BP/W is just a tool

[garyd54220]

First BC I ever bought was a TransPac. After trying stab jackets of many varieties in early training I found I preferred the less cluttered style of a back inflate. Tried a Scubapro KnightHawk....nope. Tried a Ranger (actually a friend's 911) again...nope, too cluttered. I haven't dove a Scout but it looks a lot like the TransPac except for the integrated weight pockets. Personally, I've never liked weight belts so integrated weight seemed like a great idea. Got the pockets for the TransPac and hated them; sloppy feeling and added clutter. Sold them and tried a DUI weight harness....harness gooood! Maybe I'd like the pockets on the Scout better but generally I don't like integrated -see KnightHawk and Ranger 911.

When I started diving doubles I tried using the TransPac with the "stabilizer plate." Not very stable. Got a Zeagle BP/W with the deluxe harness...much better. Plate + double steel 100's or 120's = no added weight. Can't beat that! Can you dive doubles with a TranPac? Sure, but I didn't like it. Hell...I've even seen people dive a set of doubles bolted to a stab jacket but they are awfully wobbly!

When I got my rebreather I set up a new plate and wing with a continuous webbing harness. Frankly I kind of miss the sternum strap of the Zeagle set-up and my 58yo shoulders miss the quick releases. Why didn't I just move the Zeagle set-up to the breather? 'Cause I didn't want to keep switching it back and forth to dive the 'breather or the doubles.
.....Now I wonder why/when I'd ever dive the doubles again, so I maybe I'll switch it after all. Want to buy a plate and harness??

On the very rare occasions when I dive a single I still dive the old TransPac with the DUI harness, and it still works fine although it is certainly not as stable as a BP/W but then it doesn't need to be. Bottom line for me is for doubles or rebreather its got to be a rigid plate. For a single it can be pretty much anything except a stab jacket...I still hate those. Sidemount is an entirely different animal.

My friend (and frequent instructor) Tamara Thomsen (look her up if you're unfamiliar with her background and add the word "diver" to the search so you don't get the artist of the same name) returned from a recent expedition to Mexico pretty excited about the Zeagle Express Tech she had taken along. Used it for sidemount in the cenote project with a bit of reconfiguration and back to normal config for rec diving on the area reefs. Said it worked great and very easy to pack.

In short (I know....too late now) I'd agree that they are all tools; though to me some are clearly better suited to certain applications and others don't really work at all for some applications.

Gary

 

[Tortuga68]

I truly don't care what other people dive; but if someone asks me for my opinion - whether it's here on SB or in person - I'm going to share my experience with them

I dive almost exclusively warm (25C+) water, mostly in a shorty or 3mm steamer; sometimes just swim trunks and a rashie. For the latter an alloy BP is just right for me with an AL80. If I'm wearing a wetsuit, or doubles, then SS is perfect

YMM - and apparently does - V

 

[TSandM]

Just to address a detail -- my understanding of a balanced rig is not that it does not require ditchable weight. It is that, if you cannot swim the rig up with a complete buoyancy failure, you HAVE ditchable weight or redundant buoyancy, or both. The classic example of an unbalanced rig is a heavy wetsuit with a large steel tank or tanks -- at depth, the wetsuit has lost 20+ pounds of lift, and the tank may be 10 pounds negative, and most people can't swim up 30 lbs. Unless you have ditchable weight in that circumstance, you are in trouble.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I have two back plates and three BC's. I typically dive warmer water and a large single steel tank and a back mounted pony. One of the BC's is a Scuba Pro Knighthak - rear inflation (I think). It pretty much sucks.

I have a Dive rite AL plate with a venture wing, it worrks ok after I had to bungi down a small section of the wing right behind my neck, because it pushed my head down. I also had to modify the plate to allow the shoulder and waist straps to slide back and forth so I could instantly adjust for different suits. It has a cross chest strap that I pretty much need for comfort. I padded the shoulders with wetsuit pads. It works OK and I prefer it when carrying a stage bottle.

I also have a Golum wing which is U-shapped bladder and I really HATE the way it traps air in one side of the wing and when I roll to the other side to balance it out, the air makes a fart noise and literally scares the fish i am trying to stalk. It is really not that comfortable. I will never buy another u-shaped wing.

I also have an old Sea Quest Predator BC, which I prefer. Removed the cummerbund and added a rubber waist strap and also added the capability to use a crotch strap when i wear a thicker 5 mm suit. This is my favorite BC.

