Iwas not PADI trained.
Mike D
Mike D
My Impression of the Back Inflate vs. Jacket Style vs. BP/Wings Debate
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Hey Roak...
I drive both a standard transmission and an automatic transmission... and I seem to be able to handle emergencies at 75 mph just fine switching between the two. If you can't handle the variety, then I suggest you don't try! I have no problems switching between the two sets of regs, and by golly, I don't even dive at 75 mph. I take it slow, and make sure that I not only know not how much air -I- have, but how much my buddy has, and how much all the people in my group have. I would rather excersize situational awareness and pre-empt emergencies than have to respond to one.
Which ever method works for you is great... either of these methods work for me... and even better, I avoid having to use either one by continually checking the guages of everyone in the group I am diving with. There are those on this board who will attest to that.
As MUCH as you want to STICK words in the poor man's mouth, I believe most everyone BUT YOU GUYS can see you are doing this. He admitted to having multiple choices and no more! Before long, you will be saying he admitted to the Lindbergh kidnapping just to prove a point. He had a choice... the primary was quicker so he went for it. If the octo was quicker he would have used that instead. HE ONLY "ADMITTED" TO TAKING THE QUICKEST ROUTE. He had options that you don't have, big whoopti-do.
I really don't mind that you guys think that donating the primary is the only way to go... more power to you, and I think bungeed seconds really work great. Just stop twisting people's words to support your theories. It can't be much of a theory if you have to brace it up with such chicanery.
I drive both a standard transmission and an automatic transmission... and I seem to be able to handle emergencies at 75 mph just fine switching between the two. If you can't handle the variety, then I suggest you don't try! I have no problems switching between the two sets of regs, and by golly, I don't even dive at 75 mph. I take it slow, and make sure that I not only know not how much air -I- have, but how much my buddy has, and how much all the people in my group have. I would rather excersize situational awareness and pre-empt emergencies than have to respond to one.
Which ever method works for you is great... either of these methods work for me... and even better, I avoid having to use either one by continually checking the guages of everyone in the group I am diving with. There are those on this board who will attest to that.
As MUCH as you want to STICK words in the poor man's mouth, I believe most everyone BUT YOU GUYS can see you are doing this. He admitted to having multiple choices and no more! Before long, you will be saying he admitted to the Lindbergh kidnapping just to prove a point. He had a choice... the primary was quicker so he went for it. If the octo was quicker he would have used that instead. HE ONLY "ADMITTED" TO TAKING THE QUICKEST ROUTE. He had options that you don't have, big whoopti-do.
I really don't mind that you guys think that donating the primary is the only way to go... more power to you, and I think bungeed seconds really work great. Just stop twisting people's words to support your theories. It can't be much of a theory if you have to brace it up with such chicanery.
Isn't it obvious that if your donating the reg in your mouth sicne its quicker to get to than your octo - doesn't that say everyhting?
Apparently, your octo isn't:
*Close by and easy to locate
*Hanging unclipped
*Not in the same place all the time
If 'instinct' makes you grab the reg in your mouth - isn't that telling you something?
Apparently, your octo isn't:
*Close by and easy to locate
*Hanging unclipped
*Not in the same place all the time
If 'instinct' makes you grab the reg in your mouth - isn't that telling you something?
"Isn't it obvious that if your donating the reg in your mouth since its quicker to get to than your octo - doesn't that say everything?"
No it does not! .
This will be my final reply on this subject, and i will try to be perfectly clear.
I started this string by saying" I beleive there is more than one way to do things efectively, and almost everything is a matter of choice". I still do. When things become too rigid, we remove options and we stiffle inovation and creativity.
The fact that I have admitted to donating my primary on an occation does not mean it's the best choice in all situations, it means that in that situation, it was the best choice. NO MORE NO LESS.
And on that earlier B.S. comments about how I was trained, "donating the octopus": I am probably considered a dinasaur by most, but I have evolved. I was trained to use a two hose regulator, we didn't have octopuses or pressure gauges, we were trained to buddy breath, and we used J valves ( we checked our air before and after the dive ) SPG didn't exist. Bouyancy compensator didn't exist either, we wore Millitary surplus CO2 flat vests (Mae Wests).
Mike D
No it does not! .
This will be my final reply on this subject, and i will try to be perfectly clear.
I started this string by saying" I beleive there is more than one way to do things efectively, and almost everything is a matter of choice". I still do. When things become too rigid, we remove options and we stiffle inovation and creativity.
The fact that I have admitted to donating my primary on an occation does not mean it's the best choice in all situations, it means that in that situation, it was the best choice. NO MORE NO LESS.
And on that earlier B.S. comments about how I was trained, "donating the octopus": I am probably considered a dinasaur by most, but I have evolved. I was trained to use a two hose regulator, we didn't have octopuses or pressure gauges, we were trained to buddy breath, and we used J valves ( we checked our air before and after the dive ) SPG didn't exist. Bouyancy compensator didn't exist either, we wore Millitary surplus CO2 flat vests (Mae Wests).
Mike D
OP
SeaJay
Contributor
Looks as if there was a pretty good debate while I was gone this weekend (I dove at Ginnie Springs). Too bad I wasn't here to participate! 
There's a lot I learned this weekend. I mean, a lot. Y'all know me by now... I could talk forever about the things that happened. Suffice, though, to say that I focused hard on this BP/Wings vs. Back Inflate vs. Jacket style BCD issue, and here's what I learned, in a very abbreviated form: (By the way, please resist the urge to say, "I told you so." A lot of people have told me lots of things that just aren't true, as I am sure they have to you. When you said what you did, I took it into account and went and tested it for myself; and this is intended to be an accounting of my learning this weekend.)
1. My major complaint with back inflates of any kind having the tendency to push you face down in the water is a nonissue. Almost any tendency for a BCD to hold me ANY which way in the water was almost completely surmountable using weight placement.
