Few questons on a BP/W

[Knife To Meet You]

I was in a shop recently looking to buy a BCD, slowly starting to assemble my own gear. After ooking at a few the Scubapro Hydros ro stood out felt comfotrable much more soo than any others, though noe tried underwater, what really impressed me was the user repearable and replacable parts, amongst a few other nifty features. Before purchasing I researched it online and stumbled upon the great BCD/ BPW and found many of the features I like about the Hydros were achievable with a backpplate and wing set up for a fraction of the cost.

There are no local shops near me that deal with techinical gear unfortunately leaving me with a few questions.

I'll probably be sticking to using a single tank for a long time yet. I weigh 93kg, mostly a vacation diver with no exposure suit. Though looking to start diving localy around Ireland/UK.

I was looking at the Mares XR donut wings there are 16kg and 10kg wings at virtually the same price, I imagine the 16kg might be best? Though that may be from a position of ignorance.

backplates I was looking at a 3mm hollis or mares Aluminium or a Mares xr soft backplate. In the case of the soft plate can two cambands looped through the plate and wing hold the tank in place without an sta or how would it all be held together? Otherwise if a STA is requires wingnuts would appear to be digging into the spine nesessating a hard Al plate.

 

[runsongas]

16kg is a reasonable size for an all around wing you can use in cold water and warm water in a pinch. the soft plate works fine with just cam bands as the plate has a little bit of give to bend into the tank. the mares wing does have stabilizer bars so you don't need an sta. unless if you really need to save weight on your luggage or diving steel tanks on vacation (probably only common in malta), a steel backplate is a better option.

i would take a look at the apeks d30 psd wing also since it is priced pretty competitively to the mares.

 

[dmaziuk]

This should be a sticky...

You need enough lift to float your gear. You lose buoyancy to suit compression at depth and need enough lift to compensate for that. Dep. on the dive one or the other becomes the defining factor: in cold/deep it's typically the latter. 10 kilos is more than plenty for warm water. 16 is probably enough for cold (vacation diver here). It won't be very streamlined in warm water, but extra drag shouldn't be too noticeable.

 

[Knife To Meet You]

Thanks for the responses, they were what I suspected were the case. Ordered the soft BP and 16kg wing that should be adaquate for some time.