AdivingBel
Diver
Humorous vids, interesting read, but as far as a useful comparative discussion of equipment trends and alternatives....Elvis has pretty much left the building...
Equipment Trends: The BCD
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Humorous vids, interesting read, but as far as a useful comparative discussion of equipment trends and alternatives....Elvis has pretty much left the building...
- Messages
- 5,884
- Reaction score
- 2,998
- Location
- Lake Worth, Florida, United States
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
If the topic wasn't fun, I could not see myself doing it....
Bob,
I have to ask you for a favor here....I have NOT been trying to make this about how FAST a diver can swim.... I have been trying to push the concept of "KICK AND GLIDE" ...the speed aspect is only to explain the hydrodynamics and when they come into play the most.... Too many readers keep missing this, that I am not pushing the need for speed.....
But the thing that I do keep pushing....what was most evident in the freediver vid with the DolFin wing, is "Kick and glide"...
Please.....focus on the concept of "Kick and glide" for a few posts....and I'll promise to focus on some of your issues as you ask me to...
For the purposes of this thread...and the all important masses in tropical diving ... I think it is fair to say that the typical Jacket BC diver is not able to enjoy the Kick and glide....this is due to the high volume and high drag BC, and it is due to THE WAY that most JAcket BC users configure hoses, consoles and, weights, their trim and gear on a big jacket............. And, it is also due to a failure of most instructors, to teach propulsion with an emphasis on advanced techniques that could lead to KICK AND GLIDE....Certainly this eliminates limp floppy fins you cant get a big PUSH out of....
But the idea is not about speed per se...it is about the best way to move around and find things underwater, with the least energy expended...this is why the freediver video is on point....He is doing kick and glide, and it is not about speed per se..it is about efficiency in the water...something that is antithetical to the current norm with jacket bc style diving...
Again, this is about the hydrodynamics that will allow kick and glide...and about fins that propel you well enough --push you far enough on a kick, so that you can coast for a while--resting, and keep your heart rate at a resting pulse---like the freediver.
Using this concept, Eric, or me, or you, could use freedive fins and a steel 72, to stay down longer, and see more, than most recreational divers in jackets and soft split fins. It does not really matter that we are not using any wing....because once this idea makes sense to more people, then the idea that a really slick 19 pound wing, with the right gear, can be utilized to achieve close to the same result.
miked
Contributor
I had the same set up many years ago. As they say "if it ain't broke..."
Good luck with it, and continued safe diving.
Basking Ridge Diver
Contributor
I have put all 4 of my kids on that pack and put them in the pool to play - only one ended up getting certified... But no D-rings or places to hold gear - very minimalist... we used the catch bag to carry anything other than the flag and that was it... Good memories of diving days back then...
scottwilson1
Contributor
Yup saw one in the LDS , looked uncomfortable - till the owner told me to try it on - the rest is as they say history
I like the spartan look tho - I like my plan jane Hollis BP/w over the Apeks WTX with all the bells and whistles ( appearance wise )
ams511
Contributor
The question I have is why are these BCs ill fitting? Most dive shops have a variety of sizes for rental/pool gear, why aren't these divers properly fitted? Probably because most jacket BCs are not properly made. Two improvements would be to add a crotch strap and two tank straps. How is someone supposed to maintain trim when the butt of the AL tank is rising?
I admit Dan must find the worst instructors in the world. Did you notice the lack of standardization on the safe seconds? Someone looked like they stowed the hose, others dragged it, only a few looked like it was in the triangle.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I'm going to bring this whole thing back around to the original post and try and put some perspective on how this thread developed, and where it ended up so far.
Yes, I have seen an uptick in BP/W use in the last 15 years for sure.
GUE/DIR are the ones that essentially brought the modern BP/W back into fashion for recreational use, although a different version of the backpack designs prior to the jacket, but same concept. DIR: Love them or hate them, embrace them or reject them, one thing you have to give them and thank them for is the popularization and the bringing back of the plate/wing concept for everybody to use, not just tech divers.
All of the following is opinion, (everything on the internet is opinion, so I am told).
Here is how I see it. Modern day scuba diving stemmed originally from breathhold freediving AKA skindiving. Many skin divers saw this new scuba as a way for people who were no good at freediving to be able to cheat and use a tank to go underwater and spear fish. BTW spearfishing was what everybody did in those days, that was the reason why people skin dove. As the scuba's gained popularity enough people were using them that they weren't as contemptible as they once were except by a few die hard freedivers who measured their skill by how successful they were completely under their own power with no aids of any kind.
