Warped Dive World Evolution - BP/W Subgroup Mindset
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calicant
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I am a new diver with negligible experience who found himself quickly attracted to a BP/W for diving. I think my recent experiences learning to backpack in the Sierras was what moved me in this direction. Why? Well, let me explain.
I started with a huge pack built to carry loads of camping gear. I bought lots of stuff I thought I needed or wanted in the mountains and crammed it into the pack before setting off to hike the 211 mile John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mt Whitney. As I struggled up mountain passes each day, I would meet a few ultralight backpackers with smaller lighter packs. They could stand and chat with me without taking their packs off their backs while I had to remove mine or sit down with it on a rock to take the weight off. They told me what I should do and it largely involved a change of philosophy to one of only taking what I need to hike in the mountains. I studied at backpackinglight.com and before doing the same hike the next year I rebought all my gear and a new pack and lost a full 20lbs off my back. It wasn't just weight saving though. The pack was designed to carry the lesser loading and fitted much more snuggly at the shoulder and waste straps. I was now able to stop and chat for 30 mins while not even noticing I had a pack on my back, I knocked 3 days off the time it took me to do the journey and didn't have to wait 8 weeks for the feeling to come back into my toes after I finished. I've done that trail 3 times now and will do it again this August.
My impression of the BP/W system was that it would fit me more snuggly than a jacket and hold the tank much more tightly on my back underwater. Although in this case, I can't benefit from using ultralight equipment - keeping weight is actually essential in maintaining buoyancy - I can benefit from the comfort of precise fit and stability. The snug fitting of the tank and BC device with shoulder straps and waist belt seemed obvious to me as soon as I saw a BP/W. I can't imagine wearing a kind of jacket loaded with sleeping bag and camping gear and even less so with a heavy tank of gas!
I know my justifications are perhaps not typical, but they seem rational to me in my little world of mountains and oceans. I dived a BP/W last Saturday for the first time at Casino Point. It was great to dive in the kelp forest and find my fears unfounded about the cold - exposure protection worked great. The one thing I can be absolutely sure about from those dives is that I will be buying a BP/W very soon. As soon as I got in the water it felt like it wasn't there. Who came up with the BS about wings pushing you forward in the water at the surface? Wasn't so, wasn't so at all, even when fully inflated.
Glad I won't have to buy a whole new set of gear this time!!!!
I started with a huge pack built to carry loads of camping gear. I bought lots of stuff I thought I needed or wanted in the mountains and crammed it into the pack before setting off to hike the 211 mile John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mt Whitney. As I struggled up mountain passes each day, I would meet a few ultralight backpackers with smaller lighter packs. They could stand and chat with me without taking their packs off their backs while I had to remove mine or sit down with it on a rock to take the weight off. They told me what I should do and it largely involved a change of philosophy to one of only taking what I need to hike in the mountains. I studied at backpackinglight.com and before doing the same hike the next year I rebought all my gear and a new pack and lost a full 20lbs off my back. It wasn't just weight saving though. The pack was designed to carry the lesser loading and fitted much more snuggly at the shoulder and waste straps. I was now able to stop and chat for 30 mins while not even noticing I had a pack on my back, I knocked 3 days off the time it took me to do the journey and didn't have to wait 8 weeks for the feeling to come back into my toes after I finished. I've done that trail 3 times now and will do it again this August.
My impression of the BP/W system was that it would fit me more snuggly than a jacket and hold the tank much more tightly on my back underwater. Although in this case, I can't benefit from using ultralight equipment - keeping weight is actually essential in maintaining buoyancy - I can benefit from the comfort of precise fit and stability. The snug fitting of the tank and BC device with shoulder straps and waist belt seemed obvious to me as soon as I saw a BP/W. I can't imagine wearing a kind of jacket loaded with sleeping bag and camping gear and even less so with a heavy tank of gas!
I know my justifications are perhaps not typical, but they seem rational to me in my little world of mountains and oceans. I dived a BP/W last Saturday for the first time at Casino Point. It was great to dive in the kelp forest and find my fears unfounded about the cold - exposure protection worked great. The one thing I can be absolutely sure about from those dives is that I will be buying a BP/W very soon. As soon as I got in the water it felt like it wasn't there. Who came up with the BS about wings pushing you forward in the water at the surface? Wasn't so, wasn't so at all, even when fully inflated.
Glad I won't have to buy a whole new set of gear this time!!!!
Blackwood
Contributor
Tried a handful of things. Didn't like the way any of the jacket BCDs fit or felt. Liked the way a simple harness and rigid backplate felt, and could adjust to fit. Liked having 6# off my belt. Amongst the cheapest of options. Sold.
Years later, I use the same backplate with doubles, stage bottles, deco bottles and scooters. Just changed out the wing to a wider, larger capacity one. Seems I made a good decision.
