Ditching the poodle jacket

[H2O 70]

A lot of good info in here.

Two things that were not really touched on.

If you get a plate that has slots for bands so you can simply attach the tank to the plate, you're going to have to deal with the 'button' screws that are holding the wing to the plate. The button screws lay right on the axis of the tank. The tank is going to want to lay on one side or the other, or you can split them diagonally. The point is on the bigger tanks you can feel yourself listing one way or the other or you tank feels caddy whomper on your back. For that reason I'd suggest the STAs.

You mention comfort a couple of times. I have dove my SS back plate with nothing buy trunks on. No issues with discomfort at all. In fact the only comfort issue I'll point out is that walking around with my rig on, and I use a hog harness, I can feel the pressure deltoids(?) (the muscle group that comes from your shoulder to your neck). Then again these aren't backpacks and were diving. I've heard a lot of people complain about back pain when using WI or a weight belt because you're trying to be horizontal and you have a lot of weight pulling down on the small of your back. Not at bad in the WI BCD's. The plate puts a chunk on the weight evenly on your back, over your lungs.

As for balancing your rig and ditchable weight issue, it is nothing a reel and lift bag can't help out with.

Here is what would be my ultimate travel BC. My buddy and I had this discussion the other day.

"I'd get the OxyCheq SS Travel Plate Scuba Center | OxyCheq Harnesses & Backplates | Stainless Steel Backplates, Colored Aluminum Plates, Hogarthian Harnesses, Adjustable Webbing Harnesses,... and a simple one piece harness like I've got now.

I'd get the OxyCheq Sausage weight pocket OxyCheq Sausage Weight Pocket reviews and discounts, OxyCheq

I'd get the OxyCheq Mach V wing. Not sure if I'd get 30# or 18#'s of lift. Scuba Center | OxyCheq Aircells | OxyCheq Single Bladder and Dual Bladder Wings

I'd get the OxyCheq Light Weight Single Tank Adapter Wings-STA "

 

[InTheDrink]

one more thing before I kick off bedtime stories - are wings more likely to puncture than BCs and if so, how frequent is a major bladder failure? I'm not likely to be doing serious wreck penetration or caves any time soon so I'm guessing getting the 'bullet proof' wings at this point would be overkill?

Cheers,
J

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Well, you should be neutral to begin with, right? So while there may be a 20# difference in wetsuit bouyancy between the surface and the deep, it certainly doesn't mean that you'll be 20#s negative when you suffer the failure.

Besides, if you're diving a suit that loses 20#s of bouyancy with depth, then you need to either be diving dry or get a better suit. There's just no reason for that much of a change.

Regardless, not one agency in the world recommends ditching weight at depth. With regards to ditching weight, they ALL specify that it should only happen at the surface, if at all.

A better plan is to dive with a balanced rig in the first place, that you can swim up at any point... That is, you've "already ditched your weight." You're simply not diving with it in the first place.

I should be neutral at 15' with a near empty tank, the example you used is 30M.

You specifically mentioned catastrophic wing failure or OOG at 30M and and dismissed using an SMB or D/S for redundant flotation. I don't see how a balanced rig matters, a normal man is still close to 20# or so negative in a 7mm suit at this depth and is going to have a very difficult time swimming this amount up.

You have not articulated a solution.

I am not advocating ditching weight at depth as a good plan, but I do advocate having a plan to deal with a BCD failure. Mine is always carry an SMB, others may choose another path.

 

[H2O 70]

one more thing before I kick off bedtime stories - are wings more likely to puncture than BCs and if so, how frequent is a major bladder failure? I'm not likely to be doing serious wreck penetration or caves any time soon so I'm guessing getting the 'bullet proof' wings at this point would be overkill?

Cheers,
J

For the first time I recently read about someone who got a 'pinch flat' in the bladder of their wing. I think it is a current thread.

They would travel, in their car, with the wing, plate and tank hooked up and somehow it slid around, and got a pinch flat.

The only time of heard of wing or bladder failure it has nothing to do with the bladder, it is the valves.

If you're crawling around in caves and through old metal wrecks I would say your have a greater opportunity, but in general I would say it is really no different that a regular BC.

All the wings I've touched and handled used a pretty heavy denier courdura for their shell. The OxyCheq wings I believe are a bit heavier. All are pretty bullet proof.

 

[Deep South Divers]

And it did rub in one other aspect that is even if you lose some of your weight, you can probably control your ascent, especially igf there's a buddy even vaguely near you.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that solution.

What if *I* was your buddy and *I* told you that I could probably control my ascent by holding on to you?