These people who adopted scuba used all the same methods as they did freediving including all the techniques one uses to glide and swim around underwater. The only thing added was the S.C.U.B.A unit which amounted to nothing more than a tank with two bands around it that secured a very simple harness of shoulder straps, a waist strap, and a crotch strap. The material was either 1" cotton webbing or they also had 1" nylon. There was no plate of any kind, the tank just rode directly on your back. Attached to that tank was an extremely simple double hose regulator that just had a breathing loop with a mouthpiece up front. There was no SPG, no alternate air, no other hoses, nothing. It was as simple as it could possibly be and it was also very safe with no reported failings in the ten years it had been on the market.
As this new scuba continues to gain popularity so does training to teach people how to use this new equipment safely.
Skills such as underwater doff and dons to build comfort, harassment to build confidence and reinforce the stop/think/act training in real time, buddy breathing air shares, calculating ones SAC rate to know how long air supply would last, learning the tables, lots and lots of swimming to get prospective students in shape since the ocean on the west coast is nothing to play with.
These were some really good divers being turned out, both men and women.
Then in the 60's plates came in as a convenience to change out tanks and provide a more comfortable fit.
This basic scene went on all the way up into the 70's. By the late 70's early 80's is when things really changed.
The first comprehensive bc systems were in use. SP was making a stab jacket, and others were making similar stuff, but they essentially took a plastic pack and sewed in into a bunch of nylon material that integrated shoulder straps, air cell, waist strap.
Some people looked at them and thought WTF!?!?
They were designed and marketed in an effort to make diving more attractive to people who never would take up diving otherwise. Regardless of how they worked, that wasn't the point, the point was to just get people signed up. There were new resorts and boats to fill. Cert agencies, manufacturers, and operators all worked together at the first DEMA shows (that's why and how DEMA came about) to figure out how to market scuba to the masses and make some money. They saw potential to make some huge profits and get in on the recreation sports movement of the times.
This is where the jacket BCD was born. It was not born to actually improve diving in the sense of ease of travelling underwater, it was invented to get more people into diving on dry land first, in the store, in the magazines in adds, with colors, with styles, none of this matters underwater. Also it was easier to fit more people quickly with less hassle for training. They had a lot of people they needed to move through the "new improved" classes which took way less time and eliminated much of the stuff they figured was uneccessary.
This to me was where the downslide began and continued to build speed. Just look at the two vids I attached several posts ago and you can see for yourself who they are putting in the ocean these days. They shouldn't have ever made it out of the pool!
The Modern BCD jacket concept peaked IMO with the Mares "Hub" which was the pinnacle of overloaded crap on a unit.
With inventions such as the modern jackets also come other inventions that are designed to overcome or compensate for the disadvatages of design. For instance, since jackets are harder to move through the water, divers began to get leg cramps and have ankle problems using conventional fins, so they invented split fins to make kicking easier when divers were trying to push all that awkward mass forward. so, now we have another compromised piece of equipment to cover for the first compromised piece of equipment. And with training, they eliminate buddy breathing, so divers need a safe second...fine, but that's another hose, another second stage, and another gimmick to try and secure it. And since the BCD became "standard mandatory equipment" you need another hose and another thing to play with and fiddle with. Incrementally all the prior knowledge of true pure diving gets lost as time goes on and new gear gimmickery is brought to market.
Tables are gone, only computers now...fine, it's the digital age, I have a computer too, I've had several but I also know the tables. People are getting more and more removed from what the computer is based on, and for a lot of shallow short recreational beach dives a computer isn't needed. Knowledge is needed, not a toy to tell you what to do.
The last trend was that mostly gear and some training got so bad at one point that I just didn't see how it could get any worse.
The jacket really hasn't changed much, it's pretty much stagnated design wise. They may change a few colors or try and redesign something that fails to fail less like inegrated weight pockets. But don't think that the new modern BCD has anything to do with trying to help you be better in the water, if it does that's a by product, the main objective is for it to look and feel good in the store and fit you out of the box. Don't get the two confused.
I'm seeing a new new trend in a lot of divers that have stuck with it and are serious about their sport and their passion moving to a more basic minimal approach.
I could have just as easily just accepted the modern gear and whatever the store sold to me as the way it is, but I decided to do my homework and study the past as deeply as I could. The past will reveal the present and the future.
When I started designing and making plates some 12 years ago it was because of a complete disatisfaction in anything that I could buy. I had no intentions of making it a business, it was just for me so I could explore the minimal side of diving and trend forward on my own out of the clutter era.