Years later, I use the same backplate with doubles, stage bottles, deco bottles and scooters. Just changed out the wing to a wider, larger capacity one. Seems I made a good decision.
Well, that is exactly why I was debating with myself. On one hand he is being inflammatory (a classic troll maneuver) but on the other he is isn't actually breaking the TOS. Hence me still debating but taking no action.
Adobo
Contributor
While getting certified, I did some reading in scubaboard to try to figure out what kind of gear I should get. For BCs, it was clear that there were two camps - bp/wings and others. The bp/wing approach seemed like it was for technical/advanced divers and after getting some advice from my dive shop reaffirming that bp/wings were not for new divers, I went with the *others* camp and purchased a Zeagle Brigade BC.
Along with my Zeagle Brigade BC happily purchased from Scubatoys, I got a small UK flashlight. The Brigade has a little pocket that seemed perfect for keeping a flashlight.
On one of the dives during my open water certification weekend, I went to look in a little hole in a rock formation. As the little hole was dark, I went to deploy my little flashlight. Unfortunately, with 5 mil gloves on and the flashlight being an almost exact fit into the pocket, I was not at all able to pull the flashlight out.
On one of the next dives, I tried simulating an ascent while breathing from my Zeagle safe second (similar to the scubapro air-2). I found it cumbersome to try to breath from the regulator and vent from it at the same time. Forget about trying to keep track of what depth I was at using the dangly integrated computer.
First, I went back to my local dive show. I saw tons of retractors and lanyards and all kinds of little doodads. After leaving the diveshop completely clueless on what I needed to do to simply store a little flashlight such that I could easily deploy it when wanted/needed it, I went back to the scubaboard seeking guidance on how to configure my Zeagle Brigade platform such that I could easily use the gear I was using already (flashlight, computer, safe second) and also trying to figure out how to add additional gear I was bound to need as I got further along into diving.
I read a bunch of "its personal preference" and "its all up to you". It was at that time that I realized that this approach was complete and utter bull crap. I was a diver who had about 5 minutes of diving experience. How was I supposed to synthesize my own gear configuration? I mean, at that stage, even Albert Einstein would not know what he doesn't know.
Then one of the local divers gave me a hint regarding the hogarthian gear configuration. In that gear configuration, one uses a bp/wing as the foundation. You add gear as needed - for me, first it would be a little flashlight. The configuration seemed like it already had all the stuff sorted out. There is a place for the primary regulator when not being used. There is a place for the spg. There is no computer dangling all over the place as that stays on your wrist. So on and so forth.
So for me, I got into diving to dive. I did not get into diving to rediscover optimal gear configurations (paying for mistakes with my hard earned dollars and risking my bacon every time something did not go as well under water as it did on land.) I saw a gear configuration that was tried and tested by divers far smarter and far more experienced than me and that gear configuration was repeatable. And the foundation of that configuration was the bp/wing.
Along with my Zeagle Brigade BC happily purchased from Scubatoys, I got a small UK flashlight. The Brigade has a little pocket that seemed perfect for keeping a flashlight.
On one of the dives during my open water certification weekend, I went to look in a little hole in a rock formation. As the little hole was dark, I went to deploy my little flashlight. Unfortunately, with 5 mil gloves on and the flashlight being an almost exact fit into the pocket, I was not at all able to pull the flashlight out.
On one of the next dives, I tried simulating an ascent while breathing from my Zeagle safe second (similar to the scubapro air-2). I found it cumbersome to try to breath from the regulator and vent from it at the same time. Forget about trying to keep track of what depth I was at using the dangly integrated computer.
First, I went back to my local dive show. I saw tons of retractors and lanyards and all kinds of little doodads. After leaving the diveshop completely clueless on what I needed to do to simply store a little flashlight such that I could easily deploy it when wanted/needed it, I went back to the scubaboard seeking guidance on how to configure my Zeagle Brigade platform such that I could easily use the gear I was using already (flashlight, computer, safe second) and also trying to figure out how to add additional gear I was bound to need as I got further along into diving.
I read a bunch of "its personal preference" and "its all up to you". It was at that time that I realized that this approach was complete and utter bull crap. I was a diver who had about 5 minutes of diving experience. How was I supposed to synthesize my own gear configuration? I mean, at that stage, even Albert Einstein would not know what he doesn't know.
Then one of the local divers gave me a hint regarding the hogarthian gear configuration. In that gear configuration, one uses a bp/wing as the foundation. You add gear as needed - for me, first it would be a little flashlight. The configuration seemed like it already had all the stuff sorted out. There is a place for the primary regulator when not being used. There is a place for the spg. There is no computer dangling all over the place as that stays on your wrist. So on and so forth.
