Equipment Trends: The BCD

[danvolker]

1. I will leave that to the manufacturers to answer.
2. How many BP/W manufacturers in this world? And if each one of them made a respective course on its BP/W, the punter would have a hard time to go through all of them. And if you leave the selection to the agency then......
3. The shop would still have to stock plates made of different materials as well as various design, harness(simple or De-luxe), pocket, pouch, weight, wings(various lifting capacity) etc etc. Actually jacket bc is a lot more straight forward to sell. I wonder what most customers would think if they have been told that they have to do a course in order to optimize the benefit of the BP/W?

The way this would work, is you have an "Event" like the DEMA Show, where Dive shop wander around the booths of manufacturers, and listen to the sales pitches, go through demos...and ultimately some dive shops will choose one or two brands of BP/wing to pick up as lines in their shops...part of this choice, SHOULD be the program the mfg has created to educate the Staff of the dive shop, to make them EXPERTS in how to configure the gear, how to rig it for optimal trim, and how to be optimally comfortable with it....So, the shop is only going through the number of courses they want to....

Stocking plates is far less expensive than stocking all the current sizes of BCD's. And future purchases of the new bp/wing diver will include deciding they want a steel back plate for winter, and an aluminum or Carbon Fiber plate in summer for tropics...etc....Future purchases will also be extra wings that assist in special diving conditions, like very deep, or very cold ( larger wing). Since the bp/wings last many times longer than the typical shoddy jacket style BC, the diver begins to amass a nice range of choices they can use to cherry pick the right gear for a given dive. Rather than wasting money on poor BC's that need to be discarded and replaced, this leaves more money in the future for either things like computers, or different fins, or different thickness wetsuits, or scooters, and on and on. We are all kids, and we will always want to visit the toy-store

As to courses for optimizing.....a new diver has a great deal to learn. The material that the new diver that is also a bp/wing diver will need, is also something that the jacket bc users need, but the jackets are sloppier, and less customizable, so failure to get the extra instruction is less obvious because of what is usually accomplished with them by new divers.... For instance.....there really could be a course, where an Instructor from the shop, gets in the pool with a new Jacket wearing OW diver, and starts moving weight around until the new OW diver is relaxed and hanging horizontal without having to kick to maintain it....where the instructor works with the new diver, and gets the amount of weight at the bare minimum to be optimally functional for diving....Where the instructor shows the new diver the best way to dump air while in a horizontal position.....to gain dead neutral....Where the instructor shows proper propulsion that best fits the conditions of a dive....And where the instructor does the configuration of the hoses and gauges and everything else, setting up as clean as possible, showing the new diver the best way to configure the alternate reg and have it stowed, given the options in this BC....and so on---all the stuff normally ignored by OW instruction, that could optimize the gear worn by the student diver....all the stuff we consider critical with the bp/wing use....

In some ways this is like snow skiing again....put someone in beginner skis, and they can make lots of mistakes in these very forgiving skis, without catching an edge and falling....On the other hand, they can do a lot perfectly, but not really get the result they would hope for....Put the same new skier in Performance or Racing skis, and when they make a mistake, they feel it right away, or crash....but, they learn from this awareness...And when they do the right thing, they get the response out of the skis they were hoping for And good instruction helps

 

[boulderjohn]

I got a good laugh the other day along with the shop owner (surprisingly). He had a new Scubapro BC on display and I noticed that the weight pockets had a plastic squeeze clip that you had to pinch to get to open to be able to pull the weight out. I mentioned that 'aren't weights supposed to be just yanked out and they should come free'? He laughed and said that Scubapro did a survey and found out that nobody ever pulls their weights so they decided that they didn't need to be ditchable in an event! They had too many complaints about the old system falling out on their own so they decided to make it so you had to work at it to get them out....unbelievable!!

I had a ScubaPro Nighthawk with the pinch clip pockets for years and did several hundred dives with it. If you want to ditch, you grab the release and squeeze as you pull. It takes no more time than with the kind that just yank out. Because you have to do that every time you put in and take out the weights, you get very good at it. I never saw it as a problem.

ScubaPro's original design had velcro, and you could just yank it out. The problem is that they did indeed come out on their own. On one trip to Cozumel in those days, I found dropped weight pockets on two different dives.

The shop where I now work uses Oceanic jacket BCDs for pool instruction. They have a different kind of yank-out pockets. Most of the instructors refuse to use them because--you guessed it--they are too prone to falling out on their own.

Losing weights accidentally can be very dangerous. I think the pinch clip system is the best way to go if you are using integrated weights.

 

[gcarter]

I was quite happy with the sure lock system on my SeaQuest Balance. Positive click lock that retains well but is easy to remove when you want it. In the 120 dives I put on it there was never a hint of losing a pocket.

I don't use removable weight pockets on my BP/W, less need.

 

[Centrals]

Hi Dan,
I believe we human beings are born LAZY ie. minimum effort but with max reward. I wonder how many divers new or old alike would like to pay someone to teach them how to use one piece of scuba equipment albeit a important one? And how many dive operator has the facility and man power to run a course in short notice? Imagine someone walk in to a shop looking for a bc for his/her vacation in few days time and been informed that he/she would have to complete a dedicated course first!
Finally, skiing is a lot simpler than scuba diving. It doesn't require a license for a start. How many learners will choose a beginner, intermediate, performance, racing ski or even the 1m version? And how many instructor would suggest anything other than beginner ski for the student?
Both skiing and scuba diving are recreational sport ie meant to enjoy

 

[KevinNM]

If I had stayed, I would have been required to purchase and wear while instructing the following gear: Seaquest Balance BCD, Atomic regulators, Atomic SS1 integrated octo, Suunto Cobra III, Aqualung Slingshot fins, and a Henderson wet suit. I can't recall which model of snorkel was required. I could only have a free choice of my mask model, since that is so individual. The wet suit is the only item on the list I would have purchased without being required to as a condition of employment.

