Talk me *OUT* of a BP/W setup

[CuzzA]

yes! I start tomorrow

One tip I can offer as you start your training and this will continue throughout your journey in this sport, is scuba diving is ALL about managing gas. It's actually counterintuitive because naturally we associate diving with liquid, but it's gas where we need to first maintain our focus.

Sure, there are many aspects to diving beside gas, but managing the gas is the foundation for diving. We manage the gas in our ears, lungs, tanks, buoyancy compensators, tissues, dry suits, masks, etc. IMO, if you focus your attention on mastering and managing gas from the start, especially buoyancy, you'll find all other aspects of diving to come very naturally. At least that was my approach and I found it to be very effective which has allowed me to excel quite rapidly as a diver.

 

[filmguy123]

Loving this thread. Thanks to all.

I'm 6'1, 205lbs, 31y/o male. So an optimal BP/W setup for me would be:

Coldwater PNW BP/W kit
1x SS BP
1x STA adaptor
1x Wing for Singles... 30lbs (maybe 35lbs... max of 40)
1x harness
LATER: Add 1x XL wing for DOUBLES - max 60-65lbs

Tropical Vacation BP/W for travel kit
1x AL plate (or a Kydex composite?)
1x Wing... 20-30lbs of lift?
1x Harness (while I could re-use from cold water setup, harnesses are cheap, so save the hassle and just get a 2nd?)

BOTH KITS
Suggestions for weight pockets and weights?

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Look good? Am I doing this right? Any chance my Tropical kit wouldn't have enough ballast?

Buy new VS used for the BP/W?

PS you guys have done a TERRIBLE job talking me out of this!


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EDIT: In a non BP/W world, my top alternatives would be:

NOTE: Would probably maintain the PNW Cold Water kit, and alternatively use one of these for tropical and travel. *IF* I opted to not just stick with BP/W for both.

$450 DiveRite HunterPac BCD
HunterPac BCD | Dive Rite

$850 ScubaPro Hyrdos Pro (Fall 2016)
SCUBAPRO - HYDROS PRO

$500 Zeagle Express Tech
http://www.leisurepro.com/p-zgletdr/zeagle-express-tech-deluxe-bcd-with-ripcord-weight-system

$500 Zeagle Covert
https://www.amazon.com/Zeagle-Cover...&qid=1467076579&sr=8-1&keywords=zeagle+covert

 

[cool_hardware52]

Loving this thread. Thanks to all.

I'm 6'1, 205lbs, 31y/o male. So an optimal BP/W setup for me would be:

Coldwater PNW BP/W kit

1x SS BP

Yes

1x STA adaptor

Probably not

1x Wing for Singles... 30lbs (maybe 35lbs... max of 40)

Depends on the buoyancy of your exposure suit.

1x harness

Yes

LATER: Add 1x XL wing for DOUBLES - max 60-65lbs

Depends on the buoyancy of your exposure suit and the weight of your back gas.

Tropical Vacation BP/W for travel kit

1x AL plate (or a Kydex composite?)

Your stainless plate may be a better choice

1x Wing... 20-30lbs of lift?

Requirements are likely less than 20 lbs, but you may be able to use your cold water wing if it isn't waaay to big.

1x Harness (while I could re-use from cold water setup, harnesses are cheap, so save the hassle and just get a 2nd?)

Every plate needs it's own harness.

BOTH KITS

Suggestions for weight pockets and weights?

Pick your plate material and cylinders well and you shouldn't need a lot of extra ballast. Use a belt. Adding a lot of ballast to your rig can require a larger wing than would be needed if you carry some of your ballast on your person.

The approach I often recommend is to start with a carefully selected cold water singles rig, stainless plate, wing no larger than necessary, and maybe bolt on weight plates if your cold water suit is very buoyant. Take this gear to warm water. If the wing is reasonably sized often the cold water wing works well enough to avoid buying a dedicated small travel wing (17-20 lbs)

Expanding on this core is straight forward. Add a small wing if you dive in warm water enough to make it worthwhile. Add a properly sized doubles wing when you make to the transition to doubles.

Tobin

 

[NYCNaiad]

While I think you have made your mind up, I wanted to throw my 2 dive cents in. Scubaboard does seem to have a very high number of bpw divers. (I wonder if this is because many of them dive cold or tech predominately. I have never seen someone with a bpw anywhere except for local cold water diving.) I mostly dive in warm water while traveling. (I generally do 4 dive trips a year...a 3 week trip, a 2 week trip & two 4-day weekend trips all with 3-5 dives per day.) However, I do occasionally also dive cold water in my local area including NJ & PA (salt as well as fresh).

