Thoughts on Diverite Travelpac please

[Travellingpete]

Hi all,

I currently dive with a Cressi travel lite BCD however due to losing A LOT of weight it is now way too big for me and I am ditching it. It was and is a nice BCD to travel with.

I dive only warm waters, 21C upwards normally and use a full 3mm wetsuit and booties with scubapro twin jet fins (black). DIve with a camera, small smb/reel combo and a torch almost always resort ALU80 tanks.
Because of the bulk of the bc and the wetsuit I am loading up with 8kgs of ditchable weight, far more than I want to carry but I am neutral at 5m albeit with around 80-100 bar remaining more often than not.

I quite fancy the Travelpac and the streamlined setup. Feasably how much weight do you estimate I could drop on the simple switch to this BC? What are your experiences on this.

I also want ditchable weight pockets and assume the 16lb QB will fit on the waistband without a problem. I would ideally like to get to 5kg max for the weight and experiment with trim. I am currently 85kg and 176cm for those with a more technical approach.

Also assuming the rig would float on its own with that weight and kit attached and wing fully inflated.

All advice taken.

Peter

 

[tcphil]

The travel-pac website says up to 10 lbs of ditchable weight. I have and enjoyed using one last year with 14 lbs of ditchable with no issues. Can't compare to Cressi or address the ditchable 16 lb pockets. If interested in purchasing mine used with only a hand full of dives, let me know.

 

[KevinG58]

Note the Travelpac is not a metal plate system. If you are looking to use less lead on the belt this is probably not the solution you are looking for. I myself have used a 4lb aluminum backplate, and finally a 4lb steel Freedom plate, with a DR Deluxe harness when traveling. The latter is a little less bulky than the former. But in each case I can subtract 4 lbs of lead.

I'm very buoyant. My latest warm water dive I wore a brand new 3mm wetsuit. With the 4lb. freedom plate I wore 16 lbs of lead on a weight belt to start. By the end of the week the suit was compressed a bit, or I was attuned to the rig, and I removed 2 lbs from my belt.

 

[tbone1004]

you're unfortunately not going to ditch anything going to the travelpac because like was said above, it isn't a metal plate, and on top of that, it does have padding. If you want to ditch the weight and not worry about a bc not fitting, you really have to go into a SS backplate and wing. If you don't like the harness, you can always go with the Transplate harness from Dive Rite as that is universal with any backplate, albeit unnecessary for most people

 

[MasterChief D]

I've used the Travelpac for over 5 years. It is my main BC for wetsuit single-tank diving.At 2.5 kg, it makes an excellent travel BC. The fact that it is soft plate is not a drawback, in my opinion; much more comfortable than anything else when hauling a 15L tank over a rocky water entrance. Maximum weight I've used in the ditchable weight pockets is 8 kg (17.5 lbs). If I were to replace it, I'd buy the same one again.