Question From jacket to BP and Wing

[Jim Lapenta]

Pretty sure the only use for a crotch strap is for a DPV

Nope, not at all. The crotch strap allows the shoulder straps to be adjusted properly and is used to snug the unit up. It also keeps it from riding up around your ears on the surface. I have installed them on several jacket BCs over the years for this exact reason. Jacket BC fit is crappy enough as it is for a number of people. Adding a crotch strap solves that issue.
The crotch strap is also extra insurance against accidentally losing a weight belt since it goes on under the strap.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

And a BPW or back inflate pushing someone face forward is a skills, improper weighting, and training issue. As well as overinflating it. The unit itself on the surface is stable and like laying on a raft in the pool.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I started with a BP/W later in my diving career, after having done a couple hundred dives in a jacket BC, including a hybrid backinflate. It took me a while to bring my skills up to par with the BP/W. It wasn't intuitive. For me and many others, the hardest skill to master is staying still in the water, and when I first tried this with the BP/W in shallow water (that is, with almost no air in the wing) I would tend to roll side to side or pitch forward when I tried to remain motionless. Getting the trim weights placed optimally helped. Once I mastered this balancing act--my instructor compared it to learning to ride a bicycle--the BP/W became my new best friend, and I never looked back.

 

[billgraham]

I've been lucky enough to dive with just about every type of rig over the years. At this point, I'm coming back to diving after a layoff of a couple of years and I just can't haul crap around the way that I used to. I was trained in cave diving in backmount doubles, but early on, I switched to sidemount and dove that way for years. At this point, diving in the Florida springs, it's much easier for me to haul a couple of steel tanks down to the water in a cart, toss them in, and dive that way than to walk around with a set of doubles on, which weigh not much less than I do. If you ever find yourself over in the panhandle area diving, you should come give it a try, it might work for your diving. The other thing to check out is the current crop of low pressure tanks. If you are doing small dives, the LP 50's are great tanks. I dove them with an OC sidemount rig to do something small and they are nice in the water and it's a fair amount of gas with a "cave fill". Same for the LP 85's, which feel about the same size as HP 100's.

 

[Bob DBF]

it felt sooo much nicer with a BP/W. doesn't ride up like a jacket, actually feels secure on your body. weights can be positioned on the center of your body rather than side pockets.

Until the "poodle jacket" style bcd, the old jackets came with crotch straps.

Pretty sure the only use for a crotch strap is for a DPV

Depends on body shape, if the waist belt doesn't ride up on you, the crotch strap is redundant.

 

[Nemrod]

I think you can clean that rig up by going to a simple, clean Hogathian harness and get rid of all the extra bits and multiple D-rings. I do use integrated quick release weight pockets on my wings but I am not understanding exactly what is going on with that set up.

I am not sure about the face planting being a skills issue alone. Most jacket BCs will raise a diver higher in the water which is nice when it is rough out. A wing/BP just barely gets my head up before it starts to face plant me. Skills, okay, what is the skill? Weighting and trim, well, if I am sans rubber suits I may not have any weight or very little and even in a 3/2 suit I may have as little as 6 pounds (though usually I wear a vest and other stuff and a few extra pounds for stability in surge with my camera gets me to 10ish). If I were to try and raise my head up as high as my BC jacket compadres I get face planted big time. But, just saying, I have never owned a BC jacket or such and only used one a single time as a joke (and I liked it).

The modularity, purity and simplicity of a Hogarthian wing/BP (meaning a simple harness Hog rig) and the way the wing trims underwater is my reason for choosing a wing/BP over a conventional BC. And as to the face planting and being able to barely clear my head above water, well, my answer to that is that a wing/BP is not a life jacket (and no BC of any type is), it is a buoyancy compensator and at doing that the wing/BP excells. And another point for me, off and on for decades I have carried a camera rig. The area in front of my chest is like my office. I do not want anything there that absolutely does not need to be there and most BC jackets have a lot of fru-fru, gizmos, fluff and doodads and straps and clips and hanging bits and pieces I cannot deal with that clutter up my office. I like a clean office.

You need a crotch strap, they are not really optional to get the fullest benifit of a wing/BP.

Oh, why might it be useful to get my head up out of the water higher. Well, in some places there are boats and lots of them. I have been admonished, even recently, to keep my head above the water and my eyes on the boat by the captain or DM. Drifit diving divers might be scattered over acres of water. Well, that is easy for the BC jacket folks who ride high and dry even in the rough but this particular day we were running 3 footers and occasionally it seemed more and the waves would wash over me. Putting more air in my wing only pushed me forward. Yeah, that is a negative and hard to convey to a captain that does not care when everybody else is well up as I explain to him the advantages of a wing. I just pumped more air into the wing until the valve burped and laid back on it, yeah it works. But it is a balancing act because without any input, it will face plant me. The captain was happy, me not so much. I do not see a jacket BC in my future, maybe when I am like 90 or something I will give one another go.

And I can put my safety sausage up front like a pool noodle once the boat spots me for counter buoyancy.

James

 

[Thunder Struck]

My 1st BC I ever owned 1990 is still usable.

(I only changed to have integrated weights)

I have an old Scubapro BCD from the 90s that still works. But it’s quite bulky compared to a BPW and has the typical jacket style constriction.

But pop a hole in that jackets’s bladder and it’s done. With a wing the bladder could be replaced, or, given the interchangeability of the BPW design, a new wing can be put on with many options for less than $300.

 

[NaCl H2O]

But pop a hole in that jackets’s bladder and it’s done. With a wing the bladder could be replaced, or, given the interchangeability of the BPW design, a new wing can be put on with many options for less than $300

Excellent point, and wings can be swapped out for doubles, single or lightweight tropic/travel if desired.

 

[Thunder Struck]

Excellent point, and wings can be swapped out for doubles, single or lightweight tropic/travel if desired.

Oxycheq has a nylon backpack plate replacement advertised at 9 oz for travel. Highland has a 1# aluminum plate (also available in aluminium for those over the pond ).

 

[mcohen1021]

That's great about how versatile it is, and for the folks that do local diving it could be their best option. I think it would be a cold day in h--- where I pop a hole in my bc, being that it hasn't happened in 33 yrs lol

Carrying a heavier piece of equipment doesn't work for me. My days of local freshwater scuba are long behind me (zero interest) and I only dive on vacations now. I need the gear to weigh less and 2 sets of gear don't weigh less than the 50# max per suitcase.