I just did my AOW on my new Hollis Al plate and LX38 wing. I have no other BP/W experience to compare but these first six dives on it, I like it a lot. Only suggestion/comment I have is, I suspect, a general BP/w observation. With no ballast on the back it wants to push you face forward in the water a little bit when floating still at the surface. This would not normally be an issue for me. Moving around keeps me on my back easily and I am comfortable face in, but trying to do this while having a discussion with the instructor on the surface...not so much. I added a couple of weight pockets to the cam bands and 8 lbs of lead and it fixed that right up.(8 lbs was a mere fraction of my weight since I was diving dry in a glacier lake)
Hollis vs. HOG BP/W - Purchasing new gear
- Thread starter balltumz
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undrwater
Contributor
Do some research regarding the lift you need. I found that the 32lbs was not sufficient for my needs. Getting too much lift is less of a problem than getting too little. Make an informed decision.
Absolutely do your research. I dive an HP120 with my drysuit and my 32lb HOG wing works well for me and it is small enough to not be too much of a bother is warm water
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that would be operator error. no offense. When at the surface BP/W's are quite easy to sit still, just sit like would in an office chair. Legs in that exact position with your fins parallel with the surface of the water and lean back slightly. Will sit you normally. Why did you buy an AL plate for cold water diving?
cool_hardware52
Contributor
How does one configure a BP&W so it *will* push a diver forward at the surface?
1) Use too large a wing
2) Overweight the diver
3) Ballast forward
4) Improperly adjusted harness, in particular the crotch strap.
It's all too common to see new divers overweighted. The solution to being over weighted is *not* a bigger wing.
The overweighted diver needs a lots of gas in their wing. Vertical at the surface this gas will extend down the divers back towards their waist. This can provide an rotating force forward.
Locating the ballast forward on the diver obviously makes this worst.
Not having the crotch strap sufficiently snug means the initial gas in the wing lifts the rig, but not the diver, and this leads to even more gas in the (oversized) wing. More rotating force forward.
Now contrast that with a properly weighted diver using a properly adjusted crotch strap.
In cold water with thick suits I like to see divers weighted so they are eyelevel at the surface with *no* gas in their wing and full cylinder. If they are weighted this way it only requires a "puff" of gas in their wing to get their chin out of the water.
This puff of gas will be behind their shoulders, *not* down at their waist. No way it can force the diver forward.
Note if the diver is weighted as I recommend 100% of the capacity of the wing is available, but they only need a puff.
With the crotch strap snug this puff of gas lifts both the rig *and* the diver. Bingo, done.
Comfort at the surface is all about proper weighting. A bigger wing won't float the diver higher out of the water. Remember any portion of the wing that is above the surface of the water provides no lift as it is displacing no water. If you really need to float belly button high you need to bring a raft.
A 38 lbs wing implies a quite buoyant exposure suit, i.e. an application with lots of ballast
A lightweight plate implies exactly the opposite, i.e. the diver needs to reduce ballast.
The combination of a 38 lbs singles wing with a Lightweight plate is one I would decline to sell.
Tobin
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