2. I do not feel comfortable diving overweighted. This weekend I used a backplate with twin steel 95's, and a 55 lb wing... WAY too much for my 3/2 mil wetsuit. If I'd had a bladder failure at any point, I'd have been a stone sitting at the bottom of the spring. Not really a problem when I'm diving in 30 feet of water, but a huge problem if I was in 300 fsw. In my humble opinion, when (and if) I choose to dive any rig that's so heavy that I have no ditchable weight and still find myself sinking, then I need a backup way of maintaining buoyancy... Either through a redundant bladder in the wing, or as a redundancy in wearing a drysuit that I really could inflate in a real emergency.
3. Doubles (at least the steel ones) are really hard to handle underwater. I think that with time I could get really good at them, but I will tell you this: If I placed my body in any position other than either horizontal or vertical, I was asking to get flipped over. Forget swimming sideways or upside-down... When I did that I ended up upside down or standing on my head, or both. Not only was it hard to control, but there was an amazing amount of drag in the water, which was now attached to my back, and currents were a real problem. Agreed that in some cases, particularly with deep dives, cave, wreck, and long dives, doubles might simply be required to "get the job done." However, I found that they took a lot of skill to keep them correctly trimmed in the water due to their weight and the fact that the wings that worked with them were so wide that if I even got a little sideways, I was going for a ride. I wouldn't choose them again unless I had to.
4. I still very much like the modular setups that make up BP/Wings and even the Transpac... Not only are individual parts replaceable in case of failure, but I could easily achieve a perfect fit with them, or choose to assemble them in such a way as to customize them for each individual dive.
5. Equipment, that is, "gear," is bad. The less the better. Obviously, you simply NEED certain things... Fins, mask, probably a wetsuit, tank, reg, probably a light... But everything needs to be minimized as much as possible. The more gear there is, the more that's going to go wrong with the dive. I am best off with a few pieces of solid, working, well maintained, good equipment than with lots of junk. Way better.
6. "Danglies" are bad. Period. Put your stuff away, tie it down, put it in a pocket. Don't take it with you. Simplify and minimize your gear. (These last two points I already knew, but that point really hit home again this trip.)
7. I still like the way that BP/Wing setups and even that Transpac minimizes how much stuff is in the front of me.
8. Small wings work better than large ones. The only reason I'd want a large one would be if I was diving with lots of heavy gear. Smaller wings don't float the bubble all over the place as badly as big wings do, and stay much more streamlined.
9. Some wings have pull dumps on them. Just because I choose a wing doesn't mean that I have to forgo the really cool pull dump on my BCD like I thought I would have to.
10. I now understand why "tekkies" don't like pull dumps. I've heard many people say, "That's a failure point." Well, there's lots of failure points on all of the gear we're using. Heck, the o-ring on my tank is a huge failure point. The tank itself is a huge failure point. Every valve on my BCD is a failure point. I got the argument that someone once said of, "Yeah, but why would you put on another failure point?" In my mind, I thought that you'd have to consider the possibility of failure and express it as a ratio to how it improves you dive... In layman's terms, "is it worth the risk?" In my humble opinion, I really liked the feel of the pull dump and found it as nice to have as a rear dump. I mean, you could kill the rear dump, too, if you were just looking to reduce a failure point, right? So why not pick on that too? Well... I realized the reason this weekend why so many tekkies don't like pull dumps... It's because of the consequences of failure. Think about it... If a rear dump fails, you can still inflate your BCD and get buoyant to get out of the water. If the dump on the end of your inflator/deflator hose fails, you can still inflate your BCD and get buoyant to get out of the water (you'd simply hold the hose down, and it'd hold air, even if the valve was stuck open.) If a shoulder dump or a pull dump were to fail, then you'd be stuck on the bottom, unable to get buoyant. Well, that is, unless you had a backup plan. By this, I mean, a drysuit, a redundant bladder, or by ditching weight. And if you are diving with steel doubles, this could be a serious problem. Hence, "tekkies," or those people diving negatively buoyant even without weight, are in serious danger with a failure point like any kind of shoulder or pull dump. No wonder...
11. Crotchstraps do not suck. With some rigs, they are nearly required. With others, they are simply a bonus, keeping your rig steadier than without. In either case, if they are adjusted correctly, you will not even know it's there.
Here's a little more detail for those of you willing to read this long post:
I dove Ginnie Springs this weekend. I wasn't planning on that... It just sorta happened that way. I was supposed to do four dives this weekend: Two on Saturday to the Fred Day, a salt water wreck in about 60 feet of water, and two on Sunday in the local no-vis waters (for fossils.) In light of the whole BP/Wing vs. Back Inflate vs. Jacket style BCD issue, I was trying to obtain a backplate and wing setup to dive with this weekend. Unfortunately, nobody I could find in three States had a BP/Wing setup to rent. I couldn't figure out why, but now I know... It's because of the lengthy setup procedure that it takes to customize it to your body. Whereas most BC's can simply be donned and sorta adjusted "on the fly" for a pretty decent fit, it seemed to me that any rig that used webbing only to attach itself to my body needed to be fit correctly; a relatively lengthy process. Of course, if the rig is YOURS and doesn't need to be adjusted but once, the fit is ideal and stays that way, making all other BC options feel like... Well... Rental gear.
Hey, I told you guys that I'd eat crow if I deserved it... And so... *Munch, munch, baby.*
Anyway, high winds off the coast canceled our offshore dive to the Fred Day, and so I headed inland to dive... I've already dived Blue Grotto and Devil's Den, and so I headed to Ginnie Springs. They didn't have a BP/Wing setup either, but when I insisted, they were able to produce a BP/Wing that was rather large (55 lb lift, I believe) for doubles. So I rented it and tried that setup, complete with a pair of steel 95's. In my 3/2 mil. In the shallow end of the main spring.
