Uncle Pug dives a Zeagle Ranger BC ~ my report on the problems we had with it.

[The Chairman]

A long long time ago, in a university far far away, I ran the student machine/welding/structures lab for UF's College of Architecture. Students would come in and I would teach them how to use the band saw (or whatever) so they could do their projects. After a few minutes of active supervision and instruction, I would take a seat at my desk and keep an ear tuned in the various goings on.

Depending on the student, I would hear the whine of a tortured blade and various epithets directed at the saw.

"It's not the tool" was my favorite comment. At this juncture the whine would disappear or the blade would break. Bwahahaha!

That's why it's so funny to so many of us when the BP&wings are touted as the panacea of diving. T'aint so.

The diver makes the gear work and not the other way around.

 

[SeanQ]

Upside down :06:

No wonder the D-rings were in the wrong places

No wonder the shoulder straps hurt! :11:

 

[Uncle Pug]

Hey, could've been worse, imagine divin' finless
Harry

I didn't forget my fins over at the rinse station.... I was letting them air dry on top of the trashcan.

 

[HarryH97]

I didn't forget my fins over at the rinse station.... I was letting them air dry on top of the trashcan.

I'm with you brother, I wasn't going to let the cat out of the bag! You can put that one on the Zeagle Ranger BC as well (the air drying part). Like I said, that's what I keep telling everyone. But no one believes me! Various theories going on right now: Alzeimer's, CAT scan, old age, lobotamy, stress...I'm just glad you have your fins back...and your camera...and your magnifying glass (even though you had to make another), and your....rest of your stuff....That borrowed BC is potent stuff. Temporal effects not only occur during the dives, but dives prior to that and future dives as well. Watch out...

Additionally, I'm my experiences, switching to BP/W may not be of much benefit either. I have experienced exponentially more equipment failures of every kind both in real dives and training with BP/W than with any another BC/BCD set-up to include the Zeagle Ranger BC. By my own accounts, there's a 10-250x greater probability of failures to occur of every kind with BP/W strapped on your back. BP/W have also been known to cause whole wrecks and cave tunnels to disappear or relocate to completely different coordinates. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say, it's killed people too. Come to think of it, I cannot remember any failure while I was diving the Zeagle Ranger BC for a number of years and hope your experiences during the test dive was purely an anomoly.

Sincerely,
Harry

 

[markfm]

It's a strange BC probability thing. Harry's years of trouble-free Zeaglehood (Zeageist?) were building up a mass of latent-things-to-go-wrong. UP was the recipient of them all at once, en masse.

It's like the theory about black holes being balanced by white holes -- Harry's problems popped out on UP.

(Given UP's famous ability to get massive amounts of time per tank, that might be where all the air in newbie tanks goes, too!)

 

[Mouth Breather old]

Don't really get the point of this article...I read the thing expecting to read Uncle Pug's usually informative post...but to no avail. Yeah I get it, he likes backplates and wings, hates anything else...but is this new information?

Yesterday I was thrust into testing out a Zeagle Ranger BC since I forgot to take along my BP/wing/regulators... it was at the end of a long and difficult day, OK... lets just leave it at that.

First challenge was weighting. How many extra pounds would I need to add just to make the Ranger sink... 5? 10? 15? 20? I ended up adding 2# over what I normally use. This turned out to be perfect as I ended the dive with 500psi, no gas in the BC and enough in my suit to keep me warm after an hour and 45 minute dive in 50 degree water. (max depth 104')

The next challenge was attaching the light canister. There is a small fastex-buckled strap that is used to keep the air cell from tacoing up around the tank. I ran this strap through the canister belt loop mounting the canister upside down... and prayed.

There are too many D-rings on the Zeagle, they are in the wrong places and orientations and they are too floppy... but at least they make one look sporty and help with the weighting. I was able to clip off a standard DIR reg set, light head, camera, fishing pole, boat motor, tennis racket and towel... gotta have a towel if you are going to travel the universe.

Rigged up and ready to dive I was taken back years to when I had my own Zeagle Ranger BC. The walk to the water wasn't my usual spritely sprint. The integrated soft weights and steel tank were un-supported and hurt my shoulders. It felt... well... floppy. Ahhhh yes... now I remember why I preferred boat diving.

