Why is a Jacket BC better than a BP/W?

[flots am]

But back to the jacket, now many jackets have limited lift since the dive community realizes that you don’t need 60 pounds of lift for a standard recreational rig, but they are still using a design that was never meant for swimming underwater.

A high-lift BC is very helpful when dealing with a panicking diver on the surface. I can float pretty much anybody with it, which is really nice when attempting to figure out and deal with whatever is wrong/how to ditch their weights.

It is more drag underwater, but only if you're going too fast.

I own a Jacket BC and a back-inflate sidemount rig. I had a BP/W with doubles, but gave it away because it was just too heavy with difficult valve access in a drysuit.


flots.

 

[jadairiii]

A high-lift BC is very helpful when dealing with a panicking diver on the surface. I can float pretty much anybody with it, which is really nice when attempting to figure out and deal with whatever is wrong/how to ditch their weights.....

Exactly, jackets are merely inflatable life vests, they excel at floating a diver on the surface as they were designed to do, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

... when you go to some tropical locale where the dive op employees are required to set your equipment up for you, they will at least have some familiarity with your gear ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[John_B]

Sometimes you just need a hug.

 

[diversteve]

This is the problem with these sort of threads...All 200,000 of us on Scubaboard - myself included are in the significant minority of divers in the world. Think about it for a minute....

There's probably 10,000 divers who will dive at Sandals, Beaches, the RIU resorts etc. this year. People who may own a mask/fins possibly a regulator because they're easy to pack. Or the hundreds of thousands of vacation divers who descend on South Florida every summer. Or that many who dive in Hawaii - with weight restrictions I find it hard to bring my gear there - and I really want to. There's 1250 beach front resorts in Thailand - how many offer diving?

Even at dive-focused destinations like Bonaire - every dive resort rents jacket BCD's - except the two tech focused shops. One of them even has a few hanging in the rental area for people who don't want the fuss of trying to figure out what's optimal - or don't care.

It's likely every single dive shop in the world - with few exceptions if they're cave/tech focused - trains in Jacket BCD's. Most people buy what they're used to. I have personally suggested at least several dozen times in the New Divers forum that newbie's at least investigate back-inflate designs before purchasing their first gear. Because most shops do a pretty good job of promoting what they sell - or have the highest margins on. If it's optimal also - that's a good deal for both parties.

One size fits all is a powerful incentive for rental fleets also. Aggressor even has a deal with Aqualung to use their gear exclusively in their rental program. Granted the number of divers going thru Aggressor yearly is small but they are more dive focused than many.

Think about the percentage of the millions of cruise divers - many of who dive at several ports - using rental gear provided by the cruise operator. They all have to be able to fit any body size/shape so Jackets are the optimum solution. In addition, weighting for most jackets is simple - put enough weight in the front pockets to sink a diver. When you've got 20 people standing around renting gear and the boat needs to leave in 1/2 hr. that's all you have time for.

I know a guy who is at least as hard-core a diver as I am. Travels all over the world yearly just to dive. He owns a really good dive computer watch and his own mask/fins. Rents a Jacket BCD everywhere he goes since he knows how they work.

When I walk into a dive shop in any dive focused destination in the Caribbean I often look whose Jacket's are hanging on the wall. It's never whose BP/W or even Back Inflate BCD is hanging there. For rental fleets Jackets are the only reasonable option. And by far the cheapest. I'm generally pretty surprised to see any rental gear that isn't low-end Scubapro, Aqualung, Cressi, Oceanic or one or two other mfr's.

I always catch heat for this last comment but if BP/W's are so popular - why don't the major mfr's - except Scubapro - sell one? It's because they market to their demand and their demand is for Jacket BCD's. A simple check of the top 10 mfr's websites - or 5 minutes at LeisurePro.com shows that to be the inevitable truth.

I travel all over the Caribbean, Mexico and some in the South Pacific to dive. Like to do liveaboards if possible. I saw my first BP/W about 5 years ago - ever. I have never seen a Halcyon rig in person. I have never seen a BP/W on a liveaboard either. But I have seen just about every Aqualung or Scubapro Jacket BCD made - quite a few Zeagle's also - which I own as well. These are people who read Scubaboard and you'd have to reasonably consider are more dive-focused than most.

Somebody is going to post here in a few minutes about how wrong I am and how the BP/W is the superior solution. One person, maybe 10 tops.

Do the math...

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

....back to the jacket, now many jackets have limited lift since the dive community realizes that you don’t need 60 pounds of lift for a standard recreational rig, but they are still using a design that was never meant for swimming underwater.

The reason jackets these days have to have so much lift is because they have to account for the biggest mega tank that might be used like a steel 130, plus they have to support all the integrated weight that might be used in the high end of the spectrum (cold water). Combine these two and a 60 lb lift bladder is about right to float all this on the surface plus a little extra for contingencies.

 

[Mustard Dave]

... when you go to some tropical locale where the dive op employees are required to set your equipment up for you, they will at least have some familiarity with your gear ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

The tank fits the cam-band the same as it does on a jacket. The regs screw into the valve in the same manner. The inflator hose clips onto the LPI fitting in the same way too.