Ohmygosh... How do I describe this experience? For one, that stupid rig weighed in at some 100 lbs, I'm sure. I mean, it was heavy! So heavy, in fact, that I needed no weight to sink... In fact, I probably could have spared 35 lbs! The rig swam me around, not the other way around. As my dive progressed, I got better at controlling the doubles... I learned very quickly that my attitude in the water should be either horizontal or vertical... No other combination. If I dipped a shoulder at all, the weight of the tanks would cause that shoulder to dip even more, and the "air bubble" in the wings would rush to the opposite side, and it easily put me on my back like an upside-down turtle. I had to develop the skill of keeping myself perfectly trimmed in the water. God forbid I dip my head lower than my butt... If I did that, the "bubble" rushed to the back of my wings, and I found myself in an inadvertent headstand. No, this took serious finesse. However, add to that a little current coming out of the spring and the added drag of a second tank on my back, and I often felt like a leaf blowing in the wind. I mean, sure, I could eventually master it, but let's just put it this way: I don't think I want to dive doubles, at least not these heavy steel ones, unless I truly need them for deep, long, or cave dives. These would be a choice I'd make based on necessity only. Also, it was truly scary to think of a wing failure, such as a puncture or OOA situation. If that wing wasn't there, I'd have sunk like a rock. For this reason, I think that the next time I dive doubles, not only will it be out of necessity, but also with either a redundant bladder, a dry suit (which can be used like a BCD in an emergency) or both. This rig also taught me that the difficulty that I was having was enhanced by the very large wing and it's far placement from my center of gravity.
I immediately chose to return the rig and instead rent one of their standard jacket style BC's with an AL80 and 8 lbs of weight. Their jackets are not weight integrated, so I cheated a little and placed the weights in the jacket pockets in order to get the weight belt off my hips. I like this configuration, although there are many who would flame me for not really having the possibility of ditching that weight easily. Obviously, if I were to dive regularly with a jacket style BC of my own, I'd choose a weight-integrated style BC and do this the right way. However, what I was trying to do was to duplicate the feel of that Scubapro Classic that I liked so much. The jacket style BC that I rented was in excellent condition, had a hard plate built right in for stability, and fit pretty well. The main difference between this rented jacket (a Scubapro Glide) and the Classic was that this BC had adjustable shouderstraps, forgoing the cool, usable zipper pockets and the passageway for air moving inside the BC in front of my chest. Of course, this sacrificed those two features for adjustability; not a bad thing at all in a BC designed to fit anyone who walked through the door.
I found this BC to have the annoying characteristic of wanting to float me at a 45* angle in the water. At the surface, this meant that I had to work just a little to keep myself upright... And at depth, if I stopped swimming, my head came up and my feet went down. In other words, it was hard to keep myself horizontal.
In other words, I found this jacket style BC opinionated, which was precisely the characteristic that I didn't like about back inflates, and precisely the absence of the characteristic that I DID like about jacket style BC's.
In other words, I found that the annoying characteristic to not be associated with a certain style of BC, be it back inflate, BP/Wing, or jacket style.
...So I was forced to rethink the reason why I found some BCD's "opinionated." And the answer was found in a post earlier this week... It had to do with weight placement. What I was feeling wasn't a result of the location of the bladder... What I was feeling was a result of the location of the weight on my rig.
This may seem silly to you guys, as it was said many times last week... And I already understood the concept... But I didn't realize just how MUCH this was true. See, because of the all over buoyancy of most jacket style BCs, weight placement really hasnt been much of an issue in my short experiences. However, it is for some And this was an example of that. That meant that Id have to tune my weight placement pretty much no matter what design I chose.
Excited, I wanted to get another back inflate or BP/Wing setup to try it... And to see if I could tune that annoying characteristic out. After all, that was one of my major reasons for avoiding any kind of rear-inflate BCD. My only other reason for avoiding them was because of the "usable pocket" issue... More on that in a second.
Now, keep in mind that I wholeheartedly agree that rear-inflate BC's, whether of the BP/Wing kind or of the "back inflate" kind, have some really cool advantages over standard jacket style BC's. They are simpler and less obtrusive than jacket style BC's... And when supplied with the right wing for the job, can be significantly more streamlined. Earlier I'd argued that the back inflate BC that I used before (Zeagle Concept) was not as streamlined as the jacket style BC's that I'd been using, and that was true... That was a huge, sloppy wing on that thing when used with an AL80. However, I found later that this simply isn't the case when the "right" wing is used with the "right gear." But I am getting ahead of myself...
My third dive of the weekend (Sunday morning) was a very pleasurable dive to 60 feet in the devil's trio at Ginnie. Again, I found the jacket style BC to be of decent value, although this particular one lacked usable pockets. At this point, I had quite a bit of "danglies" on me, including a rather large dive tool strapped to my leg. While I frankly wouldn't dive without it in salt water (there's some big fish in there, and I'd like something to throw at them besides myself when they get friendly) on this dive it was nothing more than an entanglement hazard. I found myself often picking pieces of the kelp-like plants that dotted the bottom of the riverbed out of the knife and holster. 'Nuff said; I shouldn't have brought that beast with me on that dive. Also, the amount of stuff I had hanging from my chest on various D-rings was ridiculous. While I had no usable pockets (they had my weights in them), I had a catch bag (positively buoyant and very much in my face, as well as an entanglement hazard) and an underwater disposable camera (very positively buoyant) that would tap me on the mask from time to time when I was vertical feeding the fish at the bottom of Devils Eye. How irritating! Pockets would have been soooo useful.
So on my fourth and final dive, I went and rented the closest thing to a BP/Wing single setup that I could find... A Transpac. Amazing...
