Bcd Help!

[Neilwood]

[To new divers I think the BP&W just seems foreign, and it is a lot easier to stick with what you know than to leave your comfort zone. Especially since to a new diver, the act of diving itself is so new, that it feels like the safer option to go with a jacket styl one.

I very much agree. When it came time for a new BC I read all the reviews and wouldn't consider a BP&W. It was new to me, seemed over my head, and had never tried one. I thought I wasn't experienced enough to mange it. Boy was I wrong!
I've only got about 60 dives on mine and mostly with a soft travel wing, love it, easy for me (a small woman) to do everything myself, and customize it to just what suits me.[/QUOTE]

Most people will probably go for a long time before they see someone with a BP&W. The main times for people being introduced to gear is either in schools or with rentals while on holiday. Most schools teach in jackets and most rental gear abroad will tend to be jackets so when it comes to buying their own gear (if they are keen enough and make that step) they buy what they are used to using and seeing.

My last dive weekend there were 36 people and only 2 of us were wearing BP&W. I loved the ability to slip easily into my gear ( I can easily lift mine with a steel 12l tank) while everyone else was tugging at cinch straps and clips while another person held the weight of the tanks etc.

Most people, once they have seen it in action and it is explained properly, can see the benefits of the more streamlined, stripped back configuration.

 

[Storker]

Rent the film "Thunderball" and see how those guys are diving.

I wouldn't use a 40 year old James Bond movie as my primary source of information about good diving practice today. IJS.

 

[DiverDownD3]

I very much agree. When it came time for a new BC I read all the reviews and wouldn't consider a BP&W. It was new to me, seemed over my head, and had never tried one. I thought I wasn't experienced enough to mange it. Boy was I wrong!
I've only got about 60 dives on mine and mostly with a soft travel wing, love it, easy for me (a small woman) to do everything myself, and customize it to just what suits me.

Most people will probably go for a long time before they see someone with a BP&W. The main times for people being introduced to gear is either in schools or with rentals while on holiday. Most schools teach in jackets and most rental gear abroad will tend to be jackets so when it comes to buying their own gear (if they are keen enough and make that step) they buy what they are used to using and seeing.

My last dive weekend there were 36 people and only 2 of us were wearing BP&W. I loved the ability to slip easily into my gear ( I can easily lift mine with a steel 12l tank) while everyone else was tugging at cinch straps and clips while another person held the weight of the tanks etc.

Most people, once they have seen it in action and it is explained properly, can see the benefits of the more streamlined, stripped back configuration.

Yesterday was my first dives in a true BP&W as I used to have a comfort harness. Needless to say, the comfort harness will be going up for sale on eBay in the near future. I thought it was easier to get in and it felt really good underwater.

I was on the boat with a bunch of people from East Carolina University finishing their OW checkout dives and just about everyone of them was diving BP&W.

 

[tbone1004]

that is because unlike damn near every dive shop in the world, ECU understands that even though they have a near unlimited diving budget, BP/W's save them a considerable amount of money. They teach hundreds of students every year and if they had jacket bc's they would have to easily have 3-4x as many bcd's as they did students in each class which is usually around 20. Instead, they only have to have maybe 5 more than the number of students because the rigs can easily accept most body sizes. The modular nature allows them to change the wing bladders every 2-3 years, and covers and harnesses every 3-5, but the plates will last longer than the school itself. Dive shops are in general far too short sighted to see this advantage and as such choose to buy the really cheap no-warranty rigs the big manufacturers push to them.
ignorance is bliss

 

[george_austin]

I wouldn't use a 40 year old James Bond movie as my primary source of information about good diving practice today. IJS.

So what has changed? Why is a movie your "primary" source of good diving practice and not your own experience.
Those guys are either doing or or they aren't? Which is it?