Why would anybody be required to set a diver's kit up? I've heard of liveaboards where the crew do this, but this is a hospitality thing rather than for any practical reasons. As far as I'm concerned, nobody sets up my kit but me. My equipment set-up is my responsibility and I want the reassurance of knowing that the kit has been set up properly. Familiar kit is of benefit to the crew, but I do not buy the kit for their benefit.

 

[rivers]

The tank fits the cam-band the same as it does on a jacket. The regs screw into the valve in the same manner. The inflator hose clips onto the LPI fitting in the same way too.

Why would anybody be required to set a diver's kit up? I've heard of liveaboards where the crew do this, but this is a hospitality thing rather than for any practical reasons. As far as I'm concerned, nobody sets up my kit but me. My equipment set-up is my responsibility and I want the reassurance of knowing that the kit has been set up properly. Familiar kit is of benefit to the crew, but I do not buy the kit for their benefit.

It's standard practice in the Caribbean. I've heard of divers not using certain ops because of things like they needed to set-up their own kit or even not cleaning and storing their kit for them...

 

[Mustard Dave]

The reason jackets these days have to have so much lift is because they have to account for the biggest mega tank that might be used like a steel 130, plus they have to support all the integrated weight that might be used in the high end of the spectrum (cold water). Combine these two and a 60 lb lift bladder is about right to float all this on the surface plus a little extra for contingencies.

This is the sort of diving I do mostly. My single tank wing has no problem giving me enough lift.

---------- Post added August 21st, 2014 at 04:06 PM ----------

It's standard practice in the Caribbean. I've heard of divers not using certain ops because of things like they needed to set-up their own kit or even not cleaning and storing their kit for them...

If a diver won't use a dive op because they have to set up their own kit, that is a problem with the diver - not the kit.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

This is the problem with these sort of threads...All 200,000 of us on Scubaboard - myself included are in the significant minority of divers in the world. Think about it for a minute....

There's probably 10,000 divers who will dive at Sandals, Beaches, the RIU resorts etc. this year. People who may own a mask/fins possibly a regulator because they're easy to pack. Or the hundreds of thousands of vacation divers who descend on South Florida every summer. Or that many who dive in Hawaii - with weight restrictions I find it hard to bring my gear there - and I really want to. There's 1250 beach front resorts in Thailand - how many offer diving?

Even at dive-focused destinations like Bonaire - every dive resort rents jacket BCD's - except the two tech focused shops. One of them even has a few hanging in the rental area for people who don't want the fuss of trying to figure out what's optimal - or don't care.

Every single dive shop in the world - with few exceptions if they're cave/tech focused - trains in Jacket BCD's. Most people buy what they're used to. I have personally suggested at least several dozen times in the New Divers forum that newbie's at least investigate back-inflate designs before purchasing their first gear. Because most shops do a pretty good job of promoting what they sell - or have the highest margins on. If it's optimal also - that's a good deal for both parties.

One size fits all is a powerful incentive for rental fleets also. Aggressor even has a deal with Aqualung to use their gear exclusively in their rental program. Granted the number of divers going thru Aggressor yearly is small but they are more dive focused than many.

Think about the percentage of the millions of cruise divers - many of who dive at several ports - using rental gear provided by the cruise operator. They all have to be able to fit any body size/shape so Jackets are the optimum solution. In addition, weighting for most jackets is simple - put enough weight in the front pockets to sink a diver. When you've got 20 people standing around renting gear and the boat needs to leave in 1/2 hr. that's all you have time for.

I know a guy who is at least as hard-core a diver as I am. Travels all over the world yearly just to dive. He owns a really good dive computer watch and his own mask/fins. Rents a Jacket BCD everywhere he goes since he knows how they work.

When I walk into a dive shop in any dive focused destination in the Caribbean I always compare whose Jacket's are hanging on the wall. It's never whose BP/W or even Back Inflate BCD is hanging there. For rental fleets Jackets are the only reasonable option. And by far the cheapest. I'm generally pretty surprised to see any rental gear that isn't low-end Scubapro, Aqualung, Cressi, Oceanic or one or two other mfr's.

I always catch heat for this last comment but if BP/W's are so popular - why don't the major mfr's - except Scubapro - sell one? It's because they market to their demand and their deamand is for Jacket BCD's. A simple check of the top 10 mfr's websites - or 5 minutes at LeisurePro.com shows that to be the inevitable truth.

All true.

I think the reason most dive shops and manufacturers don't push and sell BP/W are because they just don't look appealing to the average diver.
I could see some average recreational vacation diver saying "I'm not wearing that!".
What average diver would look at a flat metal doubles plate and think it looks comfortable? Even for single tank diving. Not only that but assembly and set up can be a pain plus if a STA in involved there's another layer of attachment and nuts/bolts. It takes a gear education to learn about BP/W and most people have lives, diving is just something they do on vacation to look at pretty fishes. They're not gear fanatics like most people on SB (very small minority world wide).
BP/W looks to "techie" and specialized. Most people don't care about tech, they just get what the dive shop tells them to get which is a jacket.