Where/how to hang your gear on harness?

[ethanb]

You don't have to "go the DIR way" to realize the benefits of streamlining and a hogarthian configuration. Looking like a christmas tree with retractors, clips and dangling thingies all over the place is something that every diver should strive to avoid.

You don't have to use a 7' longhose when diving without a light canister. Certain shops in our area and Milwaukee stock 5' hoses that are perfect for that use, especially if diving singles. Then you can bungy the mouthpiece and have that backup under your chin, where it belongs, not tucked in some pocket or stuffed somewhere where you and your buddy can't reach it.

Console gauges are clunky, a snag hazard and usually drag and destroy the area that you're trying to enjoy during your dive. Minimalize, and get rid of the boot and all the other stuff that could mount on your wrist. The Pressure gauge can remain bootless and clipped off on your left side, where you and your buddy can easily read it. Use a bottom timer instead of the booted depth gauge.

Small dive lights are easily manage with bungy or innertube fastening to your shoulder straps. Tie a small boltnap to the light and clip it on your chest d-rings.
Then the lights are easily accessible and tucked out of the way.

Knife and sheath can be attached either to your waistbelt or shoulder strap. I prefer a small Z-knife attached to shoulder or wrist myself. Shears should go in a pocket on your thigh or waistbelt.

Thigh pockets are great for other little stuff, like tables, extra finger spools, etc.

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Wow, this thread got a lot of traffic! While I mostly agree with Paul, there's a few spots where I will differ. Note that these comments are restricted purely to recreational open water diving - different gear configurations are appropriate to different environments and most of what I will say below has no applicability to tech diving. I don't personally dive with a BP/harness in open water, but I have a fairly minimal back-inflation recreational BC, with a d-ring on each side of the chest, a pocket on the waist, and not much else. While the idea of switching to a BP/wing does have some appeal, I'm also very comfortable in my current rig and don't really see any reason to change.

While I also dive with a wrist computer, I still have a console. I want a boot over my pressure gauge - while it doesn't need the protection in the water, it does (at least for me) in my bag, on land, or on a boat. I also want a compass, but I dislike having things on both wrists (though it is often unavoidable). A console seems to be the best place to keep the compass - clipped off out of the way when you're not using it, but easily accessible when you do want it. I don't have any problem navigating with a compass on a console. In the water, I don't really find a console to be "big", "clunky", or more of a snag hazard than a lone pressure gauge. I keep the console clipped off to a left chest d-ring - I can look down and see my pressure gauge then without unclipping it. But I virtually never leave it unclipped and hanging.

I think in the long term, the reliability of air-integrated computers or other wireless/hoseless pressure monitoring will improve, and the stigma associated with it will disappear. That will then be the ideal way to track tank pressure, and then I'd probably eliminate the console and have to find another spot for my compass.

Next, I'd highly recommend getting a five foot hose and using it on your primary regulator. It greatly simplifies air sharing, especially in real situations where everything isn't the way you plan it. A five foot hose is easy to route - with or without a canister light. The only inconvenience I'd had with it is that, when I'm putting my gear on, I'm more likely to drop my regulator all the way the ground, instead of being caught by a hose. With the five foot hose, anyone who wants to share air will be taking your long hose. Now put your backup regulator on a short hose, and hang it around your neck with a necklace.

Going to the long hose and necklace does wonders in cleaning up your chest. You now have all that space available for "other stuff", without concerns about items interfering with deployment of a backup regulator.

For your primary light - I'm guessing the "D8" model is a larger 8-cell UK light. While a HID canister light is nice, they also cost upwards of $500 - even if I did own one, I don't think I'd take it on every OW dive I did for fear of breaking it. I personally think handheld halogen lights are great for rec diving - I use an 8C light from Princeton Tek.

You've got a few options here. One is just to clip it directly to a chest or hip d-ring. If you're going to be using it for most of the dive, then it probbly won't spend much time there. I currently keep mine on a Princeton Tek "coil retractor" clipped to my right shoulder. I really like the fact that I can "drop it" without having to clip it off, when I need a free hand. I can use the light "clipped in" if I just need it briefly, or unclip it and have it at full length if I'm going to be using it for a while.

Again, using a canister light with a Goodman handle would mean I could use my hands without having to put down my light, but they're expensive and overkill for most recreational diving. I've never had the retractor snag on anything (and I could certainly cut it if it did), and I haven't found it to be an impediment to using the light in any way. However, the "coil retractor" does annoy me in that it allows the light to hang a bit (maybe 1-2 inches) lower than it would if I were just using a clip. It's enough of an annoyance that I often shove the light under my BC waist-band when I won't be using it for a while. I've thought about moving it to the back of my right - perhaps one of these days I will add a hip d-ring and start keeping the light there with a simple clip.

For your small light, I see two options. One is to keep it a pocket. The upside of that is that it's out of the way, but you also might not notice if it is switched on accidentally. I would recommend keeping it on your left shoulder or left abdomen. Tie a clip to the handle, clip the clip to your left chest d-ring, and stow the light underneath two loops of bungie cord wrapped around the harness webbing. You'll have to determine for yourself whether it works better "up" on your shoulder or "down" on your abdomen. For sidemount, I keep it up; for back-mount, I keep it down. This way, it's easily accesible - the deployment process for me is to yank it out of the bungies, flip it on, then unclip it. It's also very obvious if you flip it on accidently.

I haven't really found a great solution for knifes and shears yet. I'd recommend getting a Dive Rite Z-knife and keeping it on your wrist-mount computer strap. I have them on all my computers and it's a good spot to keep them. I also dive with a small traditional blunt-tip dive knife in a sheath bolted to my BC waist pocket, but you won't have that with a standard BP/wings setup. I've seen people with knifes on BC hoses as well - that seems to be another reasonable spot, though I hate having heavy stuff there.

I don't dive with a safety sausage, so I don't have any personal experience there. But I'd think either keeping it in a pocket, or, if it is larger, across the bottom of your BP (as you would a lift bag).

The camera is another tough one - I've just started diving with a camera as well. For day dives, I've been clipping it to my right chest ring, the same spot as I keep the light. I tried it on the left chest once when I had the light, but I didn't like the way it sat there. I'm also thinking about moving it to my right hip, or perhaps moving the light there and keeping the camera on my chest. Ask me again in a year...

I hope this helps... As far as I'm concerned, there really are no straight-forward answers - there is no one correct way to arrange your equipment. It really depends on how you use it.

Ethan