Getting First Wing Setup, NEED HELP

[Jason]

Call Tobin (@cool_hardware52) at Deep Sea Supply. He'll actually walk through all of the calculations with you on the phone and cuts through all of the second guessing. After doing hours of online research - and seeing hundreds (thousands?) of opinions - I learned more on that phone call than all of my online research combined.

 

[EireDiver606]

Thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate it, but is 40 pounds of lift justifiable in my scenario for my needs? Is it too much or what do you think?

Secondly, tbone and a few others, thanks for the advice about not using cinch system. I didn't think it would be necessary either.

Mastermind diver, Xdeep are amaaaaaazing, but way too expensive for me. And halcyon is way too expensive also.

About finnsub , he's right Finnsub do very good quality wings, I've seen them up in person, and the guy who owns it said he does about 50 wreck dives a year and this thing has not a scratch on it after 8 years. Battletank.....

Which company do you think has the best quality, most comfortable, heavy duty single piece harness? Can anyone answer if apeks has an uncomfortable harness?, I saw it somewhere....

Lastly, you guys probalby have no experience of it because you're in America mostly, but what do you think of the apeks wtx d 40 PSD wing? And has anybody had any experience with mares XR backplate? Solid choice? It looks better than apeks and it's heavier which is good for me.

I know I'm picking your brains out, hahahaha

 

[REVAN]

Thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate it, but is 40 pounds of lift justifiable in my scenario for my needs?

No.

Is it too much or what do you think?

If you actually need 40 pounds of lift on a single tank kit, there is something wrong with your setup. I think a 40 is excessive, and you would likely be happier with a smaller wing. Get your weighting right, and use the smaller wing.

 

[EireDiver606]

Do you think it is the case that I should get a 30 and dive dry if I can if its a deep dive or winter, ........... or (what I think) it's just too cold and more weight is needed for more insulation when less than 8 degrees Celsius. So it's technically not a weighting issue I can handle. The mentor said he would be pinched for lift in the rough Atlantic Ocean with a 30. ?

 

[cool_hardware52]

Lastly, which company do you think has the best quality, most comfortable, heavy duty single piece harness? Can anyone answer if apeks has an uncomfortable harness, I saw it somewhere....

Continuous webbing harnesses (Hogarthian) are all about the same in terms of comfort, durability etc. Minor differences in webbing stiffness from brand to brand, but not much else. Proper plate sizing and proper harness adjustment is far, far, more important than Brand X webbing is slightly softer, harder, stiffer, etc. The good news is webbing is inexpensive and widely available if you wish to tinker.

My preference has always been for stiffer webbing. Soft webbing will "roll" on itself far more when donning. Sliding your arm under a shoulder strap is what rolls the harness.
Imagine you have a straight 30 inch length of webbing that is secured on each end, with a single dring / triglide in the middle. Now take the dring and rotate it so the webbing twists on it's self. That's what I mean by "roll" If the webbing was replaced by a 2 x 4, zero roll. If the webbing was replaced by a section of bike innertube, you could wind it up like a rubber band airplane.

The other issue with soft webbing is "cupping" or the tendency for soft webbing to form a 1/2 "tube" when under load. The edges roll towards themselves. That reduces the effective width of the contact area between the webbing and the diver. It can make softer 2" webbing feel like 1".

What I look for in harness webbing is:

1) Fairly stiff. Less roll, and Triglides work by forcing the webbing to make 3 90 degree bends. Softer webbing bends easier.
2) Retains hardware well, i.e. drings don't slide around. Thin, slick, highly flexible webbing can be a problem for triglides / drings etc. Finer weaves, think seat belt vs weight belt, and material, think polypro vs nylon both impact "slickness"

Tobin

 

[tbone1004]

@EireDiver606 @REVAN 's comment is not always true

tank being used carries 13lbs of gas that has to be compensated for. A 7/5mm wetsuit will have somewhere around 12 ish lbs of positive buoyancy depending on the size of the wetsuit.
25lbs that has to be compensated for, and a 30lb wing doesn't leave much extra lift if you have to get higher out of the water if it's really choppy. I'd be OK with 30lbs if I didn't have anything else on the rig i.e. pony bottle, camera rig, etc. and was diving in relatively flat water regularly or had a really big safety sausage and/or 50lb lift bag that I could use for supplemental buoyancy at the surface. I use marginally sized wings cave diving all the time, but they don't have to hold me at the surface.

