Core Configuration Overview
Every diver, on every dive, carries the same core configuration. This is deliberate, not incidental. What follows is the baseline every diver is expected to have in the water, regardless of environment, training, or level. Training-specific standards will layer additional requirements on top of this.
Minimum Gear
- Backplate and wing BC (single / double cylinder configuration)
- Hogarthian regulator configuration (long hose primary, necklaced backup)
- Analog SPG
- Exposure suit appropriate to the environment (wetsuit or drysuit)
- Neoprene hood
- Fins (non-split)
- Mask with neoprene strap
- DSMB with spool
- Dive computer
- Compass
- Cutting tool
- Light
- Wrist slate or wetnotes with pencil
- Pocket(s) (shorts, integrated wetsuit, drysuit, pouch)
Twinset and sidemount configurations modify several of these items - the harness, the regulator routing, and cylinder handling all change accordingly. Those variations are addressed in the equipment sections of the relevant training standards, not here. This section covers what stays constant underneath all of them.
Why Each Item Is There
Backplate and wing
A single continuous piece of webbing, a D-ring on each shoulder, rubber retainers for lights, a D-ring at the left hip for the SPG, a standard buckle, and a crotch strap - every one of these has a fixed location for a reason: so a teammate can locate and use any of it without first figuring out where you put it. The wing itself is sized to the cylinder, not oversized "for margin." An oversized wing is slack you carry for no benefit and drag you pay for on every kick.
Hogarthian regulator configuration
The long hose exists for one scenario: donating your primary to an out-of-gas teammate while retaining the ability to swim single-file out of a restriction, an exit, or a silty environment side by side or in line. The necklace backup sits in the same place on every diver so that you in zero visibility, under stress, will be reaching for something you already know how to find on your rig. The SPG hose is sized so the gauge doesn't dangle and drag, but stays reachable enough to unclip and check. None of these lengths are arbitrary; each solves a specific failure mode that shows up the moment a dive stops going according to plan.
Analog SPG - and not transmitters
This is one of the few pieces of gear we restrict outright, and the restriction is deliberate rather than incidental. A wireless transmitter puts your gas pressure on permanent display, usually on your dive computer, glanceable at any moment without effort. That convenience is exactly the problem. Gas awareness is a skill - the habit of deliberately checking your SPG at defined intervals, cross-referencing it against your dive plan, your depth, and your teammates' consumption, and building an internal sense of your gas state rather than simply reading a number whenever it happens to be in view. A transmitter removes the need to build that habit at all. It doesn't make a diver gas-aware; it makes gas awareness optional, right up until the diver finds themselves without a transmitter, or without a functioning or a faulty one, in the one moment it actually matters. We require an analog SPG connected by hose because the deliberate act of reaching for it, unclipping it, and reading it is not friction to be engineered away - it is the training itself.
Exposure suit
Thermal protection isn't comfort. It's cognitive bandwidth. A cold diver's attention narrows: shivering degrades fine motor control, and discomfort competes for the limited mental resources needed to stay aware of the situation. A 5 mm wetsuit is the recommended baseline for dives up to 30 meters. A 7 mm suit is permitted only to a maximum depth of 10 meters, and nothing thicker is allowed in our training programmes due to its compression rate.
Neoprene hood
Heat loss through the head and neck is disproportionate to their surface area, and a chilled diver degrades before they realise they're degrading. A hood is cheap insurance against a problem that otherwise creeps in silently over the course of a dive.
Fins
Split fins trade propulsive control for the appearance of effortless kicking. What they actually sacrifice is precision - the ability to execute a controlled backward kick, a helicopter turn, or fine positional adjustment near a fragile environment or a restriction. We require rigid, non-split fins because propulsion technique is a core competency in this training, and split fins make several of the techniques we teach mechanically difficult to perform well.
Mask with neoprene strap
Silicone straps are prone to slipping and twisting when adjusted with wet hands or gloves, making precise positioning unnecessarily frustrating. More importantly, even a small nick or cut can rapidly propagate into a complete tear under tension, often resulting in sudden strap failure. Because mask removal and replacement are fundamental skills practised repeatedly throughout a diver's training, a strap that is both difficult to handle and vulnerable to damage represents an unnecessary point of weakness. Neoprene solves a problem silicone quietly creates.