I know plenty of people that are happy with their bpw & plenty of people that are happy with a regular integrated bc. I am one of the latter & use the same bc for both cold & warm water. For me, it comes down to the following:

1. I've been on flights to tiny islands where every pound counted & you couldn't just pay for an extra bag. If you were over on weight, you either left your gear at the airport or paid for a 2nd seat on the plane to account for your gear. A bpw/accessories (even a lighter bpw) is still heavier than my bc. (While this scenario may not be true in the more mainstream destinations, it's happened a number of times in the places I've been diving like the outer Solomon Islands & some of the places I want to dive.)

2. Any type of dive equipment can occasionally be a problem at the airport. However, a buddy of mine with a bpw often has more problems because of their backplate.

3. I have a bad back &, where possible, prefer to have someone lift my bc/tank off of me before I get back on the boat. (In warm water with no current, I often take advantage of this.) This would be much more difficult with a bpw.

4. I love the deep pockets in my bc. Though there are ways to get around this with a bpw, I personally think it's more difficult.

5. I often dive on boats/liveaboards where it's full service diving. While I'm a firm believer in setting up my own equipment, the crew will often try to help me even when I've firmly told them not to do so. This is because it's very ingrained in them to do this to get a bigger tip. For instance, I've gone to the bathroom only to come back & find everything was already set-up. Or I turnaround to take off my wet suit & once it's off, I notice they've broken down all my gear for me to be helpful. I really try to keep an eye out for this, but it's still happened enough of the time to know it will happen again. I think the crew could inadvertently damage your bpw because they are not as familiar with it.

btw I personally think it's better to dive with the same system wherever you go. If you alternate between a traditional bc & a bpw, you could get into trouble in an emergency where you're reaching for something that's in a different spot. Far better to get used to a single set of gear & dive it well making it second nature.

I don't want to be a tech or cave diver where a bpw is necessary. I strive to be a kickass warm & cold water recreational diver. I think this can be accomplished with a bpw or a regular bc as long as you continually work to improve your diving and don't get complacent.

 

[Diving Dubai]

From my standpoint:

My first BPW, I had integrated weigh pockets fitted to the waist belt and the also bolted to the lower part of back plate. so if you need more ditch-able weight that's a possibility

I now dive a Dive rite comfort harness, so adjustment is very easy. In practice between my Dry Suit and summer skin I only need to adjust the crotch strap, s less than 5 mins

I have pockets on waist strap both help in place with plastic weight belt sliders or you could use a D-ring dependign on your preferences.

Mine has no plate because I dive steels with thin exposure at home, and can add any weight needed for Ali tanks to trim pockets. Even with my D/S I only carry 10lbs - admittedly I don't dive very cold.

I dive extensively in Asia and never had issues with boat crews being confused with my set up, damage on boats etc etc. but perhaps my choice of dive ops is different from others (tend to go with those who take only experienced divers for challenging diving) Most ops I dive with the tank stays on the BC the whole trip and gets refilled from a whip. Anyway I don't get precious and in 3 years and a couple hundred vacation dives I've never had damage.

Weight for travel, yes a Steel or Ali backplate can add some mass. But not much. Here it has to go in the hold along with regs, you couldn't take them on board.

Again I've put my equipment in a net bag through some of the supposed worst airports, nothing got damaged nor lost/stolen. I have a dive roller bag but that weighs a ton so generally not used.

Actually the only damage or loss to my kit has been by me, so I'm the weak link in the system

 

[doctormike]

1x Harness (while I could re-use from cold water setup, harnesses are cheap, so save the hassle and just get a 2nd?)

You definitely don't rethread the webbing when you change plates - each plate had it's own webbing. That having been said, I have a steel plate that I use at home with a dry suit and doubles, and in the Caribbean with a 3 mm wetsuit and a single Aluminum 80. I travel with it everywhere, just came back from Truk Lagoon, no problem. I guess you might someday find yourself in a situation where luggage weight restriction was such that the extra 4 pounds was a limiting factor. That has never been an issue for me, but I guess if that was a problem in your diving you would need to get the lightest BC you could find. I actually did buy an aluminum backplate, but I never use it any more since I'm never in a situation where I need less weight than a steel BP. Maybe if I ended up on one of those little planes?