Clearly it depends how much weight you're talking about losing but making an absolute statement about *never* ditching weight at depth doesn't make much sense to me.

It should... It was a question on your PADI, NAUI, BSAC, SSI, or YMCA (or whatever) Open Water I exam.

"Never ditch your weight at depth" is a basic - as basic as "never hold your breath." If you CAN ditch your weight at depth (or find an advantage in doing so), then you're diving overweighted in the first place. The mantra "Never ditch your weight at depth" came right after the chapter outlining how to precisely weight yourself correctly.

The real solution for ditching weight is to ditch it on the dock... Leave it off of your rig in the first place. You should always be able to swim your rig up. If you can't, then it's time to reweight yourself. If that doesn't solve the issue, then it's time to consider a different setup - better exposure protection, lighter tanks, an aluminum plate, or whatever. If you can't swim your rig up, then you're plainly leaving yourself open for an issue to arise one day where... You can't swim your rig up.

Holding on to your buddy - using a lift bag to haul yourself out - "walking out" of a small dive site - ditching the weight that you shouldn't have been diving with in the first place... These are all poor, convoluted solutions to symptoms that point to a simple problem... That your configuration needs to be rethought and/or "recalibrated." The solution to that simple problem is equally simple - weight yourself properly (again, covered in Basic Open Water classes) and dive with your weight "already ditched."

 

[Deep South Divers]

I should be neutral at 15' with a near empty tank, the example you used is 30M.

True and true. And 30M is 100' - just pointing that out so that we can all be on the same page 'cause of the whole metric/imperial thing.

My point is that if you're neutral at 15' with no gas in your wing at all and a near empty tank, then there's no way you'll be negative by 20 pounds at any point during the dive, unless it's caused by having too much gas (eg five full stage bottles, which can be ditched themselves)... Which is never a problem.

Most wetsuit manufacturers will tell you that a wetsuit loses about 80% of it's bouyancy in the first 20' underwater... That is, there's only a couple of pounds' lift difference, even in thick wetsuits, from 15' to 100'. Regardless, if you're finding the compression in your wetsuit to be a problem, then it's either time for a better quality suit or a time for a drysuit.

You specifically mentioned catastrophic wing failure or OOG at 30M and and dismissed using an SMB or D/S for redundant flotation.

I addressed it... I said that it complicated an already messed up situation (the initial wing failure) and was not as good of a solution as simply swimming your rig up.

I don't see how a balanced rig matters, a normal man is still close to 20# or so negative in a 7mm suit at this depth and is going to have a very difficult time swimming this amount up.

That's simply not true.

Figure it this way: If a guy is perfectly weighted with an empty tank at 15' (with no gas in his wing), then at the beginning of the dive he'd be 6 lbs negative, since that's the weight of air in his tank, right? (Assuming AL80 for simplicity.)

The buoyancy characteristics of neoprene changes from manufacturer to manufacturer, but suffice to say that my XL O'Neill 7mm suit is 16 pounds positive at the surface, in salt water (it's less in fresh). At 20', it would only be 3.2 pounds positive or so, due to compression. Even if we err on the big side (hood, booties, gloves, etc.) we MIGHT be looking at 5 pounds positive at 20' or so.

At 100 feet, the suit's lost ALMOST ALL of it's buoyancy characteristics - so if we say that the difference is FIVE POUNDS (all of it) then the total this diver should ever be negative is about 11 pounds. Less if he's got anything less than a completely full tank.

...And 11 pounds is very easy to swim up. If you're 20 pounds negative at any point during your dive, especially if you're measuring with less than a full tank, while NOT wearing a thick 7mm suit, or NOT in salt water, then your weighting is off, and needing to ditch in order to be able to ascend is a symptom of the real problem - not the problem itself.

Being overweighted usually results in bad trim, poor gas consumption, poor skill sets, inefficiency while swimming, and more... So aside from being safer, diving correctly weighted also has a bunch of simpler, more practical advantages.

...But you don't have to take my word for it, or even follow my logic. It's in the Basic Open Water manuals for all of the major agencies. Read it for yourself.

 

[InTheDrink]

A lot of good info in here.

Two things that were not really touched on.

If you get a plate that has slots for bands so you can simply attach the tank to the plate, you're going to have to deal with the 'button' screws that are holding the wing to the plate. The button screws lay right on the axis of the tank. The tank is going to want to lay on one side or the other, or you can split them diagonally. The point is on the bigger tanks you can feel yourself listing one way or the other or you tank feels caddy whomper on your back. For that reason I'd suggest the STAs.

