Ideas for bladder/wing for open water sidemount

chimaera · Jul 24, 2011

I am looking for ideas for a rectangular, triangular or possibly donut wing with 45-50 lbs lift with more of it around waist than a horseshoe to attach to a single piece of webbing going from tailbone to shoulder straps harness suitable for sidemounting.
Old jacket bcd's get bunched up under my arms and at sides ,Dromedary bags do not have enough lift, horseshoe wings PITA to convert and lift is in wrong places.
I am new to sidemounting although used to wearing deco bottles.I am not a cave diver. I am an open water,cold, saltwater drysuit diver with long term back problems that has to surface swim on occasion with 2 lp 95's and deco bottles. I currently dive HP100's on backplate with 50 lb Oxycheq wing that just works for swimming without adding to much to drysuit but is a struggle on back when out of water. I have and use Faber lp 95's for single tank dives presently and will bust up twins when i get the right bladder.
I have a harness that i use with a single 40 cu foot alu to check/scrape boat hulls with no BCD but have yet to find a suitable BC.

rongoodman · Jul 24, 2011

chimaera:
I am looking for ideas for a rectangular, triangular or possibly donut wing with 45-50 lbs lift with more of it around waist than a horseshoe to attach to a single piece of webbing going from tailbone to shoulder straps harness suitable for sidemounting.
Old jacket bcd's get bunched up under my arms and at sides ,Dromedary bags do not have enough lift, horseshoe wings PITA to convert and lift is in wrong places.
I am new to sidemounting although used to wearing deco bottles.I am not a cave diver. I am an open water,cold, saltwater drysuit diver with long term back problems that has to surface swim on occasion with 2 lp 95's and deco bottles. I currently dive HP100's on backplate with 50 lb Oxycheq wing that just works for swimming without adding to much to drysuit but is a struggle on back when out of water. I have and use Faber lp 95's for single tank dives presently and will bust up twins when i get the right bladder.
I have a harness that i use with a single 40 cu foot alu to check/scrape boat hulls with no BCD but have yet to find a suitable BC.

UTD Z-Plus

Razor BAT wing

chimaera · Jul 24, 2011

Thanks Ron.
I did not realize that the UTD was a 50 lb one.
My main problem is my feeling that they are overpriced for what they are. I do understand what it takes to develop one and the small market but still cannot help but feel that 400 bucks is too much.
Which of the two do you use? and or would you recommend for my application.I am quite curious about surface swimming with these back mounted BC's

Bill

rongoodman · Jul 25, 2011

I have the Razor harness and wing, although I haven't had the wing in the water yet. I did my side mount course and some side mount cave diving in the spring with the smaller of the UTD wings, which provided adequate flotation with AL80s, but was a pain to dump.

chimaera · Jul 25, 2011

Ron
Thanks again for the information on the UTD. I will look at their higher lift model closer. I looked at the first one they had out i guess and it seemed to have too little lift for me and all kinds of potential other intricacies associated with their system that i did not want. The Razor appears to be the best one out there right now for my intended purposes but I have read numerous comments about it's high profile when inflated which although i am not a cave diver could be problematic during wreck penetrations for me.
I am also extremely curious how these wings are for affecting ones attitude in water when surface swimming compared to a regular wing on backmounted doubles
Bill

rongoodman · Jul 25, 2011

I don't remember any problems on the surface, but we usually just swam underwater to the edge of the pool where it was shallow enough to stand up and remove the tanks.

klauricella · Jul 25, 2011

I was wondering the same thing as how these perform on the surface. We do almost all boat diving and with the lift so far down your back would it be an issues trying to stay upright in rough open water conditions?
Thanks
Kevin

chimaera:
Ron
Thanks again for the information on the UTD. I will look at their higher lift model closer. I looked at the first one they had out i guess and it seemed to have too little lift for me and all kinds of potential other intricacies associated with their system that i did not want. The Razor appears to be the best one out there right now for my intended purposes but I have read numerous comments about it's high profile when inflated which although i am not a cave diver could be problematic during wreck penetrations for me.
I am also extremely curious how these wings are for affecting ones attitude in water when surface swimming compared to a regular wing on backmounted doubles
Bill

chimaera · Jul 25, 2011

Thanks Ron i believe we will need a bit more of an answer though.
Kevin. Hopefully someone will tell us how it is! I either dive from anchored boats in 40- 50 meters seawater that i must swim back to or swim to dive sites from shore so question is same
Bill

Jai Bar · Jul 26, 2011

Just keep in mind that in most bladders designed for BM, the bladder has a certain width that allows it to fold around "hugging" the tank/s. This is also the reason why a single's bladder is not good for use with doubles (even if it has enough lift)- the doubles will restrict the bladder and it won't have enough free space to expand.

Since in SM these bladders won't have the tank to fold around- they will completely fold up. This not only looks funny, but can be a hazard potential and also difficult to drain air during a dive.

Therefore, for this type of OWSM you'll need to consider some device or way to restrict the bladder so it doesn't fold. I've seen divers who put the bladder underneath the back plate but it looks cumbersome and not so comfortable. You can easily prepare some sort of a "wide STA", or use some 2" webbing etc etc.

I guess that with small bladders such as bat wing folding up is a non issue but you're looking for biggies (50lb)...

chimaera · Jul 26, 2011

Jai Bar.
Yes I hear you.
It looks like the UTD Z plus has addressed this issue with baffles to keep the balloon effect down. Ity looks kind of like a re tooled single tank wing with air allowed to fill the central space where the cam band slots and STA usually are. while good at keeping a lower profile form it may for good or ill trap an air bubble more than the higher profile non baffled ones.
Bill

Ideas for bladder/wing for open water sidemount

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