Firstly, kudos to Kenny at Ginnie's dive shop... That guy (a very knowledgeable diver and caver who claims not to be DIR but has adapted many of their ideas) spent about an hour setting up my rig for me and fitting me correctly. He made a big deal about it... And then proceeded to bungee or rubber band every loose strap and item down to the rig. Thank you Kenny!! You rock, man, and I owe you bigtime. Thanks for making me your number one priority for an hour!
Anyway, it was a Transpac II with a 36 lb "rec" wing and an AL80. I used a rented Scubapro reg (one of their inexpensive ones that breathed better than some of the top of the line models from other manufacturers) and "balanced" my rig by placing my 8 lbs of (somewhat) ditchable weight where the waist strap connected to the shoulder strap... Low and to the rear, just to the left and right of the small of my back, at his suggestion.
The rig proved to be very, very sweet in the water. The "clean" front side of the rig was terrific... I had an improved field of view, much less entanglement hazard, and I could rip through the water. Currents no longer bothered me. I was balanced and could place myself at any attitude I wanted. Once I achieved neutral buoyancy (with very little air in the wing), I was able to completely control my buoyancy with my lungs alone. What an awesome thing to be able to control my buoyancy without any thought, effort, or distraction. I'd been able to do it before, but not very easily. This system just melted onto my body, and I hardly even knew it was there.
My only complaint with the Transpac was that the tank did shift upward slightly in the water, making it slightly too high on my back, and making it difficult to keep my head up when swimming horizontally. That's funny, too, because my dive buddy had commented that my tank looked low before I got in the water.
So I checked my crotch strap. Yep, it was connected, and snug... Not tight, but nicely snug. Funny that I couldn't tell if it was there or not unless I looked at it. All I can say is that I must have had the stupid thing on too tight before. No wedgie problems, either, even though it was just a 1" strap.
Just to try it, I decided to undo the crotch strap and do a little acrobatic swimming. Yeah, there was a difference. Yeah, I liked the crotch strap. No, it wasn't bad enough without it to not dive at all... I simply liked it better with, although I could have dived with or without it.
So why was my tank riding up a little? Well...
My theory is that the Transpac's strength is also it's weakness... It's absence of any hard structure in the back means that the tank is a little less stable than with a back plate or hard plate... Although the Transpac has the ability to "fold up" when not in use, particularly useful when traveling or flying. So it's strength really was also it's weakness. At least, that's my theory anyway.
My choice? I think I'd want a hard structure there for tank stability.
So where does that put me?
Well... And here comes the punchline... Right into a backplate and wings setup.
What's more, I got the opportunity to look at the selection in dive apparel there at Ginnie's dive shop... And there's two more things that I want to touch on...
Some wings are sold with pull dumps, a feature that I'm interested in. Yes, I heard Kenny (and you guys) tell me that it should "be replaced with a plain elbow," and I can understand that if a bladder failure would be catastrophic like it would be if I was diving with a negatively buoyant rig like the one I dove with earlier. However, with ditchable weights, a bladder failure would not prevent me from getting positive... So I feel that the feature would be worth the possibility of failure. I wouldn't feel that way if I was diving with anything that wasn't positively buoyant anyway.
The other thing that I wanted to touch on were pockets... These guys solve the "usable pocket" problem by supplying divers with pockets that attach directly to 2" webbing... The same stuff that BP/Wing setups and this Transpac both used. So I could easily attach as many or as few pockets as I needed for my dive, getting rid of "danglies" and diving with only what was necessary. The result was not only streamlined, but was also very accessible, being much lower on my body than the impossible-to-use pockets on most jacket style BC's, and even better than the Scubapro Classic's twin chest pockets (which up to this point were the best design IMHO). In fact, these guys there at Ginnie even sold the awesome pockets that sew onto the thighs of a wetsuit, making them even more accessible, streamlined, and usable.
So what's the bottom line?
Well... Brace yourselves... I think I'm going to have to buy/build a BP/Wing setup.
...But you guys aren't going to like my ideas about it... I want to build using an aluminum plate, as the six pounds of the stainless steel ones is a bit much for diving my subtropical and tropical waters... Not enough ditchable weight, especially if I was diving in just a dive skin. I'd like to add to that (in the correct place for trim purposes) integrated weight pockets for my six to eight pounds (in freshwater). I really like the "Travel Wing" that was available for the Transpac... It was so streamlined and unobtrusive and tiny... Yet it expanded to 30 lbs of lift, enough for me to overweight at times when I wanted to dive in current. I don't know that I'd put any D-rings on my rig at all... Maybe just one or two low and to the rear, for attaching a catch bag (if I saw the need) or a safety sausage/lift bag (because if I am diving with this little lift, I can't carry anything anyway... So yes, I'm coming to agree with you guys about the lift bag too). I still believe that I'd want to go with an air integrated octo, which would probably do me well in open water, and get one more hose off of me.
Oh yeah... I also understand now why DIR guys are running with 7-foot primaries... And I would too for any wreck or cave diving... I didn't "get it" until I saw a pair of cavers there at Ginnie using one in a practice drill. Okay, there's this cave... And the entrance can only fit one diver at a time... And one of them experiences an OOA in the cave... They need to surface... So the one donates his 7-footer and now they can swim out single file. Not possible with any other length of hose. Why 7 feet? Well, the average diver is 6 feet long, give or take, then there's the fins... Subtract the distance from the top of the diver's head to his first stage... And it's about 7 feet! Duh... Of course, I still believe that in open water a shorter primary would be easier to manage, and not necessary... Again, that's a "logical thought process" that has to happen... But after seeing it, I completely understand why a 7 footer. And why around the neck? Well... Is there a better place to put 7 feet of hose??
Anyway, I think that for my open water stuff, the "less hoses" advantage of an air-integrated octo would be more useful than the 7 foot hose, and so that's my choice for this rig. But I can certainly see why another choice would be made on another rig.