So for me, I got into diving to dive. I did not get into diving to rediscover optimal gear configurations (paying for mistakes with my hard earned dollars and risking my bacon every time something did not go as well under water as it did on land.) I saw a gear configuration that was tried and tested by divers far smarter and far more experienced than me and that gear configuration was repeatable. And the foundation of that configuration was the bp/wing.
I'm a newb. I started diving a BP/W on my 9th dive (I have 12 dives now). For me it came down to fit. As I mentioned in my thread about it a couple months back, I'm just one of those people that doesn't fit "off the shelf" clothing of any kind.
I have a "large" for shoulders, a "medium" for chest, and a "small" for waist size. As such vests flop around on me in warm water and, because I have to cinch the waist so much, squeeze me heavily in cold water with lots of neoprene. (I don't dive dry.)
While the weight was an issue as well, it wasn't much of one because I could just add weights to my pockets after I had my tank on and that wasn't a big deal. Now, I use the stainless steel plate because weight belts are uncomfortable in cold water (no hips and lots of neoprene that "shrinks" at depth) and I don't need weights in warm water. I have PVC plate that I can use in "really warm water" but I have yet to find water I could dive in without some sort of 1mm or thicker exposure suit.
I don't adhere to the whole concept that a bp/w is more streamlined than a vest, but I will say I felt "lighter" in the water from the moment I started my first dive wearing the wing. I borrowed someone else's rig for that first dive, I think a transplate with a "comfort" harness and I "felt" more horizontal in my trim immediately. I didn't really feel uncomfortable, ever, with my vest on but the wing just felt more "right" on my body.
So fit and the bulk of having the vest (mine was a Genesis Phantom) "caging" me in are the factors that sold me on a BP. In the end, I'll dive whatever's available though because I'd rather dive than quibble over a BC.
I have a "large" for shoulders, a "medium" for chest, and a "small" for waist size. As such vests flop around on me in warm water and, because I have to cinch the waist so much, squeeze me heavily in cold water with lots of neoprene. (I don't dive dry.)
While the weight was an issue as well, it wasn't much of one because I could just add weights to my pockets after I had my tank on and that wasn't a big deal. Now, I use the stainless steel plate because weight belts are uncomfortable in cold water (no hips and lots of neoprene that "shrinks" at depth) and I don't need weights in warm water. I have PVC plate that I can use in "really warm water" but I have yet to find water I could dive in without some sort of 1mm or thicker exposure suit.
I don't adhere to the whole concept that a bp/w is more streamlined than a vest, but I will say I felt "lighter" in the water from the moment I started my first dive wearing the wing. I borrowed someone else's rig for that first dive, I think a transplate with a "comfort" harness and I "felt" more horizontal in my trim immediately. I didn't really feel uncomfortable, ever, with my vest on but the wing just felt more "right" on my body.
So fit and the bulk of having the vest (mine was a Genesis Phantom) "caging" me in are the factors that sold me on a BP. In the end, I'll dive whatever's available though because I'd rather dive than quibble over a BC.
BDSC
Contributor
Exactly. If a person thinks Halemano is being inflammatory, has obnoxious quotes, and is a troll, then they shouldn't feed him by posting in this thread. Why participate here if that's what a person really thinks?
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ya think?
It's really a matter of preference. If a jacket BC works for you, then use one. If a back-inflate style BCD is more your preference, get one of those. If the BP/W makes ya grin, go with it.
We all dive in different environments. Often the gear you use is determined by the environment you dive in ... and how well it plays with the conditions and the other gear you use.
The OP lives in Hawaii ... he wants to promote what he uses, and what he sees most often. No biggie ... in the big picture, he's right that it's what most divers around the world are wearing. So in that respect he's promoting a perspective that the majority of divers can relate to. So I guess it's better than some of the other agendas I've seen on ScubaBoard over the years.
As for the original question ... I've been using a BP/W since about 2004. I chose it because it works better for me than the other styles I tried. In OW class I used a jacket style BCD, and for the first three years I used a back-inflate style. Jackets were never comfortable, so I quickly decided I didn't like them. And although I was perfectly content with my TUSA Imprex Pro and my ScubaPro SuperHawk, when I tried a BP/W I felt like I had more control ... so why wouldn't I want one?
Other people's mileage may vary ... and that's OK. One of the benefits of a forum like ScubaBoard is reading about what works for other people and why. If we could only do it without making it sound like those who make different choices than ours are somehow wrong, it'd make for some interesting conversation.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
OP
Sas; other than fanning flames with regards to some members sloppy, unsupported and ignorant typing regarding the "streamlining" myth, please quote me where I have expressed an opinion about BP/W's
edit; I have made 21 dives with a Draeger Dolphin, 14 of them solo, including more than straight swim through penetration of The Duane.
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OP
Seems to me that "truly awful Dacor 'Rig 3' Hybrid Back-inflate" is the closest BC you have ever owned to a Vest BC, yet you continually denigrate all Vest BC's
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