DSMB and spool
Capped at one 90x20 cm with a closed end, an oral inflation valve, and an overpressure valve, paired with 26 meters of line - every specification here addresses a failure mode: an open-ended DSMB that floods and won't inflate, a line too short to reach the surface from operational depth, an overpressure event with no relief. Surface signalling is only as reliable as the equipment behind it, and a DSMB that fails at the surface has failed at the exact moment it was needed.
Dive computer
This is deliberately unglamorous. During training, a computer's job is to track depth and time accurately, and nothing more is asked of it. The only feature we require is accurate timekeeping, and the display must show elapsed dive time down to the second. Seconds matter because ascent rates, stop timing, and skill drills are measured against them. Sophistication is not a marker of competence. The actual skill is understanding decompression theory well enough to interpret what the computer is telling you. The device is a tool, not a credential, and a simpler computer keeps your attention on the dive rather than on the screen.
Compass
Cutting tool
Knives are excluded, not because they can't cut line, but because a blade introduces a cutting risk to hoses, drysuits, and teammates that a compact line cutter does not. The requirement solves for the actual tasks it needs to - freeing a diver or teammate from entanglement, and, more critically, cutting away continuous webbing during a surface rescue in an emergency - without introducing a new hazard in the process.
Light
Required equipment regardless of conditions, because visual communication and equipment inspection depend on it even in bright, open water - a hand signal in shadow, a valve that needs checking, a teammate's gauge that needs confirming, all of it depends on having a light in hand rather than hoping ambient light is sufficient.
In daylight, open water conditions, a diver must carry at least one light. This can be either a primary or a backup, mounted on the harness or worn on the hand with a Goodman handle - the choice is left to preference, because in an environment that still forgives a slow response, a single reliable light is enough to cover the realistic demand.
That changes the moment natural light disappears or becomes unreliable. In night diving and any overhead environment, every diver must carry one primary light and two backup lights, at all times, with no exceptions. The primary light must be fitted with a solid metal Goodman handle - a plastic or improvised handle is not acceptable here, because a failure at the handle in an environment with no ambient light and potentially no direct route to the surface is not a minor inconvenience, it is the loss of your only source of vision. Corded canister lights are strongly favoured for primary lights in these environments - though not mandated exclusively - because a separated battery canister distributes weight more favourably and tends to offer longer burn times than a self-contained head unit - both of which matter more as exposure to the overhead environment increases.
Battery capacity is treated the same way as gas reserves: planned for the dive that's supposed to happen, and built with margin for the one that doesn't. The primary light must have a rated burn time of at least twice the planned dive duration, and each backup light must be rated for no less than the full planned duration on its own. A light that runs out with time still left on the dive plan is not a minor equipment shortfall - in reduced-light or overhead conditions, it is the same category of failure as running out of gas, and it is planned against with the same discipline.
Wrist slate or wetnotes.
Communication underwater is otherwise limited to a working set of hand signals and touch contact. A slate exists for the moment those aren't enough - recording a compass heading, confirming a plan mid-dive, communicating something too specific for a hand signal to carry.
Pocket(s)
One thigh pocket is the absolute minimum. Two, one on each thigh, is ideal: contingency gear like a backup mask, wetnotes, or a spare spool gets a fixed, symmetrical place you can reach by feel. A snug, secure pouch is an acceptable alternative. Equipment clipped to the harness that dangles is not. Loose gear snags, drags through silt, and turns an avoidable entanglement risk into one you carry for the whole dive.
A Note on Local Regulations
This baseline configuration reflects what FlowState Divers requires across every training environment we operate in. It is not necessarily everything you are legally required to carry. Many countries and regions impose their own equipment regulations on top of this - a second cutting device, specific signalling equipment, or requirements tied to marine park or protected-site access are common examples, and they vary widely from one jurisdiction to the next.
It is the diver's responsibility to know what applies locally. Check with your mentor before attending training, and before any dive conducted outside a training context, to confirm what local regulation requires in addition to what's listed here. This document sets our floor. It does not override the law of the place you're diving in.