If the diver is very positively buoyant, then a 30lb wing would not be able to hold the rig at the surface if it was removed and all of the lead was on the rig as was mentioned in the OP.

Me personally in that situation? DSS LCD40 or Torus 35, with a SS plate and the weight plates. If I had to dive like that now, I would use my LCD30 wing with no issues, but would carry a lift bag as well as my big safety sausage for surface assistance in rough water, but wouldn't recommend a new diver cut it that close

 

[REVAN]

25lbs that has to be compensated for, and a 30lb wing doesn't leave much extra lift

30 is still bigger than 25, so it's enough and that not even accounting for the variation in buoyancy the diver can command simply by modifying their breathing. That can easily account for another 4 to 5 pounds of margin. Personally, I favor less as being better, as long as it's enough.

If you are someone who simply wants to carry more lead than necessary because it's too much work to weight the kit right for "this dive" when adding or deleting cameras, or pony bottles, etc... then you could start running into buoyancy limit issues. But, if you do your job as a diver to calculate your weight requirements for the dive and configure your kit properly, you should never have an issue with the 30 not being enough lift for the single tank kit.

 

[tbone1004]

you can't count on pony bottles and cameras as permanent ballast as they can be jettisoned or donated so you can't factor them into your buoyancy calculations. Same reason in cave diving we don't weight ourselves for all of our stages bottles. If we did our wings would have to be 60+lbs all the time. Instead we weight ourselves based on our base rig and size and weight appropriately for that and any extra stuff we have. That means having to jettison the empty stages in an emergency as we will no longer have sufficient ballast to stay down with positively buoyant al80's. That also means not removing lead if we are carrying heavier things because we can't count on them being with us all the time and may not have the ability to hold a deco stop if they aren't with us at the end of the dive

 

[EireDiver606]

@EireDiver606 @REVAN 's comment is not always true

tank being used carries 13lbs of gas that has to be compensated for. A 7/5mm wetsuit will have somewhere around 12 ish lbs of positive buoyancy depending on the size of the wetsuit.
25lbs that has to be compensated for, and a 30lb wing doesn't leave much extra lift if you have to get higher out of the water if it's really choppy. I'd be OK with 30lbs if I didn't have anything else on the rig i.e. pony bottle, camera rig, etc. and was diving in relatively flat water regularly or had a really big safety sausage and/or 50lb lift bag that I could use for supplemental buoyancy at the surface. I use marginally sized wings cave diving all the time, but they don't have to hold me at the surface.

If the diver is very positively buoyant, then a 30lb wing would not be able to hold the rig at the surface if it was removed and all of the lead was on the rig as was mentioned in the OP.

Me personally in that situation? DSS LCD40 or Torus 35, with a SSfar plate and the weight plates. If I had to dive like that now, I would use my LCD30 wing with no issues, but would carry a lift bag as well as my big safety sausage for surface assistance in rough water, but wouldn't recommend a new diver cut it that close

Ok thanks, that has given me good perspective. So a 35 or 40 would be ok. Plus the weight of regs - apeks- good but heavy for regs = + 1-2kg (2-4 pounds).And also I will be always using a camera. The reason why I said the Atlantic Ocean, is because it can get pretty rough. And I do not have a dsmb or lift bag as I do not need one so )

 

[tbone1004]

@EireDiver606 the buoyancy of tanks and regs will be factored into your lead requirements as will the backplate itself, but if you are diving a balanced rig, won't factor into the wing lift requirements. Wings have to compensate for 2 things. Wetsuit compression, and gas capacity. Assuming that you have less sinky things than your wetsuit is floaty, then you need lead and are diving a balanced rig.

I would argue that because you're diving in the Atlantic, especially because it can and does get pretty rough, you NEED at least a 2m safety sausage. Preferably on top of a small dsmb for marking your position on ascent for the boat, or signalling to them while under water, and lowest on the priority list, but still there, is a 50lb lift bag just in case.