You mention comfort a couple of times. I have dove my SS back plate with nothing buy trunks on. No issues with discomfort at all. In fact the only comfort issue I'll point out is that walking around with my rig on, and I use a hog harness, I can feel the pressure deltoids(?) (the muscle group that comes from your shoulder to your neck). Then again these aren't backpacks and were diving. I've heard a lot of people complain about back pain when using WI or a weight belt because you're trying to be horizontal and you have a lot of weight pulling down on the small of your back. Not at bad in the WI BCD's. The plate puts a chunk on the weight evenly on your back, over your lungs.

As for balancing your rig and ditchable weight issue, it is nothing a reel and lift bag can't help out with.

Here is what would be my ultimate travel BC. My buddy and I had this discussion the other day.

"I'd get the OxyCheq SS Travel Plate Scuba Center | OxyCheq Harnesses & Backplates | Stainless Steel Backplates, Colored Aluminum Plates, Hogarthian Harnesses, Adjustable Webbing Harnesses,... and a simple one piece harness like I've got now.

I'd get the OxyCheq Sausage weight pocket OxyCheq Sausage Weight Pocket reviews and discounts, OxyCheq

I'd get the OxyCheq Mach V wing. Not sure if I'd get 30# or 18#'s of lift. Scuba Center | OxyCheq Aircells | OxyCheq Single Bladder and Dual Bladder Wings

I'd get the OxyCheq Light Weight Single Tank Adapter Wings-STA "

You don't happen to work for OxyCheq by any chance do you?

Having said that prior to your post I was already starting to settle on them for most of what I want, with the exception of the plate, which I was considering the Freedom Plate a) cos of exceptional reviews and b) it genuinely is beautiful (if pictures are true)

With regards to 30# Vs 18# - what would you base your decision on here as I really don't know what to base it on (apart from their website only having the 30# available)?

I don't usually inflate much and am diving wet (usually 5mm). I use relatively little weight (2-4kg) with my Mares Dragon BC. I dive singles and don't carry much with me so not sure of my requirement for lift.

TIA,

J

 

[TSandM]

The point is on the bigger tanks you can feel yourself listing one way or the other or you tank feels caddy whomper on your back.

This does not happen with the STA-less DSS wings, which are the only ones I have used. The wobble stopper keeps the tank quite stable in the middle of one's back.

SeaJay, I'll agree that steel tanks will get rust spots, and will leave marks on fiberglass boats. That's why I have rubber mats in my boat. But it is a VERY rare diver here in Puget Sound who dives Al80 single tanks for very long -- they just don't make any sense here. Steel tanks are almost ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest -- in salt water. Only in warm salt water do Al80s make sense.

And finally, if you are doing a sub-30 meter dive, I hope you have at least 100 cubic feet of gas on your back. If you are weighted to be neutral with an EMPTY tank, you will be 7 lbs NEGATIVE at the beginning of the dive from the gas you are carrying. At the end of your descent, you will still be 7 lbs negative from gas, but you will now also be 20 pounds negative from buoyancy loss in a heavy wetsuit, or 27 pounds negative. If at this point you pull the inflator hose off your BC while attempting to use your pull dump (which happens!) you are on the bottom with a BC you can't put any air in and that won't hold any of what's in it if you are at all head up. At this point, you'd better have weight to ditch, or redundant buoyancy.

I know, and you know, that the better solution is NOT to be at 100 feet with a heavy wetsuit. But telling someone never, ever to pull their weights at depth could result in an avoidable fatality. It is NOT what every agency teaches. Even GUE teaches you either to have redundant buoyancy, or ditchable weight, with the former vastly preferred.

 

[JeffG]

My point is that if you're neutral at 15' with no gas in your wing at all and a near empty tank, then there's no way you'll be negative by 20 pounds at any point during the dive, unless it's caused by having too much gas (eg five full stage bottles, which can be ditched themselves)... Which is never a problem.

Actually you can.

The weight of gas in your tank + the amount of buoyancy lost due to suit compression while at depth.

Take a Ontario diver with farmer john 7mm suit with a full single 130. He goes down to 100ft at the start of his dive.


He will be close to -20 lbs.

You might need to revisit what a balanced rig is.

 

[Deep South Divers]

An 18# wing would be ideal for someone diving in waters where a wetsuit was never necessary (thus wouldn't need to be compensated for because of compression). If you're diving a 5 mm suit, then stick with the 30# wing. It's the standard single-tank wing anyway, and will serve you well in a variety of environments.

I don't own a Mach V wing, but the online video demonstration looks impressive.