Wingman_
Registered
Hi fellow scubaboarders,
I just got back from a trip to thailand where i made nearly 30 dives with my new wing and I'd like to share some thoughts.
The first day i tried it was horrible, i was completly frustrated because I couldn't handle the direct system properly, it seemed that i needed 5 minutes everytime i wanted to handle it because it was so short. I cannot start to explain my frustration for this specialy since i was away from home and couldn't just go back to my old wing. Then late in the evening i wore my wing inside my bungallow just to figure out how the hell was i supposed to use it properly underwater, and from one instant to another, once you get the positionning of the finger right (thumb to fill, index (and eventualy middle) finger to purge) everything makes sense and suddenly you see the light and never again in your life you will want a longer hose because it becomes completly pointless.
Everything about that wing from day two was better and better. The wing is perfectly sized for tropical water, i dive it with almost no air and i'm able to float at the surface with maybe 30% of the wing filled. Anything bigger is oversized. The wing is so small, narrow and elegant that during the liveaboard i had people talking to me about it almost on a daily basis. They were impressed by the aspect of the whole thing (i dive a hog rig), they said that compared to other divers i gave the impression of diving with only my swimsuit and my tank
I use the wing with a kydex (thermoplastic) backplate. I bought it as a package from deepseasupply. It costs around 420 bucks, it's not cheap but i must say it's a fair price for something of this quality made at a smaller scale, it's hard to compare prices with extremly mainstream stabs made in thailand from scubapro for example, but then again, you dive this rig from DSS one time and you'll NEVER get back to the mainstream stab.
I have a good example that illustrates the trim effectiveness as well as the overall comfort underwater of this rig. During the liveaboard i missed a nightdive and my friend got to try my rig. You have to understand that a hogarthian rig is not adjustable and my friend is considerably smaller than me. I was expecting him to have an horrible dive cause 1) it was his first time diving a hog rig 2) his first time using such a short direct system 3) a night dive 4) he is rather unexperienced in diving and 5) the rig was not adjusted for him. Well, his words after the dive were "If you miss one more dive i'll be diving your gear again".
I will try to not write too much on the rest of my experience with the rig from Tobin, sufice to say that i love it and am extremly happy with it. I'll try to answer a few questions using my experience from this rig:
- Wing or no wing: definitly wing. With a backplate + wing system you dive with less bulk, you are more hydrodynamic and more importantly you get no more momentum feedback from the tank during sudden moves, you and your tank effectively become as one (thanks to the BP).
- Hogarthian or strapy paddy proprietary harness? This is very personal. I dive hogarthian because i don't see much difference in comfort but do see alot of difference by having one single buckle instead of 3 or 4 and one harness that is perfeclty adjusted all the time. Extra padding seems pointless, and there's that extra good feel of diving a piece of equipment that you assembled yourself
- Steel, aluminum or plastic backplate? I need travel friendly gear, so for me it's between aluminum or plastic. Deep sea supply doesn't sell aluminum backplates so i went with the plastic. The plastic backplate from deep sea supply is reinforced with stainless steel in some critical points, i don't know if it makes any difference but it definitly looks good that steel over the black plastic
I would advise for someone who dives at home (florida divers, you bast*rds) to go with steel backplates, can't imagine a better place to wear your extra weight than right under the boyancy device (wing).
- Torus (doghnut) or U shape (horseshoe) wing? Blah. I bought the torus because i love to use the bottom purge but let's face it, now that i am perfectly weighted, i dive with an insignificant amount of air in the wing and to get that tiny amount of air out of the bottom purge is like mission impossible so i found myself using only the top purge all the time. I saw very little things in favour of the torus wing, i'd love to try the lcd horseshoe to confirm this but i suspect i wouldn't see any difference during the dive.
- Why DSS and not Agir, Oxycheq, Golem Gear and any of the others claiming to manufacture innovative wings? Can't really say go one or the other but i can say what's good and unique to DSS:
1) The STA-less implementation is perfect, actualy i had a hard time explaining my friend that wings can be either STA or STA-less, he dove my rig and couldn't possibly imagine why would people need another piece of equipment between the tank and the wing. The tank is perfectly stable, if i try to shake my rig by holding the backplate at speeds unconceivable during a dive the tank never moves, not by a milimeter. One cannot honestly use the stability argument against the DSS design after actualy trying the rig himself.