I bought the BP/W because i read a bunch on SB and honestly never realized any of the supposed benefits. If you are carrying a stgae bottle, the BP/W rigging seems better.

I HATE using a crotch strap and avoid it when I can. If you add a crotch strap to a typical BC, much of the sloppines and ridding up of the BC is instantly fixed, just like it is on a BP/W. But it is pain to reach down and clip that thing up, if you get in and out of your rig on a small boat 5 times a day like I often do.

I prefer a BC over a backplate for my typical diving. This is my anecdotal evidence after many dives.

 

[Divedoggie]

Now there is some good discussion.

Since my BP harness was originally adjusted for doubles and drysuit, and then I switch wings and put on a 3mm, it is definitely no longer adjusted properly. It also would cause me to be too negatively buoyant with the 3mm in fresh water so I would either need another rig with AL plate or could just use the Ranger.

I'm really not trying to sell Zeagle BCs here. I have experience with them, so I use them as examples. Many of the vest style and back inflate BCs that I have owned and tried over the years were inadequate for all of the reasons mentioned in above posts.

Zeagle BCs can be custom fit to each individual. When my wife puts her Zena on, with no crotch strap, I can put my hands under the shoulder straps and hold her off the ground without the BC sliding up at all.

If the integrated weight and trim pockets of a BC are filled with dozens of pounds of weight, then the BC will become unruly and inferior to the BP/W, which is why I'm not even trying to convince anyone of a BC's value in cold water.

But if the proper fitting BC only has a few lbs in its integrated pockets, it performs just as well as a BP/W system and has the advantage IMO of pockets, padded straps, and ditchable weights. In addition, the tank couldn't be closer to the body and a part of the body than it is with the Zeagle tank mounting system. I've never felt the tank move around in any position.

New divers (all divers) should be able to swim a negatively buoyant rig to the surface and then use a redundant source of flotation to remain positively buoyant on the surface, but that isn't the way of the world.
The majority of new divers are trained to ditch weights at the surface if they can't inflate the BC, and to ditch weights below the surface if they can't swim a negatively buoyant rig up to the surface.

From what I'm reading, I should have a SS BP/W set up for doubles, another SS BP/W set up for a single with drysuit, and an AL BP/W set up for tropical. Maybe Tobin will work me a deal for the 5 additional rigs my wife and I will need.

 

[Divedoggie]

What follows is a very funny story by Uncle Pug. Its copied and pasted because I didn't want to reopen a 5 1/2 year old thread....

May 27th, 2005, 08:05 AM #1
Uncle Pug
Swims with Orca



Status
Profile InfoJoin Date: Dec 2001
Location: Pacific N.W. USA
StatsPhotos: 275
Uncle Pug dives a Zeagle Ranger BC ~ my report on the problems we had with it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday I was thrust into testing out a Zeagle Ranger BC since I forgot to take along my BP/wing/regulators... it was at the end of a long and difficult day, OK... lets just leave it at that.

First challenge was weighting. How many extra pounds would I need to add just to make the Ranger sink... 5? 10? 15? 20? I ended up adding 2# over what I normally use. This turned out to be perfect as I ended the dive with 500psi, no gas in the BC and enough in my suit to keep me warm after an hour and 45 minute dive in 50 degree water. (max depth 104')

The next challenge was attaching the light canister. There is a small fastex-buckled strap that is used to keep the air cell from tacoing up around the tank. I ran this strap through the canister belt loop mounting the canister upside down... and prayed.

There are too many D-rings on the Zeagle, they are in the wrong places and orientations and they are too floppy... but at least they make one look sporty and help with the weighting. I was able to clip off a standard DIR reg set, light head, camera, fishing pole, boat motor, tennis racket and towel... gotta have a towel if you are going to travel the universe.

Rigged up and ready to dive I was taken back years to when I had my own Zeagle Ranger BC. The walk to the water wasn't my usual spritely sprint. The integrated soft weights and steel tank were un-supported and hurt my shoulders. It felt... well... floppy. Ahhhh yes... now I remember why I preferred boat diving.

Once in the water the Ranger BC disappeared in more ways than one and fortunately no one had seen me wearing it other than my buddy OE2X who had loaned it to me.

As we started our dive the Ranger began to screw things up. It didn't effect my trim at all and I was able to hold any position I wanted without the hand finning I usually see other Ranger users employ. It didn't seem to add that much extra drag though there definitely was more than with my backplate and 27# lift wing. The problem was my mask. The Ranger was causing my mask to leak!

