Streamlining my gear

[Rhone Man]

These discussions in the past have made me want to run full speed head first into a brick wall out of frustration,
but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

You did well to type all of that with serious head trauma.

 

[Splitlip]

In the Fall 2010 Alert Diver magazine "Diving in Currents", Mike Ange writes: "Water is 800 times denser than air, so it creates resistance magnitudes stronger than the resistance caused by even a storm level wind."

And: "Your dive gear should be streamlined with no dangly items. Even an extended regulator hose or dangling console can create a lot of physically-taxing drag."

 

[Thalassamania]

Most of the "streamlining" that is suggested has more to do with how it looks than anything else. There are two major fallacies, both stemming from a lack of actual testing. The first I have not tested either, that is clipping your spg, which I object to on other grounds, namely whenever you create a closed circle with your gear you are raising the ante on entanglement, I put my spg under my tank in the small of my back with no clip or securing ... it tends to stay there, except when I pull it out to look at it. The second (and in this case actually demonstrable fallacy) is the idea that all BP/Ws have less drag than any vest. I prefer BP/Ws over vests, for a number of other reasons, but that's for a different thread. Many years ago Steve Paulet and Dave Mclean (both used to be here on SB, they show up once in a while now but you can find them on FaceBook if you want details) did a seminal study of BC drag by towing divers and a dressed manikin in a ship hull tow tank that was instrumented to record the force needed to move through the water. This study included a prototype for what became the SeaQuest ADV as well as the Watergill AT-pac (an early BP/W very similar to modern ones but with a plastic backpack rather than a metal plate, it could be equipped with a fiberglass fairing and was towed with and without its fairing) the results were not what you'd expect. The ADV did best, and the BP/W without the fairing did not do as well, with the fairing it was even worse. I do not know that "modern" BP/Ws would fare the same, just pointing out that there a a lot of noise on the subject and very little hard data.