2) The window design is perfect and does not require bolts. Basic STA-less designs either use a bolt to keep the rig together when not attached to a tank or just fall apart when you remove the rig from the tank, which makes it less easy to switch tanks in a boat between dives. Tobin's window design not only keeps the whole thing together without any other piece of equipment, including bolts, but also allows you to switch or remove the wing from the plate without removing the tank bands. It feels good to own a piece of equipment knowing that the guy really put some thought behind it, and i don't mean 10 minutes thinking over a piece of paper, i mean wake up in the middle of the night screaming eureka kind of thinking. You feel that these wings are somebody's baby, that this person did all he could to make them the best wings out there
3) several details are user friendly oriented, for instance, connecting and disconnecting the direct system is 10 times easier than with normal hoses. yes these are details we are talking about, but when you think of it the guy could deliver you a normal direct system hose but he chose not to. It's things like that that show we're buying from a diver and not just a business man.
Now this review needs a little drawback for credibility's sake so here it goes: one bad thing about this wing was the zipperless design. While it does indeed look better than those 360° zipper dognut designs, i never liked 360° zippers they look clumsy and even more when you're rolling the wing for packing, but i must say zipperless is not the solution to this problem. I don't live in the USA and having my wing traveling half the planet to get a patch sticked on the inner blader doesn't make any sense, and is quite expensive. I think i paid 60 bucks for the delivery of the rig. Anyway this is one reason why i would go Horseshoe instead of doghnut, the other being that for this size of wing and this kind of use, i just don't see the point ot doghnut. Keep in mind where i come from, i bought doghnut because i knew what was supposed to be better and really thought it was important and after using mine for almost 30 dives, i'm convinced the LCD must feel exactly the same during the dive.
BOTTOM LINE:
-------------------------------
This is the bottom line for you guys that are afraid to read
Buy it, dive it, love it!
I just got back from a trip to thailand where i made nearly 30 dives with my new wing and I'd like to share some thoughts.
The first day i tried it was horrible, i was completly frustrated because I couldn't handle the direct system properly, it seemed that i needed 5 minutes everytime i wanted to handle it because it was so short. I cannot start to explain my frustration for this specialy since i was away from home and couldn't just go back to my old wing. Then late in the evening i wore my wing inside my bungallow just to figure out how the hell was i supposed to use it properly underwater, and from one instant to another, once you get the positionning of the finger right (thumb to fill, index (and eventualy middle) finger to purge) everything makes sense and suddenly you see the light and never again in your life you will want a longer hose because it becomes completly pointless.
Everything about that wing from day two was better and better. The wing is perfectly sized for tropical water, i dive it with almost no air and i'm able to float at the surface with maybe 30% of the wing filled. Anything bigger is oversized. The wing is so small, narrow and elegant that during the liveaboard i had people talking to me about it almost on a daily basis. They were impressed by the aspect of the whole thing (i dive a hog rig), they said that compared to other divers i gave the impression of diving with only my swimsuit and my tank
I use the wing with a kydex (thermoplastic) backplate. I bought it as a package from deepseasupply. It costs around 420 bucks, it's not cheap but i must say it's a fair price for something of this quality made at a smaller scale, it's hard to compare prices with extremly mainstream stabs made in thailand from scubapro for example, but then again, you dive this rig from DSS one time and you'll NEVER get back to the mainstream stab.
I have a good example that illustrates the trim effectiveness as well as the overall comfort underwater of this rig. During the liveaboard i missed a nightdive and my friend got to try my rig. You have to understand that a hogarthian rig is not adjustable and my friend is considerably smaller than me. I was expecting him to have an horrible dive cause 1) it was his first time diving a hog rig 2) his first time using such a short direct system 3) a night dive 4) he is rather unexperienced in diving and 5) the rig was not adjusted for him. Well, his words after the dive were "If you miss one more dive i'll be diving your gear again".