Not uncommon, but that mix of vendors seems odd. I know that Aqualung will make a deal with a store that all their instructors teach in aqualung gear. I don't know what the store gets out of that, but I assume it is significant. However anything from the Aqualung extended family complies with that, so you could teach in apeks bp/w if you wanted. The regional rep could also make exception for people.I've assumed other vendors do that too.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

What's unbelievable about it? Halcyon uses the same basic system for integrated weight pocket retention. Sure, it's more of a risk to an unthinking, panicked diver without fine motor control - but it's less risk to every other kind of diver in every other scenario. You pays your money (you hopefully drills with your gear), and you takes your chances.

What's unbelievable about it is that they constantly drill that if you get in trouble dump weights, dump weights, dump weights, establish positive buoyuancy. And since most of those BC's are sold to new divers, a better part of todays training involves overweighting (plain and simple fact) a lot of divers who get trained and dive within the mainstream agency teachings will be overweighted as a hangover from not long ago when mainstream agencies fell to a low point and good bouyancy skills in OW were about as rare as chicken lips.
Now, before Boulderjohn and a few of the other PADI elite jump my sh-t let me say that I'm sure they are at the forefront of the "new" PADI training protocols where they now have upgraded all the standards and revamped the whole system, but they can't speak for all the shops in every state in every country who still do cattle drives.
My point is, the people these units are targeted for do not necessarily have the skills to stay calm, they may not be using a mask that allows them to put eyes on and view the clips, they may be wearing 5mm gloves that do not allow for them to feel the clips, it might be quite possible that they are overweighted, as seconds go by and they continue to fiddle with clips to get them undone stress will build and the end result could be disastrous, even on the surface. The whole point is weights are supposed to be easy enough to dump that it should be one movement like a swipe of a hand on a weightbelt, not fiddling with clips.
I'm also not a fan at all of integrated weights, I think they are a horrible idea. I'm of the thinking that weights and rig should be separate so in the event that a diver gets entagled underwater they can remove their rig free themselves and replace their S.C.U.B.A. while both the unit and the diver remaining neutral. All the weights in the unit means it's going down and the diver is going up.
To me the whole concept is a true warping of gear evolution and the worst idea ever.

As far as Halcyon going having that system as you say, I don't know, I don't own one piece of Halcyon gear and there are no stores with several hundred miles that carry any of it, if you say they have that then good for Halcyon, I guess they've learned from the best.
I always thought Halcyon was at the fore front of bare bones minimalist concepts? I guess they're fluffing up some of their gear, what's up with that?

 

[shoredivr]

Well, if that instruction was part and parcel of how anybody learns to dive, what's your point?

 

[Nemrod]

I see a few more BP/wing style rigs than I used to but a "trend" no not at all. It may be a trend among the more serious diver population but even there they rare. But, most definitely I see some influence on the manufactures in developing "tech styled" gear that is still way too fluffy and over done.

I think the BP/wing is part of an overall developing trend to minimalism, again mostly among the more serious diver population. Minimalism being the thinking, I hate to say philosophy, but the reason that drives equipment selection such as the type of plates, BCs and whatnot the diver chooses.

The larger trend is to travel or light weight and easily packable gear which is rarely discussed on this forum as this is a forum populated by serious divers. The industry is sensitive to (and fears) a possible move to rental gear at resorts eliminating the need to carry basic gear, which means an end to the traditional sales approach of outfitting a new diver so they are wanting to head that off by making it easy and practical to buy and carry your own gear. Extrapolating the lazy diver thinking, why bother to own if you can rent gear? No baggage fees, no insurance, no loosing your stuff or damaging it or being stolen. No maintenance. Sounds like heaven! The casual diver population could probably do this just fine.

N

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Well, if that instruction was part and parcel of how anybody learns to dive, what's your point?

That OW instruction isn't teaching well enough to be safe using something that can't be ditched in a flash.
I see this as a way for manufacturers to fix a problem of complaints of unwanted lost weights by replacing it with something harder to lose but more dangerous for undertrained divers.

 

[Octopusprime]

And wrong you are...
I see them daily, "Hey guys, I've done 359 dives, looking for a new BC what would you recommend?", and there's hardly anyone suggesting BPW.

I know about 1 shop that would strongly suggest a BPW to anyone. All the others will tell you "get a jacket, they're really good, tons of pockets, loosable weights, and if anything breaks you're f*cked". When I ask people why they don't want a BPW, "there's no pockets". Interesting thing is, when I ask those same people "what do you put in your pockets?", I get all kind of answers, spool, smb, slate, camera, ... which are all things I have with me on every dive, without pockets, and still no clutter (forget about the torch on the profile pic, that's a temporary clip-off). But if people really wanted pockets, there's ways of adding that. Same with weight pockets. Kind of defeats the whole purpose imho but they exist.

To me, this setup is not popular due to 2 things:
- shops (and then their customers) who don't have them will tell bull**** about it
- shops who have them won't explain to their customers how to use them. (ie fitting, but also how to add your own gear to it, torches, spools, smb, ...)

Edit: Of course, this is what I see around me, here in Sydney...
Edit (once more): Ah, and people tend to prefer plastic to metal... less "aggressive" look I guess

here in Chicago there are about 12 shops I've been to and it is night and day. Only about 3 of them have bpw on display. All 3 offer Tec classes and He fills etc. They promote local diving which includes a lot of dry diving. At least one offers bpw for newer divers. The rest of the shops train local and plan destination diving. In the market everyone needs a nitch and there are a lot of mfg so I'm glad I can see and touch lots of different gear.