Once in the water the Ranger BC disappeared in more ways than one and fortunately no one had seen me wearing it other than my buddy OE2X who had loaned it to me.

As we started our dive the Ranger began to screw things up. It didn't effect my trim at all and I was able to hold any position I wanted without the hand finning I usually see other Ranger users employ. It didn't seem to add that much extra drag though there definitely was more than with my backplate and 27# lift wing. The problem was my mask. The Ranger was causing my mask to leak!

I seldom have a mask leak and when I do I am usually able to fix it with no problem... even masks I find on the bottom and try out for fun. But the Ranger caused my mask to leak in such a way that I was unable to correct it though I tried numerous times during the next 105 minutes!

Not only did it cause my mask to leak but it was causing OE2X's mask to leak too!

But wait... there's more! I noticed that OE2X was using his backup Scout light instead of his Terkle HID. Had the Ranger caused my buddy's HID to flood?!? We found out after the dive that the Ranger had caused the connectors in his light to not be plugged in!

Our mission on this dive was to test and compare our point~n~shoot cameras. OE2X has a new Nikon coolpix 7900 7 meg and I have the Pentax Optio s50 5 meg. Our first location was the octopus under the log at ~100'. The Ranger didn't cause any problems here... it was working ahead of us and the next problem it caused was heart breaking.

Swimming on to our second location, the I-beams at 90', we couldn't find Wendy. She wasn't in the rock pile and she wasn't under her I-beam. I don't know if the Ranger scared her away or somehow killed her and disposed of the body... but she is gone.

Moving on up to photograph warbonnets the Ranger caused a serious algae bloom. Great globs of gunk filled the water. They also found their way into our still flooding masks. The Ranger was threatening to ruin this dive but we continued. I couldn't feel it on my back as much as in my mind... this thing wanted to destroy us!

We photographed a few octopus at the Honey Bear and then set off to get shots of the small stuff on the way back. The Ranger now began to cause a surge and current wash that stirred up the salad on the bottom making it difficult for the PnS cameras to get a focus lock on our subjects... not only that... the Ranger actually increased the shutter lag of my Pentax!

Then the humiliation.

After an hour and 45 minutes we surfaced to find ourselves face to face with some DIR friends just finishing a practice dive to 40'. They were resplendent in their backplates/wings, doubles and deco bottles... and I was wearing a Zeagle Ranger BC.

They began to smile and laugh, pointing to my intersting hose routing and upside down canister. It was a long walk to the shower.

 

[scubapro50]

You should never poke fun at XYZ gear (unless it's DACOR and they deserve it ). (just kidding ..... (not really)) The ranger is an excellent BC but it may not be for you. That's why there are so many different styles, sizes, makers and options available to the diving public. I never use the weight pockets in my BC because I like wearing a weightbelt because it doesn't pull the BC down. That's what great about having a LDS that lets you try out different styles of equipment in the pool so you don't make the mistake of having the wrong size in the water. Anyway sounds like you had a rotten day and no matter what kind of gear you had it wouldn't have helped much.

 

[The Chairman]

That's OK Mouth Rebreather...

In the future though, it's probably best to not admit that you DON'T get the joke. You know the old saying... Some people are suspected of being slow: Others open their mouths and remove all doubt!

The article had NOTHING to do with "how bad" Zeagle's products are, but how gear has VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH HOW YOU DIVE!

UP has long been a proponent of BP&Wings... but that's not where he gets his skill. Gear does not make the diver look good under water, but a good diver can make any gear look good. Even if they don't like it.

 

[Snowbear]

Don't really get the point of this article...I read the thing expecting to read Uncle Pug's usually informative post...but to no avail. Yeah I get it, he likes backplates and wings, hates anything else...but is this new information?

It is an informative post, as usual.... if you can comprehend that often humpy camel humor

 

[ScottZeagle]

It is an informative post, as usual.... if you can comprehend that often humpy camel humor

Honestly, it took me reading it 3 times, and a PM from UP before I got it.

Those of you who have been reading UP posts forever get it quickly, however, those of us unfamiliar with his wit take a little longer...