I will try to not write too much on the rest of my experience with the rig from Tobin, sufice to say that i love it and am extremly happy with it. I'll try to answer a few questions using my experience from this rig:
- Wing or no wing: definitly wing. With a backplate + wing system you dive with less bulk, you are more hydrodynamic and more importantly you get no more momentum feedback from the tank during sudden moves, you and your tank effectively become as one (thanks to the BP).
- Hogarthian or strapy paddy proprietary harness? This is very personal. I dive hogarthian because i don't see much difference in comfort but do see alot of difference by having one single buckle instead of 3 or 4 and one harness that is perfeclty adjusted all the time. Extra padding seems pointless, and there's that extra good feel of diving a piece of equipment that you assembled yourself
- Steel, aluminum or plastic backplate? I need travel friendly gear, so for me it's between aluminum or plastic. Deep sea supply doesn't sell aluminum backplates so i went with the plastic. The plastic backplate from deep sea supply is reinforced with stainless steel in some critical points, i don't know if it makes any difference but it definitly looks good that steel over the black plastic
I would advise for someone who dives at home (florida divers, you bast*rds
) to go with steel backplates, can't imagine a better place to wear your extra weight than right under the boyancy device (wing).- Torus (doghnut) or U shape (horseshoe) wing? Blah. I bought the torus because i love to use the bottom purge but let's face it, now that i am perfectly weighted, i dive with an insignificant amount of air in the wing and to get that tiny amount of air out of the bottom purge is like mission impossible so i found myself using only the top purge all the time. I saw very little things in favour of the torus wing, i'd love to try the lcd horseshoe to confirm this but i suspect i wouldn't see any difference during the dive.
- Why DSS and not Agir, Oxycheq, Golem Gear and any of the others claiming to manufacture innovative wings? Can't really say go one or the other but i can say what's good and unique to DSS:
1) The STA-less implementation is perfect, actualy i had a hard time explaining my friend that wings can be either STA or STA-less, he dove my rig and couldn't possibly imagine why would people need another piece of equipment between the tank and the wing. The tank is perfectly stable, if i try to shake my rig by holding the backplate at speeds unconceivable during a dive the tank never moves, not by a milimeter. One cannot honestly use the stability argument against the DSS design after actualy trying the rig himself.
2) The window design is perfect and does not require bolts. Basic STA-less designs either use a bolt to keep the rig together when not attached to a tank or just fall apart when you remove the rig from the tank, which makes it less easy to switch tanks in a boat between dives. Tobin's window design not only keeps the whole thing together without any other piece of equipment, including bolts, but also allows you to switch or remove the wing from the plate without removing the tank bands. It feels good to own a piece of equipment knowing that the guy really put some thought behind it, and i don't mean 10 minutes thinking over a piece of paper, i mean wake up in the middle of the night screaming eureka kind of thinking. You feel that these wings are somebody's baby, that this person did all he could to make them the best wings out there
3) several details are user friendly oriented, for instance, connecting and disconnecting the direct system is 10 times easier than with normal hoses. yes these are details we are talking about, but when you think of it the guy could deliver you a normal direct system hose but he chose not to. It's things like that that show we're buying from a diver and not just a business man.
Now this review needs a little drawback for credibility's sake so here it goes: one bad thing about this wing was the zipperless design. While it does indeed look better than those 360° zipper dognut designs, i never liked 360° zippers they look clumsy and even more when you're rolling the wing for packing, but i must say zipperless is not the solution to this problem. I don't live in the USA and having my wing traveling half the planet to get a patch sticked on the inner blader doesn't make any sense, and is quite expensive. I think i paid 60 bucks for the delivery of the rig. Anyway this is one reason why i would go Horseshoe instead of doghnut, the other being that for this size of wing and this kind of use, i just don't see the point ot doghnut. Keep in mind where i come from, i bought doghnut because i knew what was supposed to be better and really thought it was important and after using mine for almost 30 dives, i'm convinced the LCD must feel exactly the same during the dive.
BOTTOM LINE:
-------------------------------
This is the bottom line for you guys that are afraid to read
Buy it, dive it, love it!
