New diver having trouble with the back plate wing BCD my instructor sold me.

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MrsP

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Location
Grand Turk Island
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Thank you for the opportunity to get advice! My PADI open water certification is only a week old and I am on vacation with my family. We will have our third two tank dive tomorrow. It has become clear that I am having trouble emptying the bladder of my Dive Rite wing. The only ones wearing these wings are my son and me, everyone else, including our dive masters, are in jackets. I have had two involuntary ascents while I try to dump air. I have learned to get vertical to dump air while holding my corrugated hose way up high and depressing the "big" button. However, even when I get vertical, it has refused to dump air. Today, the dive master manually squeezed it because I was trying unsuccessfully to dump air and descend. I have not yet pulled the valve located at the bottom right. I may try this tomorrow while horizontal.

Everyone in my party has a low opinion of this wing. The dive masters think it is inappropriate for me. I am trying to make it work. All the instructors at the dive shop back home have this wing and love it. This is marring an otherwise wonderful dive vacation.

I would appreciate kind and constructive suggestions!
 
I have learned to get vertical to dump air while holding my corrugated hose way up high and depressing the "big" button. However, even when I get vertical, it has refused to dump air. Today, the dive master manually squeezed it because I was trying unsuccessfully to dump air and descend. I have not yet pulled the valve located at the bottom right.

Bottom right? What model wing by Dive Rite is it? You may have the wing on backwards. Post a pic. If you can orally inflate the wing you should be able to dump air also. If you get the buttons mixed up you're inflating it. Use the butt dump, raise your butt relative to the rest of you, raise your valve side butt cheek a bit more than the other, and pull the cord. You shouldn't have much air in the wing anyway unless you're carrying more weight than you need.
 
Don't use the corrugated hose to dump air at depth. You should be horizontal and not need to go vertical to dump air. Reach back with your left hand and feel for the string. Pull it and there you go. You can try leaning to your right a little and thus making your left side a little higher to assist more air in getting out.

Key is... remain horizontal, use the dump valve. I've only ever used the corrugated hose when I was doing a vertical decent, and that probably only happened a handful of times.

How is your son coping with it though, you didn't mention him having any problems.
 
Thank you for the opportunity to get advice! My PADI open water certification is only a week old and I am on vacation with my family. We will have our third two tank dive tomorrow. It has become clear that I am having trouble emptying the bladder of my Dive Rite wing. The only ones wearing these wings are my son and me, everyone else, including our dive masters, are in jackets. I have had two involuntary ascents while I try to dump air. I have learned to get vertical to dump air while holding my corrugated hose way up high and depressing the "big" button. However, even when I get vertical, it has refused to dump air. Today, the dive master manually squeezed it because I was trying unsuccessfully to dump air and descend. I have not yet pulled the valve located at the bottom right. I may try this tomorrow while horizontal.

Everyone in my party has a low opinion of this wing. The dive masters think it is inappropriate for me. I am trying to make it work. All the instructors at the dive shop back home have this wing and love it. This is marring an otherwise wonderful dive vacation.

I would appreciate kind and constructive suggestions!

I think you have the wing mounted backwards. The dump valve should be on your left side. I don't see any dive rite wings that have a dump valve on the right side on their website. For me, I prefer using the dump valve and remain horizontal than using the hose to dump air.
 
to determine if your wing is on backwards (which it shouldn't be, i'm thinking you just got your bearings off a little), the corrugated hose should be exiting your wing on your left shoulder. If it's exiting on your right shoulder then you definitely have it on backwards
 
dive rite wing.jpgCheck how you mount your wing. This side of the wing you see in this picture should be the side of the wing that is against your back, and the dump valve should be to you left side. As the previous poster said the hose should come over your left shoulder. Check and let us know. Or even better, post some pics of how your wing looks mounted to the plate.
 
The old dive rite travel wings had the lower dump valve on the right side. I don't think the newer ones do. There was also a version of the travel wing that was HUGE and very unwieldy to vent. I think it was about 6-7 years ago. so if the OP has that wing, the lower dump valve is on the right (meaning wrong...) side and the wing is oversized, making it somewhat more trouble to vent.

But, getting vertical in the water, stretching the corrugated hose straight up, and pushing the vent button should definitely do the trick; if not, there's something really wrong.
 
I am not sure what your issue is but there should be no reason to ever be vertical to dump air. I generally use the rear dump valve, not the corrugated hose as my primary means of dumping air. However, for this to work, you need to be horizontal. In any case, assuming the wing is functional and not mounted backwards, lol, raising the hose above your head and rolling your body slightly up on that side should vent excess air rapidly.

If the wing is too large, for example, you have a ginormous doubles wing on a single tank, or just plan and simple a wing too large, the wing may taco, wrap the tank. When this happens the wing may compartmentalize making it very difficult to vent all of the air. How large is the wing? Is it a singles wing? A wing greater than about 35 pounds of lift for warm water vacation diving (I use an 18) is probably too large to handle easily, a doubles wing of say 45 pounds, good luck with that.

N
 
The only ones wearing these wings are my son and me, everyone else, including our dive masters, are in jackets.
So at least there's two of you diving optimal gear...:wink: <- I'm not even a bp/w fan either but it is inherently more stable than a jacket.

How many - including the DM's are diving in rental/shop gear? Jackets are popular at dive resorts/shops since they can get guests into one with the least amount of fuss/fitting. One mfr. even prints a bar code on their lower-end rental jacket BC for inventory control.

No one wants to take the time to fit/configure a BP/W for one rental dive excursion.
I have had two involuntary ascents while I try to dump air.
I think we can attribute that partially to:
My PADI open water certification is only a week old
 
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Actually I did some of my early tech courses with a similar DR wing and also had difficulty deflating it - my instructor commented that the DR wings don't deflate quite as well as other wings and that others have also experienced this. Not sure if this holds true for others with a DR wing but I currently own Halcyon and an Oxycheq wings and find them much easier to deflate.

At any rate if you're new to wings just remember that the air inside the wing never goes down... so if you're horizontal then you can tilt forward (downwards) slightly and then reach back and use the dump valve on the left side of the wing. If for whatever reason you are more in an upright vertical position, then you can dump air from the inflator/deflator.
 
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https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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