Jacket vs back inflate for new diver?

[inquis]

I wish I had known about BP/Ws when I started. Take a back-inflate BC and strip away all the unnecessary padding and fluff, and it starts to look a lot like a BP/W. A BP is the epitome of customization. Don't need huge weight pockets? Put small ones on (or none). Want a D-ring a little higher so it doesn't jam into your arm when reaching across your chest? Just move it. Etc.

The OP is a newer diver and may not know what type of diving they will most enjoy. However, a BP/W will handle it all from recreational to technical. From drysuit to rash guard. With minimal expense (if any) to branch into various directions.

 

[Centrals]

Nothing is perfect.
I started with jacket and eventually changed over to BP/W because of tec dive.
BP/W is a lot more flexible and versatile.

 

[doctormike]

Right, and the last few posts illustrate an important point. Whenever someone asks a question like this here (and it gets asked a lot, which is totally appropriate!), many people recommend BP/W. And also, there is often pushback to that.

The reason we always feel compelled to recommend it is because the average new diver walking into a local dive shop to buy gear will virtually never even be aware of the BP/W, let alone find one to try. I'm not unsympathetic to the challenges of a LDS and I support mine when I can. But that's a very specific business model which doesn't lend itself well to this particular piece of gear.

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with a single tank diver using a conventional jacket BC. But it's too bad that a far superior solution (IMHO) is rarely even a consideration for the new diver unless they stumble across scubaboard.

 

[Eric802]

I'll throw my .02 in here, for what it's worth. I'm somewhat in your situation - not newly certified, but getting back into the sport after a long break. When I was first certified in the late 80's, it was pretty much all jacket-style BCD's for rec diving. I never even heard of a BP/W set up then. I had a traditional jacket BCD and it was fine. Fast forward 30 years, all the gear I bought back then is gone and I'm looking to buy new stuff. You will see (have already seen) a decided bias toward BP/W here. I was fortunate in that I took a refresher course with a shop that had a pool, and I was able to try both a jacket and a BP/W back-to-back.

I immediately noticed that I felt "slicker" in the water in the BP/W. The difference in drag was noticeable. It's just cleaner. With a steel BP, I didn't even need weights (in a pool, in a swimsuit, so take that for what it's worth). I had thought the steel plate would be uncomfortable but in the water, you don't even notice it. Now, you do lose the pockets, but I'm not sure that's much of an issue. I think the only thing I used to carry in my BCD pockets was a flashlight, and it's easy enough to clip one of those to your harness. And you can get pockets to attach to the harness as well if you need it - some purpose-built as pockets, but also some built for weights that you could use to carry whatever you wanted if you weren't using weights.

Cost-wise, you can probably get into a jacket BCD for cheaper, but it's going to be a bottom-tier unit meant for rentals and such. Look at the HOG packages at Divers Supply for BP/W systems that (IMO) are very competitive price-wise.

The shop where you got certified probably has a local place where they go on weekends, or if not there's certainly a local club you could hook up with. If you can do it with the shop, I'm sure it'd be pretty simple to make arrangements to try out a wing. My local shop goes to a dive park every week, and the folks there have told me "If you ever want to try something, let us know, we'll hook you up". Ask around and you can probably find the same opportunities.

When I first started reading about gear here, I was rolling my eyes at all the BP/W enthusiasm. I figured there was nothing wrong with a jacked BCD, so why go another way? After looking into it for quite some time, watching a BUNCH of YouTube videos on the subject, and having had the opportunity to try a BP/W, that's the direction I'm going to go.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I have an 11 page essay on BPW and BPW style BC's that I send to anyone who provides an email address.
Some key points.
1. With a jacket bc you are trying to get a mfg's idea of a size to fit you. It may or may not.
2. With a BPW, you set it up to fit you and once done, it does that. It fits the same way every time. A good mentor can help you set it up to where you can dive it with anything from a skin to a drysuit and all you do is adjust the crotch strap and tighten the waist belt to the proper position.
3. A jacket bc has things where the mfg decides you need them. D rings, pockets, weight, etc.
4. A BPW lets you decide what you need and where.
5. If a jacket bc is damaged, you likely need to replace the entire BC.
6. If a BPW is damaged, you only replace the damaged component. A plate is a plate. Unless it's run over nothing is going to hurt it. The webbing wears out? It may, after 15 years or so. You spend 15 bucks and replace it. The wing gets a puncture? You replace the bladder for 100 bucks.
7. A jacket BC is worth maybe 30% on the resale market 2 years after you bought it.
8. A BPW can bring as much as 75% or more in my experience with having sold over a hundred of them and then helped owners sell them when they decided to stop diving. And that's after 4-5 years.
9. BPW's DO NOT PUSH YOU FACE FORWARD ON THE SURFACE. That's a fallacy perpetuated by those with poor technique, improper weighting, over weighting, and lack of education in how the BC, and frankly buoyancy, works.
10. Pockets on many BC's are a joke. They are poorly designed and placed.
11. A BPW lets you decide where to put pockets and what kind. Pockets on the thighs of the wet or drysuit work best.
12. A BPW puts the inherent weight where you need it underwater. Over your lungs. Aiding with trim.
13. Some jacket BCs have trim pockets. They are often poorly placed. Too low over the kidneys and not the lungs.
I can dive any BC and have a couple jackets, a back inflate, and a couple BPW's as well as my sidemount rigs. I can get into trim with any of them and frankly any BC because I spent a year with one shop where that was my goal. Most divers don't have that option.
That said, had I gotten good advice in the beginning on choosing a BC instead of what was good for a shop's bottom line, I'd have saved thousands in initial gear purchases.
A BPW will grow with you into whatever area you decide to try. A jacket BC won't and in some cases, it won't be allowed by an instructor for certain types of diving (tech). And for carrying multiple main cylinders? Forget it.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm late to the party--just noticed this thread--but your post makes it sound like back-inflate or BP/W is advanced gear. I wish I had used a back-inflate or BP/W for my original certification course, but unfortunately it wasn't until about 15 years later that I first heard about such things (here on SB).