There's more, too... As a recreational diver, I still believe that a dive computer works best. Why? Well... Because as a recreational diver, I really don't want to "Plan the dive and dive the plan." It may be necessary in cave diving, but I don't think it would be useful when doing a drift dive on a reef, or a fossil dive in the May River. See, I don't always know how deep I'm going and for how long until I'm there. A computer would help to manage that safely. On the other hand, I'm not diving without a table and the knowledge of how to use it.
Okay, so imagine this... A BP/wing setup, custom fit... Few D-rings (to avoid "dangly syndrome"). A pocket or two added to my rig, attached to my belt, streamlined and out of the way, and holding everything I need. Integrated octo, hoseless wrist computer like the Uwatecs or the Suunto Vytec... Man, I'd have just two hoses coming off of my first stage! Integrated weights behind me, just to the left and right of my tank... And that travel wing by Dive Rite... Hey, is that thing compatible with backplates? I liked the tinyness of it, not to mention the pull dump...
Man, this rig would be so much better than anything I've tried... Safer, customizable, more streamlined, more effective... Not to mention actually cheaper than anything else I've tried... In fact, by comparison, I'd feel like I was diving naked.
Whew. Whatcha wanna make a bet that this post gets the same kind of response that my first one did??
There's a lot I learned this weekend. I mean, a lot. Y'all know me by now... I could talk forever about the things that happened. Suffice, though, to say that I focused hard on this BP/Wings vs. Back Inflate vs. Jacket style BCD issue, and here's what I learned, in a very abbreviated form: (By the way, please resist the urge to say, "I told you so." A lot of people have told me lots of things that just aren't true, as I am sure they have to you. When you said what you did, I took it into account and went and tested it for myself; and this is intended to be an accounting of my learning this weekend.)
1. My major complaint with back inflates of any kind having the tendency to push you face down in the water is a nonissue. Almost any tendency for a BCD to hold me ANY which way in the water was almost completely surmountable using weight placement.
2. I do not feel comfortable diving overweighted. This weekend I used a backplate with twin steel 95's, and a 55 lb wing... WAY too much for my 3/2 mil wetsuit. If I'd had a bladder failure at any point, I'd have been a stone sitting at the bottom of the spring. Not really a problem when I'm diving in 30 feet of water, but a huge problem if I was in 300 fsw. In my humble opinion, when (and if) I choose to dive any rig that's so heavy that I have no ditchable weight and still find myself sinking, then I need a backup way of maintaining buoyancy... Either through a redundant bladder in the wing, or as a redundancy in wearing a drysuit that I really could inflate in a real emergency.
3. Doubles (at least the steel ones) are really hard to handle underwater. I think that with time I could get really good at them, but I will tell you this: If I placed my body in any position other than either horizontal or vertical, I was asking to get flipped over. Forget swimming sideways or upside-down... When I did that I ended up upside down or standing on my head, or both. Not only was it hard to control, but there was an amazing amount of drag in the water, which was now attached to my back, and currents were a real problem. Agreed that in some cases, particularly with deep dives, cave, wreck, and long dives, doubles might simply be required to "get the job done." However, I found that they took a lot of skill to keep them correctly trimmed in the water due to their weight and the fact that the wings that worked with them were so wide that if I even got a little sideways, I was going for a ride. I wouldn't choose them again unless I had to.
4. I still very much like the modular setups that make up BP/Wings and even the Transpac... Not only are individual parts replaceable in case of failure, but I could easily achieve a perfect fit with them, or choose to assemble them in such a way as to customize them for each individual dive.
5. Equipment, that is, "gear," is bad. The less the better. Obviously, you simply NEED certain things... Fins, mask, probably a wetsuit, tank, reg, probably a light... But everything needs to be minimized as much as possible. The more gear there is, the more that's going to go wrong with the dive. I am best off with a few pieces of solid, working, well maintained, good equipment than with lots of junk. Way better.
6. "Danglies" are bad. Period. Put your stuff away, tie it down, put it in a pocket. Don't take it with you. Simplify and minimize your gear. (These last two points I already knew, but that point really hit home again this trip.)
7. I still like the way that BP/Wing setups and even that Transpac minimizes how much stuff is in the front of me.
8. Small wings work better than large ones. The only reason I'd want a large one would be if I was diving with lots of heavy gear. Smaller wings don't float the bubble all over the place as badly as big wings do, and stay much more streamlined.
9. Some wings have pull dumps on them. Just because I choose a wing doesn't mean that I have to forgo the really cool pull dump on my BCD like I thought I would have to.
10. I now understand why "tekkies" don't like pull dumps. I've heard many people say, "That's a failure point." Well, there's lots of failure points on all of the gear we're using. Heck, the o-ring on my tank is a huge failure point. The tank itself is a huge failure point. Every valve on my BCD is a failure point. I got the argument that someone once said of, "Yeah, but why would you put on another failure point?" In my mind, I thought that you'd have to consider the possibility of failure and express it as a ratio to how it improves you dive... In layman's terms, "is it worth the risk?" In my humble opinion, I really liked the feel of the pull dump and found it as nice to have as a rear dump. I mean, you could kill the rear dump, too, if you were just looking to reduce a failure point, right? So why not pick on that too? Well... I realized the reason this weekend why so many tekkies don't like pull dumps... It's because of the consequences of failure. Think about it... If a rear dump fails, you can still inflate your BCD and get buoyant to get out of the water. If the dump on the end of your inflator/deflator hose fails, you can still inflate your BCD and get buoyant to get out of the water (you'd simply hold the hose down, and it'd hold air, even if the valve was stuck open.) If a shoulder dump or a pull dump were to fail, then you'd be stuck on the bottom, unable to get buoyant. Well, that is, unless you had a backup plan. By this, I mean, a drysuit, a redundant bladder, or by ditching weight. And if you are diving with steel doubles, this could be a serious problem. Hence, "tekkies," or those people diving negatively buoyant even without weight, are in serious danger with a failure point like any kind of shoulder or pull dump. No wonder...