I seldom have a mask leak and when I do I am usually able to fix it with no problem... even masks I find on the bottom and try out for fun. But the Ranger caused my mask to leak in such a way that I was unable to correct it though I tried numerous times during the next 105 minutes!

Not only did it cause my mask to leak but it was causing OE2X's mask to leak too!

But wait... there's more! I noticed that OE2X was using his backup Scout light instead of his Terkle HID. Had the Ranger caused my buddy's HID to flood?!? We found out after the dive that the Ranger had caused the connectors in his light to not be plugged in!

Our mission on this dive was to test and compare our point~n~shoot cameras. OE2X has a new Nikon coolpix 7900 7 meg and I have the Pentax Optio s50 5 meg. Our first location was the octopus under the log at ~100'. The Ranger didn't cause any problems here... it was working ahead of us and the next problem it caused was heart breaking.

Swimming on to our second location, the I-beams at 90', we couldn't find Wendy. She wasn't in the rock pile and she wasn't under her I-beam. I don't know if the Ranger scared her away or somehow killed her and disposed of the body... but she is gone.

Moving on up to photograph warbonnets the Ranger caused a serious algae bloom. Great globs of gunk filled the water. They also found their way into our still flooding masks. The Ranger was threatening to ruin this dive but we continued. I couldn't feel it on my back as much as in my mind... this thing wanted to destroy us!

We photographed a few octopus at the Honey Bear and then set off to get shots of the small stuff on the way back. The Ranger now began to cause a surge and current wash that stirred up the salad on the bottom making it difficult for the PnS cameras to get a focus lock on our subjects... not only that... the Ranger actually increased the shutter lag of my Pentax!

Then the humiliation.

After an hour and 45 minutes we surfaced to find ourselves face to face with some DIR friends just finishing a practice dive to 40'. They were resplendent in their backplates/wings, doubles and deco bottles... and I was wearing a Zeagle Ranger BC.

They began to smile and laugh, pointing to my intersting hose routing and upside down canister. It was a long walk to the shower.
__________________
"It is an evil paradox that men with the lowest motives can launch wars by appealing to the highest ideals of better men." Charley Reese

 

[TSandM]

I don't know -- a single SS backplate, with unweighted STA for tropic diving and weighted STA for cold water, single tank diving, would do it nicely. After all, you ARE talking about having a SS BP for cold water, and a BC for warm anyway, right?

Edited to add thanks for posting that UP essay -- I had forgotten how funny that was.

 

[Divedoggie]

I don't know -- a single SS backplate, with unweighted STA for tropic diving and weighted STA for cold water, single tank diving, would do it nicely. After all, you ARE talking about having a SS BP for cold water, and a BC for warm anyway, right?

Edited to add thanks for posting that UP essay -- I had forgotten how funny that was.

Lynne, I read your post in the Rocky Mountain Oyster section about BoulderJohn's visit. Nice pix from the dives too!
So here is an unabashed self invite!
There is a good chance that Jess(my wife) and I will be heading through your neck of the woods in June. We used to do family vacations in Tofino and dive everywhere from the Hood Canal to Race Rocks to Campbell River. We haven't been to the PNW since 2004 and its high time! Never have been diving in Puget Sound.
Jess is a diver, a Veterinarian, and we live the equestrian life too, so we'd most likely have trouble getting words in edgewise!

 

[stakanak]

I must say that I am a little disappointed with Tobin for being so radical and one one sided when it comes to BP/W.
As a new diver I am up to try anything that will help me become a better diver. Everyone on this site praises DSS for their service and quality of the products. I still think I will go to them when I decide to purchase a BP/W but the unabashed attacks on the OP's post which was very positive has left a bad taste in my mouth. JMO :burnout:

 

[fnfalman]

I just finished a few dives with two instructors. One has a Dive Rite Transpac and conventional 2nd stage/octo setup, one has Halcyon Infinity with long hose/short hose setup, and lil' me with Dive Rite Transplate and SS1/2nd stage setup.

All three of us had great dives at Anacapa Island (one of the northern California channel islands). None of us got killed. None of us silted up the joint. None of us were OOA and required some sort of rescue.

Why not? Because we're pretty damn good divers and we know our gears well.

I haven't tried the BPW in tropic/warm water yet so I can't comment on how well it'd work for me. If and when I were to do the warm water thing, then I'll give it a whirl and see how it works.