Suggestions for weight pockets and weights?

Trim pockets on the cam bands put the weight in a good position (next to the BP), where they are near your center of mass and don't shift around, pulling on your waist. But if you absolutely must have ditchable weight, then you can get pockets with ditchable inserts that thread onto the waist strap of a harness.


As far as actual pockets go - I really hate pockets on a BC. Think about it, when you are walking around on land, do you keep your wallet and keys in your shirt or in your pants? If you are doing technical diving, you might need to carry a lot of things like an extra mask, backup spools, an underwater notebook, a Nautilus GPS, etc... A dry suit has plenty of pocket space, but when tech diving in warm water, I use cargo shorts over my wetsuit.

If you aren't tech diving, you don't need to carry so much stuff, so it's better to put it in more secure places that won't be too dangly. I clip my reel off to my right hip D-ring, and I carry two SMBs, one in a backplate pouch and one in a tail pouch

.


Very secure, and you don't realize that they are there until you need them:

 

[Stoo]

I have used both systems for decades, and I think that there are possibly disadvantages to a bp/w in a vacation setting. Actually, let me rephrase... not a disadvantage, just less of an advantage.

There are tons of benefits already sited... flexibility, doubles etc. Probably these things don't matter for warm water vacation diving (although they might). Flying with a stainless steel backplate is silly. Baggage restrictions are tough. You wouldn't fly with lead, so why fly with your SS plate? So a "travel" bp/w might look more like an ABS/alu, plate (for weight) and a smaller wing and possibly some weight pockets or something. In other words, a second set of gear. If you dive dry at home, you'll need yards less harness, so now you really have reason to have two bp/w setups.

On the other hand, a "travel" BC may be lighter and more compact. It has pockets, for a little light, or a spool and SMB... less dangly stuff. If you need much lead, you can go weight integrated and save strain on your back. I don't, and I can by with 6 pounds in the trim pockets of my Zeagle Sport.

So the obvious answer is that there's not an obvious answer. If you dive primarily in colder water, and especially if you dive dry, you can't beat the wing. But it may not be the best solution for tropical diving.

 

[doctormike]

Flying with a stainless steel backplate is silly.

I think that this is an overstatement.

You wouldn't fly with lead, so why fly with your SS plate.

Because I can get lead from pretty much any dive operator, anywhere in the world. I can't get a BP/W from them, and I far prefer it to a jacket, so I bring mine. By that logic, why not just save even more weight and rent everything?

If you dive dry at home, you'll need yards less harness, so now you really have reason to have two bp/w setups.

You have a lot more experience than I do, but I'm not sure where this idea came from. My BP/W goes from dry suit to thin wetsuit with no change in the harness at all.

 

[Stoo]

You have a lot more experience than I do, but I'm not sure where this idea came from. My BP/W goes from dry suit to thin wetsuit with no change in the harness at all.

Experience is irrelvant. My "diameter" is a lot larger when I wear a drysuit and 400 gsm undies, compared to a 3mm wetsuit. As a result, there's a lot of unnecessary harness...

As far for the rental argument, I actually did that for a bit. An old Scubapro stab jacket gave up the ghost and I was having trouble justifying spending a bundle on a BCD for a week a year, and that I didn't actually like.. I rented one for a couple of years. Once travel wings became a thing, I bought one. Renting one gets surprisingly expensive rather quickly...

I don't think we disagree Doc! ;-)

 

[doctormike]

As far for the rental argument, I actually did that for a bit. An old Scubapro stab jacket gave up the ghost and I was having trouble justifying spending a bundle on a BCD for a week a year. I rented one for a couple of years. Once travel wings became a thing, I bought one. Renting one gets surprisingly expensive...

I don't think we disagree Doc! ;-)

Hah! I think that you are right about that...

I wasn't really suggesting renting to save weight, I was just pointing out that if you have gear that you like, it's OK to bring it even if it makes your luggage heavier. I think that the travel weight issue of a BP/W tends to get overblown; I have no problem packing it even with standard airline policies. I suppose if you were backpacking with gear or flying very small planes with strict weight restrictions it would be more of an issue.

I haven't had to change my webbing going from thin wetsuit to dry suit with thick undergarments, but you are probably right, maybe i'm a little snug at home and a little loose in the tropics. Just never bothered me...