I see minimalism as breaking out of a world of convoluted clutter that the world of scuba gear has become. The best way I can descibe it is how back when there were knights in armour. Armour had become so heavy and complex to "one up" the enemy that finally the horses and riders began to buckle under the weight and were no longer able to even move much less fight. The trend after that era was to begin to shed all that heavy gear and become more free and agile. They found out that a swordsman was much more effective by being completely minimalist and light and could fight circles around a heavily armoured knight. Those knights were so heavy that they couldn't even get up if they fell! All they had to do was knock them off their horse, find a gap in the armour, and pierce them.
I think this is a perfect parallel with what todays "normal" gear has become and were minimalism can liberate people. Not that were fighting like knights, but you get the idea.
I would love to see a brand new school of minimalistm sprout out of what we have now. I think they had it right in the beginning before it became warped and bastardized. They say what's old is new, but not really, what new is new, but keeps history in the rear view mirror. I could see a whole new movement taking off and adopted by the young new adventurers I see that are freedivers now.
I'm not going to look too hard at todays typical recreational diver to embrace minimalism. I think the new generation will own it.
Regular scuba is dying, gee I wonder why?
Yes, I have seen an uptick in BP/W use in the last 15 years for sure.
GUE/DIR are the ones that essentially brought the modern BP/W back into fashion for recreational use, although a different version of the backpack designs prior to the jacket, but same concept. DIR: Love them or hate them, embrace them or reject them, one thing you have to give them and thank them for is the popularization and the bringing back of the plate/wing concept for everybody to use, not just tech divers.
All of the following is opinion, (everything on the internet is opinion, so I am told).
Here is how I see it. Modern day scuba diving stemmed originally from breathhold freediving AKA skindiving. Many skin divers saw this new scuba as a way for people who were no good at freediving to be able to cheat and use a tank to go underwater and spear fish. BTW spearfishing was what everybody did in those days, that was the reason why people skin dove. As the scuba's gained popularity enough people were using them that they weren't as contemptible as they once were except by a few die hard freedivers who measured their skill by how successful they were completely under their own power with no aids of any kind.
These people who adopted scuba used all the same methods as they did freediving including all the techniques one uses to glide and swim around underwater. The only thing added was the S.C.U.B.A unit which amounted to nothing more than a tank with two bands around it that secured a very simple harness of shoulder straps, a waist strap, and a crotch strap. The material was either 1" cotton webbing or they also had 1" nylon. There was no plate of any kind, the tank just rode directly on your back. Attached to that tank was an extremely simple double hose regulator that just had a breathing loop with a mouthpiece up front. There was no SPG, no alternate air, no other hoses, nothing. It was as simple as it could possibly be and it was also very safe with no reported failings in the ten years it had been on the market.
As this new scuba continues to gain popularity so does training to teach people how to use this new equipment safely.
Skills such as underwater doff and dons to build comfort, harassment to build confidence and reinforce the stop/think/act training in real time, buddy breathing air shares, calculating ones SAC rate to know how long air supply would last, learning the tables, lots and lots of swimming to get prospective students in shape since the ocean on the west coast is nothing to play with.
These were some really good divers being turned out, both men and women.
Then in the 60's plates came in as a convenience to change out tanks and provide a more comfortable fit.
This basic scene went on all the way up into the 70's. By the late 70's early 80's is when things really changed.
The first comprehensive bc systems were in use. SP was making a stab jacket, and others were making similar stuff, but they essentially took a plastic pack and sewed in into a bunch of nylon material that integrated shoulder straps, air cell, waist strap.
Some people looked at them and thought WTF!?!?
They were designed and marketed in an effort to make diving more attractive to people who never would take up diving otherwise. Regardless of how they worked, that wasn't the point, the point was to just get people signed up. There were new resorts and boats to fill. Cert agencies, manufacturers, and operators all worked together at the first DEMA shows (that's why and how DEMA came about) to figure out how to market scuba to the masses and make some money. They saw potential to make some huge profits and get in on the recreation sports movement of the times.
This is where the jacket BCD was born. It was not born to actually improve diving in the sense of ease of travelling underwater, it was invented to get more people into diving on dry land first, in the store, in the magazines in adds, with colors, with styles, none of this matters underwater. Also it was easier to fit more people quickly with less hassle for training. They had a lot of people they needed to move through the "new improved" classes which took way less time and eliminated much of the stuff they figured was uneccessary.
This to me was where the downslide began and continued to build speed. Just look at the two vids I attached several posts ago and you can see for yourself who they are putting in the ocean these days. They shouldn't have ever made it out of the pool!