11. Crotchstraps do not suck. With some rigs, they are nearly required. With others, they are simply a bonus, keeping your rig steadier than without. In either case, if they are adjusted correctly, you will not even know it's there.
Here's a little more detail for those of you willing to read this long post:
I dove Ginnie Springs this weekend. I wasn't planning on that... It just sorta happened that way. I was supposed to do four dives this weekend: Two on Saturday to the Fred Day, a salt water wreck in about 60 feet of water, and two on Sunday in the local no-vis waters (for fossils.) In light of the whole BP/Wing vs. Back Inflate vs. Jacket style BCD issue, I was trying to obtain a backplate and wing setup to dive with this weekend. Unfortunately, nobody I could find in three States had a BP/Wing setup to rent. I couldn't figure out why, but now I know... It's because of the lengthy setup procedure that it takes to customize it to your body. Whereas most BC's can simply be donned and sorta adjusted "on the fly" for a pretty decent fit, it seemed to me that any rig that used webbing only to attach itself to my body needed to be fit correctly; a relatively lengthy process. Of course, if the rig is YOURS and doesn't need to be adjusted but once, the fit is ideal and stays that way, making all other BC options feel like... Well... Rental gear.
Hey, I told you guys that I'd eat crow if I deserved it... And so... *Munch, munch, baby.*
Anyway, high winds off the coast canceled our offshore dive to the Fred Day, and so I headed inland to dive... I've already dived Blue Grotto and Devil's Den, and so I headed to Ginnie Springs. They didn't have a BP/Wing setup either, but when I insisted, they were able to produce a BP/Wing that was rather large (55 lb lift, I believe) for doubles. So I rented it and tried that setup, complete with a pair of steel 95's. In my 3/2 mil. In the shallow end of the main spring.
Ohmygosh... How do I describe this experience? For one, that stupid rig weighed in at some 100 lbs, I'm sure. I mean, it was heavy! So heavy, in fact, that I needed no weight to sink... In fact, I probably could have spared 35 lbs! The rig swam me around, not the other way around. As my dive progressed, I got better at controlling the doubles... I learned very quickly that my attitude in the water should be either horizontal or vertical... No other combination. If I dipped a shoulder at all, the weight of the tanks would cause that shoulder to dip even more, and the "air bubble" in the wings would rush to the opposite side, and it easily put me on my back like an upside-down turtle. I had to develop the skill of keeping myself perfectly trimmed in the water. God forbid I dip my head lower than my butt... If I did that, the "bubble" rushed to the back of my wings, and I found myself in an inadvertent headstand. No, this took serious finesse. However, add to that a little current coming out of the spring and the added drag of a second tank on my back, and I often felt like a leaf blowing in the wind. I mean, sure, I could eventually master it, but let's just put it this way: I don't think I want to dive doubles, at least not these heavy steel ones, unless I truly need them for deep, long, or cave dives. These would be a choice I'd make based on necessity only. Also, it was truly scary to think of a wing failure, such as a puncture or OOA situation. If that wing wasn't there, I'd have sunk like a rock. For this reason, I think that the next time I dive doubles, not only will it be out of necessity, but also with either a redundant bladder, a dry suit (which can be used like a BCD in an emergency) or both. This rig also taught me that the difficulty that I was having was enhanced by the very large wing and it's far placement from my center of gravity.
I immediately chose to return the rig and instead rent one of their standard jacket style BC's with an AL80 and 8 lbs of weight. Their jackets are not weight integrated, so I cheated a little and placed the weights in the jacket pockets in order to get the weight belt off my hips. I like this configuration, although there are many who would flame me for not really having the possibility of ditching that weight easily. Obviously, if I were to dive regularly with a jacket style BC of my own, I'd choose a weight-integrated style BC and do this the right way. However, what I was trying to do was to duplicate the feel of that Scubapro Classic that I liked so much. The jacket style BC that I rented was in excellent condition, had a hard plate built right in for stability, and fit pretty well. The main difference between this rented jacket (a Scubapro Glide) and the Classic was that this BC had adjustable shouderstraps, forgoing the cool, usable zipper pockets and the passageway for air moving inside the BC in front of my chest. Of course, this sacrificed those two features for adjustability; not a bad thing at all in a BC designed to fit anyone who walked through the door.
I found this BC to have the annoying characteristic of wanting to float me at a 45* angle in the water. At the surface, this meant that I had to work just a little to keep myself upright... And at depth, if I stopped swimming, my head came up and my feet went down. In other words, it was hard to keep myself horizontal.
In other words, I found this jacket style BC opinionated, which was precisely the characteristic that I didn't like about back inflates, and precisely the absence of the characteristic that I DID like about jacket style BC's.
In other words, I found that the annoying characteristic to not be associated with a certain style of BC, be it back inflate, BP/Wing, or jacket style.
...So I was forced to rethink the reason why I found some BCD's "opinionated." And the answer was found in a post earlier this week... It had to do with weight placement. What I was feeling wasn't a result of the location of the bladder... What I was feeling was a result of the location of the weight on my rig.
This may seem silly to you guys, as it was said many times last week... And I already understood the concept... But I didn't realize just how MUCH this was true. See, because of the all over buoyancy of most jacket style BCs, weight placement really hasnt been much of an issue in my short experiences. However, it is for some And this was an example of that. That meant that Id have to tune my weight placement pretty much no matter what design I chose.
Excited, I wanted to get another back inflate or BP/Wing setup to try it... And to see if I could tune that annoying characteristic out. After all, that was one of my major reasons for avoiding any kind of rear-inflate BCD. My only other reason for avoiding them was because of the "usable pocket" issue... More on that in a second.
