Very interested in BP/w. Confused/help

[leadduck]

I dive a BP/W and wetsuit because that is what I am most comfortable with doing. Trim is a lot easier than with a jacket style BC. I can setup the BP/W with D rings where I want them and not where a manufacturer has placed them. I can use the same setup for technical or rec diving just by changing the wing. A dual bladder tech wing provides redundancy with lift. Diving in a wetsuit here in the Florida caves is not bad now that I no longer do anything longer than mild deco dives. Now having said all that, I find myself jumping down the sidemount rabbit hole with a new Katana 2 dual bladder, so we will see how that goes. I guess what I am saying as others have said is that you find a safe rig that works for you and dive with it. Of course getting to that point can be $$$$ and filled with false trails. Be safe.

Going sidemount (congrats I hope you'll love it), you'll see that most bladders are shaped like triangles: a lot of lift at the lower back, almost nothing at the upper back. Makes a lot of sense to me. There's no advantage in adding lift at your shoulders/neck unless you carry a lot of gas on your upper back like with backmount doubles. When I wrote that above I thought about a single tank thick wetsuit diver, who doesn't need lift at his upper back either, but a lot at the center and lower back, that's why I'd say jacket bladders are tailored to this kind of customer needs, most BP/W wings are not. BTW, better stay away from dual-use (backmount+sidemount) setups, they're not optimal for either also for that reason (sub-optimal bladder shape).

 

[_john]

This is why I love this forum. In my OW (SSI) course BP/W was never mentioned. Prior to this thread I didn't know how to properly weight myself. I knew how to check it after the dive but that's no helpful until you after you are already wrong. I know I was thinking about it all wrong. I was thinking the more lift the better it is. So thanks for that!

I've got another reason to like the BP/W. I'm less than a year out from having gastric bypass and my shape is changing so fast that I would be a fool to buy anything that has a size to it. As a side effect my buoyancy is changing just as rapidly and I haven't been able to get in the water since Feb. And I have not needed a wetsuit yet but now that I'm going to be diving colder water I'll need it and that's going to change my weighting. My LDS has experience with people like me so that's very helpful I just wish they were open. I also hope they survive the economy.

 

[kelemvor]

I've got another reason to like the BP/W. I'm less than a year out from having gastric bypass and my shape is changing so fast that I would be a fool to buy anything that has a size to it.

I had lap band surgery not long before I started diving. It was a big factor in my decision to use BP/W as well.