The Modern BCD jacket concept peaked IMO with the Mares "Hub" which was the pinnacle of overloaded crap on a unit.
With inventions such as the modern jackets also come other inventions that are designed to overcome or compensate for the disadvatages of design. For instance, since jackets are harder to move through the water, divers began to get leg cramps and have ankle problems using conventional fins, so they invented split fins to make kicking easier when divers were trying to push all that awkward mass forward. so, now we have another compromised piece of equipment to cover for the first compromised piece of equipment. And with training, they eliminate buddy breathing, so divers need a safe second...fine, but that's another hose, another second stage, and another gimmick to try and secure it. And since the BCD became "standard mandatory equipment" you need another hose and another thing to play with and fiddle with. Incrementally all the prior knowledge of true pure diving gets lost as time goes on and new gear gimmickery is brought to market.
Tables are gone, only computers now...fine, it's the digital age, I have a computer too, I've had several but I also know the tables. People are getting more and more removed from what the computer is based on, and for a lot of shallow short recreational beach dives a computer isn't needed. Knowledge is needed, not a toy to tell you what to do.
The last trend was that mostly gear and some training got so bad at one point that I just didn't see how it could get any worse.
The jacket really hasn't changed much, it's pretty much stagnated design wise. They may change a few colors or try and redesign something that fails to fail less like inegrated weight pockets. But don't think that the new modern BCD has anything to do with trying to help you be better in the water, if it does that's a by product, the main objective is for it to look and feel good in the store and fit you out of the box. Don't get the two confused.
I'm seeing a new new trend in a lot of divers that have stuck with it and are serious about their sport and their passion moving to a more basic minimal approach.
I could have just as easily just accepted the modern gear and whatever the store sold to me as the way it is, but I decided to do my homework and study the past as deeply as I could. The past will reveal the present and the future.
When I started designing and making plates some 12 years ago it was because of a complete disatisfaction in anything that I could buy. I had no intentions of making it a business, it was just for me so I could explore the minimal side of diving and trend forward on my own out of the clutter era.
I see minimalism as breaking out of a world of convoluted clutter that the world of scuba gear has become. The best way I can descibe it is how back when there were knights in armour. Armour had become so heavy and complex to "one up" the enemy that finally the horses and riders began to buckle under the weight and were no longer able to even move much less fight. The trend after that era was to begin to shed all that heavy gear and become more free and agile. They found out that a swordsman was much more effective by being completely minimalist and light and could fight circles around a heavily armoured knight. Those knights were so heavy that they couldn't even get up if they fell! All they had to do was knock them off their horse, find a gap in the armour, and pierce them.
I think this is a perfect parallel with what todays "normal" gear has become and were minimalism can liberate people. Not that were fighting like knights, but you get the idea.
I would love to see a brand new school of minimalistm sprout out of what we have now. I think they had it right in the beginning before it became warped and bastardized. They say what's old is new, but not really, what new is new, but keeps history in the rear view mirror. I could see a whole new movement taking off and adopted by the young new adventurers I see that are freedivers now.
I'm not going to look too hard at todays typical recreational diver to embrace minimalism. I think the new generation will own it.
Regular scuba is dying, gee I wonder why?
BP&Ws are not for everyone. At the store I work at, nobody wants to buy them. We were selling Zeagle Express Tech Deluxes for $275, and more people bought rangers, even though they are three times the price. If you aren't diving often, diving a BP&W is probably not for you. A good 70% of people prefer Jacket BCDs when asked. It seems that majority of BP&W users are people who dive fairly often, where majority of scuba divers do not fit into this category. It's not ignorance, some people just prefer jacket BCDs.
- Messages
- 5,884
- Reaction score
- 2,998
- Location
- Lake Worth, Florida, United States
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
I have yet to see this occur where the Shop personnel are not "creating" this atmosphere.
If the guys in the shop don't dive bp/wings, there is almost no way they will discuss them in a positive light..
Moreover, if they don't dive them, there is almost no way they will know how to effectively SELL them
I have helped with Halcyon Demo days in a number of locations, and I believe pretty much every recreational diver--including every very new OW diver, that tried the bp/wing, loved the huge improvement in trim, and the drastically better kick and glide they achieved with the bp/wing.
Out of curiosity, where is your shop? Just wondering how hard a demo day would be in your area....
regrettably Dan, they aren't selling BP/W's in your old hometown either.... "those things are for 'tech divers' " is the constant cry.....
edit:
I wonder if Bob/Mike (GLD) was still in business, what their product line would be
edit:
I wonder if Bob/Mike (GLD) was still in business, what their product line would be
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