Now, keep in mind that I wholeheartedly agree that rear-inflate BC's, whether of the BP/Wing kind or of the "back inflate" kind, have some really cool advantages over standard jacket style BC's. They are simpler and less obtrusive than jacket style BC's... And when supplied with the right wing for the job, can be significantly more streamlined. Earlier I'd argued that the back inflate BC that I used before (Zeagle Concept) was not as streamlined as the jacket style BC's that I'd been using, and that was true... That was a huge, sloppy wing on that thing when used with an AL80. However, I found later that this simply isn't the case when the "right" wing is used with the "right gear." But I am getting ahead of myself...
My third dive of the weekend (Sunday morning) was a very pleasurable dive to 60 feet in the devil's trio at Ginnie. Again, I found the jacket style BC to be of decent value, although this particular one lacked usable pockets. At this point, I had quite a bit of "danglies" on me, including a rather large dive tool strapped to my leg. While I frankly wouldn't dive without it in salt water (there's some big fish in there, and I'd like something to throw at them besides myself when they get friendly) on this dive it was nothing more than an entanglement hazard. I found myself often picking pieces of the kelp-like plants that dotted the bottom of the riverbed out of the knife and holster. 'Nuff said; I shouldn't have brought that beast with me on that dive. Also, the amount of stuff I had hanging from my chest on various D-rings was ridiculous. While I had no usable pockets (they had my weights in them), I had a catch bag (positively buoyant and very much in my face, as well as an entanglement hazard) and an underwater disposable camera (very positively buoyant) that would tap me on the mask from time to time when I was vertical feeding the fish at the bottom of Devils Eye. How irritating! Pockets would have been soooo useful.
So on my fourth and final dive, I went and rented the closest thing to a BP/Wing single setup that I could find... A Transpac. Amazing...
Firstly, kudos to Kenny at Ginnie's dive shop... That guy (a very knowledgeable diver and caver who claims not to be DIR but has adapted many of their ideas) spent about an hour setting up my rig for me and fitting me correctly. He made a big deal about it... And then proceeded to bungee or rubber band every loose strap and item down to the rig. Thank you Kenny!! You rock, man, and I owe you bigtime. Thanks for making me your number one priority for an hour!
Anyway, it was a Transpac II with a 36 lb "rec" wing and an AL80. I used a rented Scubapro reg (one of their inexpensive ones that breathed better than some of the top of the line models from other manufacturers) and "balanced" my rig by placing my 8 lbs of (somewhat) ditchable weight where the waist strap connected to the shoulder strap... Low and to the rear, just to the left and right of the small of my back, at his suggestion.
The rig proved to be very, very sweet in the water. The "clean" front side of the rig was terrific... I had an improved field of view, much less entanglement hazard, and I could rip through the water. Currents no longer bothered me. I was balanced and could place myself at any attitude I wanted. Once I achieved neutral buoyancy (with very little air in the wing), I was able to completely control my buoyancy with my lungs alone. What an awesome thing to be able to control my buoyancy without any thought, effort, or distraction. I'd been able to do it before, but not very easily. This system just melted onto my body, and I hardly even knew it was there.
My only complaint with the Transpac was that the tank did shift upward slightly in the water, making it slightly too high on my back, and making it difficult to keep my head up when swimming horizontally. That's funny, too, because my dive buddy had commented that my tank looked low before I got in the water.
So I checked my crotch strap. Yep, it was connected, and snug... Not tight, but nicely snug. Funny that I couldn't tell if it was there or not unless I looked at it. All I can say is that I must have had the stupid thing on too tight before. No wedgie problems, either, even though it was just a 1" strap.
Just to try it, I decided to undo the crotch strap and do a little acrobatic swimming. Yeah, there was a difference. Yeah, I liked the crotch strap. No, it wasn't bad enough without it to not dive at all... I simply liked it better with, although I could have dived with or without it.
So why was my tank riding up a little? Well...
My theory is that the Transpac's strength is also it's weakness... It's absence of any hard structure in the back means that the tank is a little less stable than with a back plate or hard plate... Although the Transpac has the ability to "fold up" when not in use, particularly useful when traveling or flying. So it's strength really was also it's weakness. At least, that's my theory anyway.
My choice? I think I'd want a hard structure there for tank stability.
So where does that put me?
Well... And here comes the punchline... Right into a backplate and wings setup.
What's more, I got the opportunity to look at the selection in dive apparel there at Ginnie's dive shop... And there's two more things that I want to touch on...
Some wings are sold with pull dumps, a feature that I'm interested in. Yes, I heard Kenny (and you guys) tell me that it should "be replaced with a plain elbow," and I can understand that if a bladder failure would be catastrophic like it would be if I was diving with a negatively buoyant rig like the one I dove with earlier. However, with ditchable weights, a bladder failure would not prevent me from getting positive... So I feel that the feature would be worth the possibility of failure. I wouldn't feel that way if I was diving with anything that wasn't positively buoyant anyway.
The other thing that I wanted to touch on were pockets... These guys solve the "usable pocket" problem by supplying divers with pockets that attach directly to 2" webbing... The same stuff that BP/Wing setups and this Transpac both used. So I could easily attach as many or as few pockets as I needed for my dive, getting rid of "danglies" and diving with only what was necessary. The result was not only streamlined, but was also very accessible, being much lower on my body than the impossible-to-use pockets on most jacket style BC's, and even better than the Scubapro Classic's twin chest pockets (which up to this point were the best design IMHO). In fact, these guys there at Ginnie even sold the awesome pockets that sew onto the thighs of a wetsuit, making them even more accessible, streamlined, and usable.
So what's the bottom line?
Well... Brace yourselves...