I very much agree with this, but I would like to zoom out to the bigger issue: entry level gear and advanced diving gear. It seems logical that there would be a difference, but there isn't. The gear used by more advanced divers is perfectly suitable to a beginning diver--in the case of BCDs, I think back inflation or BP/W is even easier for a beginning diver to use, because it helps them get into proper trim in the water.

The myth that jacket BCDs are easier to use persists, though, and it persists because they are almost exclusively used in beginning classes. Graduates of those classes go on to do beginning level diving, and they continue to use those BCDs, believing as they do that the back inflation models and BP/Ws are for some unknown reason too difficult to use for beginners. Many of those people go on to work in dive shops, and when potential customers come in, they pass that mistaken belief along. I worked as an instructor for two dive shops, and in both cases, nearly all the people who worked the retail floor had never dived with anything other than a jacket BCD, so that is what they recommended to new divers.

 

[Shabaday]

My wife learned on BP/W this last year and knows no different. She has 25 dives under belt including taking "advanced" open water. The only thing she prefers is a single tank adapter...she tried it with and without and prefers it with. She is diving HOG SS BP/W in cold water and a HOG Aluminum BP/W in warmer water

 

[mbs]

I did OW in a traditional jacket and then bought a very minimal back inflate bcd. Dove that for years. In the water have the bubble on your back makes you very stable, or at least me When I switched to BPW not only did I still have that stability, but the rig itself fit so well that moving around, inverting, etc you don't even feel the rig, you just move. I bought online - DSS - no defunct, and with various guides was able to adjust the setup perfectly fine on the first try. Been diving that setup for 5+ years now as is. I occasionally put a pocket on my waist. Always have 2 weight/trim pockets on the tank bands which is all I need with the SS plate. I guess what I am saying is you can get a better fit with a BPW and you will feel it in the water. My 2 cents...

 

[doctormike]

The myth that jacket BCDs are easier to use persists, though, and it persists because they are almost exclusively used in beginning classes. Graduates of those classes go on to do beginning level diving, and they continue to use those BCDs, believing as they do that the back inflation models and BP/Ws are for some unknown reason too difficult to use for beginners. Many of those people go on to work in dive shops, and when potential customers come in, they pass that mistaken belief along. I worked as an instructor for two dive shops, and in both cases, nearly all the people who worked the retail floor had never dived with anything other than a jacket BCD, so that is what they recommended to new divers.

Exactly.

And to be honest, I have no idea where the idea about there being a difference on the surface with back inflate or BP/W came from. The idea that it "pushes you forward in the water". Seriously, I have heard that a lot, I have no idea what it means. Not being snarky. Just never felt anything like that.

 

[boulderjohn]

And to be honest, I have no idea where the idea about there being a difference on the surface with back inflate or BP/W came from. The idea that it "pushes you forward in the water". Seriously, I have heard that a lot, I have no idea what it means. Not being snarky. Just never felt anything like that.

I got certified, did a week of diving in rental gear, and then bought my first BCD--a back inflate model. I had no idea what I was doing when I bought it. I did all my diving with that for the first years of my diving life, and then in 2004 I joined ScubaBoard. At some time after that, I read that my back inflation BCD pushed me forward on the surface. I had no idea it did that until I read it. With that many years of experience, though, I knew better.

In analysis, it does have that tendency, but there is a big IF with that statement. When you are diving underwater, it does help you dive in good, horizontal trim, which is what you want for 99% of your dive time. Since it does help put you horizontal under water, it must have the same tendency on the surface. That's where the big IF comes in. IF you position yourself on the surface perfectly upright, the way you would if you were floating in a large inner tube (which is essentially what a jacket BCD is), then, yes, it will tend to put you forward. IF instead you lean back a little, as you would learn to do if you, like me, had dived with one from the start, you won't even notice it.

So if you have learned to dive wearing an inner tube (jacket BCD), then you will feel it has that tendency until you learn to position your body differently.