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I’ve been thinking about this type of BCD. I can imagine that you’ll have a good trim (prefectly horizontal underwater) with BP/W. But I don’t like to be in this position all the time since I don’t dive in cave. It’s like walking and looking up to the sky. Once in a while I like to rest my neck & swim in angle or even in vertical position. Jacket BCD allows me to do that.
This situation brings me to a question about floating on the surface, which sometimes I do while waiting for skiff to pick us up. With jacket BCD, I can just put a bit of air in BCD and float vertically, may be even do a short power napping, without finning. Can I do that with BP/W?
Another thought comes to mind, if I were to pass out at the surface, would the back inflate force my face down to the water & drown?
@2airishuman I can sit with completely dead singles with no problems at all, but when I have to wear lead, I don't put it up front and try to keep it just behind or at my sides. Obviously if you blow the thing all the way up it can try to push you forward, but most of it is an imbalance of lift/ballast where the lift is concentrated out back and the ballast out front and that causes the extreme tip. All back inflates are prone to it if you put the lead in the wrong spot
Whatever works for you.
The idea with a wing is that it puts the buoyancy around your cylinder(s)...It depends on the situation. If you are diving a single aluminum cylinder, in the ocean, and are on the surface at the end of your dive with 500 PSI left, there is going to be a distinct face-forward tendency with a BP/W that you're going to have to deal with. It's not insurmountable. You just have to learn to lay back and get the wing under you. But I don't think there's any question that a jacket BC is better in this situation, because some of the buoyancy is at your sides,,.
I'm a new OW Certified diver and would like to get some gear. From the general consensus on here BP/W is the ideal go to BCD. I plan on diving tropical where a 3mm will be the max Wetsuit I'd wear and plan on diving single Aluminum tanks. But I would like to get into technical dives in the future.
The brands that keep popping up is Dive Rite, Deep Sea Supply, and Halcyon. Any other recommendations? I'm going to go more towards a SS plate since I was using 8lbs in a Hydros Pro during my certification dives.
Another thought comes to mind, if I were to pass out at the surface, would the back inflate force my face down to the water & drown?
If your dive plan is to pass out on the surface, you want a horse collar BCD for yourself and a couple of rescue certs for your buddy.