I think I'm going to have to buy/build a BP/Wing setup....But you guys aren't going to like my ideas about it... I want to build using an aluminum plate, as the six pounds of the stainless steel ones is a bit much for diving my subtropical and tropical waters... Not enough ditchable weight, especially if I was diving in just a dive skin. I'd like to add to that (in the correct place for trim purposes) integrated weight pockets for my six to eight pounds (in freshwater). I really like the "Travel Wing" that was available for the Transpac... It was so streamlined and unobtrusive and tiny... Yet it expanded to 30 lbs of lift, enough for me to overweight at times when I wanted to dive in current. I don't know that I'd put any D-rings on my rig at all... Maybe just one or two low and to the rear, for attaching a catch bag (if I saw the need) or a safety sausage/lift bag (because if I am diving with this little lift, I can't carry anything anyway... So yes, I'm coming to agree with you guys about the lift bag too). I still believe that I'd want to go with an air integrated octo, which would probably do me well in open water, and get one more hose off of me.
Oh yeah... I also understand now why DIR guys are running with 7-foot primaries... And I would too for any wreck or cave diving... I didn't "get it" until I saw a pair of cavers there at Ginnie using one in a practice drill. Okay, there's this cave... And the entrance can only fit one diver at a time... And one of them experiences an OOA in the cave... They need to surface... So the one donates his 7-footer and now they can swim out single file. Not possible with any other length of hose. Why 7 feet? Well, the average diver is 6 feet long, give or take, then there's the fins... Subtract the distance from the top of the diver's head to his first stage... And it's about 7 feet! Duh... Of course, I still believe that in open water a shorter primary would be easier to manage, and not necessary... Again, that's a "logical thought process" that has to happen... But after seeing it, I completely understand why a 7 footer. And why around the neck? Well... Is there a better place to put 7 feet of hose??
Anyway, I think that for my open water stuff, the "less hoses" advantage of an air-integrated octo would be more useful than the 7 foot hose, and so that's my choice for this rig. But I can certainly see why another choice would be made on another rig.
There's more, too... As a recreational diver, I still believe that a dive computer works best. Why? Well... Because as a recreational diver, I really don't want to "Plan the dive and dive the plan." It may be necessary in cave diving, but I don't think it would be useful when doing a drift dive on a reef, or a fossil dive in the May River. See, I don't always know how deep I'm going and for how long until I'm there. A computer would help to manage that safely. On the other hand, I'm not diving without a table and the knowledge of how to use it.
Okay, so imagine this... A BP/wing setup, custom fit... Few D-rings (to avoid "dangly syndrome"). A pocket or two added to my rig, attached to my belt, streamlined and out of the way, and holding everything I need. Integrated octo, hoseless wrist computer like the Uwatecs or the Suunto Vytec... Man, I'd have just two hoses coming off of my first stage! Integrated weights behind me, just to the left and right of my tank... And that travel wing by Dive Rite... Hey, is that thing compatible with backplates? I liked the tinyness of it, not to mention the pull dump...
Man, this rig would be so much better than anything I've tried... Safer, customizable, more streamlined, more effective... Not to mention actually cheaper than anything else I've tried... In fact, by comparison, I'd feel like I was diving naked.
Whew. Whatcha wanna make a bet that this post gets the same kind of response that my first one did??
"My theory is that the Transpac's strength is also it's weakness... It's absence of any hard structure in the back means that the tank is a little less stable than with a back plate or hard plate... Although the Transpac has the ability to "fold up" when not in use, particularly useful when traveling or flying. So it's strength really was also it's weakness. At least, that's my theory anyway."
..and I got 'flamed' awhile back for my opinion that the Transpac II looked kinda 'cheesy' and flimsy...
I said that the soft pac design looked weak...and I was right..
..and I got 'flamed' awhile back for my opinion that the Transpac II looked kinda 'cheesy' and flimsy...
I said that the soft pac design looked weak...and I was right..
Seajay bubbled" My theory is that the Transpac's strength is also it's weakness... It's absence of any hard structure in the back means that the tank is a little less stable than with a back plate or hard plate..."
I agree with you completely Seajay. I purchased a Transpac II 3 years ago. I had always prefered softpacks to hard.(I have the 50 lb rec wing, but I'm 250 lbs and a drysuit diver) After a season of diving with it I came to the same conclusion as you have. I've changed to an aluminum backplate, and single tank adapter. I found the system much more stable.
I have some drawings and Scot Koplin has posted his popular wing design, if you want to make your own.
Check the topic "DIY Backplate" on this web board.
Good luck with your backplate and wing.
Mike D
I agree with you completely Seajay. I purchased a Transpac II 3 years ago. I had always prefered softpacks to hard.(I have the 50 lb rec wing, but I'm 250 lbs and a drysuit diver) After a season of diving with it I came to the same conclusion as you have. I've changed to an aluminum backplate, and single tank adapter. I found the system much more stable.
I have some drawings and Scot Koplin has posted his popular wing design, if you want to make your own.
Check the topic "DIY Backplate" on this web board.
Good luck with your backplate and wing.
Mike D
JamesK
Contributor
Seajay, I am glad you had a much better experience with back inflate. Too bad you could not try a single tank setup with a b/p wing. Going into steel doubles like that for the first time can be rather scary. Honestly, I am surprised that Ginnie even rented them out. They are very strict about renting out doubles. They usually only let Full Cave divers do that. Anyway, good luck with your B/P search!
tombiowami
Contributor
"My third dive of the weekend (Sunday morning) was a very pleasurable dive to 60 feet in the devil's trio at Ginnie"
How did you get to 60' over there without going pretty far into the cave?
Are you talking about the Ginnie cavern itself or the Devil's springs/little devil/eye/ear?
Tommy
How did you get to 60' over there without going pretty far into the cave?
Are you talking about the Ginnie cavern itself or the Devil's springs/little devil/eye/ear?
Tommy
JamesK
Contributor
Tommy, I was wondering the same thing at first, but then I figured maybe he just went down into Little devil. I can't remember how deep that gets though, I know it is deeper than the other two.
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