional way next to my main 12 litre cylinder on my back, but that will be pretty heavy. It should not cause any problems in the type of diving that I do, in as much as I do not enter any small spaces, so it would only be drag issues. However, a couple of people have suggested that I go down the side slung route, which takes some of the weight and moves it to another location, however I am concerned that the extra bulkiness might get in the way when I am trying to do other stuff, and it will also have a lot of movement being slung that way. I have seen divers with twin stages attached diving in Stoney, doing kit familiarisation drills etc, and they look very cumbersome and nearly always have to ask other divers to unclip the stage when they are getting out of the water or de-kitting. Is a Pony mounted in a slightly different way, or am I missing something ?
Anyway, I guess the only way to find out is to do a couple of dives with it mounted each way, and see which suits me the best, but input is always welcomed!
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April 10th, 2006 @ 8:02 am
Derek - side slinging is the way to go! We used to do it like this, and still would if we used a single and pony. It is very easy and as a pony is smaller than a stage, generally, it isn’t as cumbersome
ATB
Lou
April 27th, 2006 @ 7:33 am
Ratty,
just going down the same route as you… I’m ’slinging’ it!
Pete
April 29th, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
Tried both, and decided to go the backmounted route. I tend to use a camera as well, and found the sideslung technique got in the way and also put me off balance. Yes, changing cylinders is more time consuming with back mounted, and you need to counter the trim by placing some weights on teh opposite side - most BC’s have a trim pocket for this.
Some say a sideslung os good for passing to an OOA diver - personally, the pony is there for me, not them. I will always offer my octopus to an OOA diver and reserve the pony for myself and share with OOA if need be if things get that bad. Some divers say you should remove the octopus if you have a pony. I disagree and prefer to havethree regulators available - redundancy on the master, and the additional on the pony. better to have an extra reg and hose to worry about than restrict your redundancy options.
Weight issue? Well, a 15L and 3L cylinder does add up in weight, but for an average man, this shouldn’t be a problem. Now for those divers that break dive lifts, perhaps this isn’t the right option…….