I’m on the verge of buying a BP/W as I’m fed up with rental jacket BCDs. For the foreseeable future all my diving will be here in Malaysia with a “cold” dive being 25C water. I generally wear shorts and a rash guard, for the colder or deeper dives it would be a full 3mm wetsuit. I also wear 2mm gloves and 3mm booties on all dives. With no wetsuit I generally need about 4kg of lead. I am unlikely to be going any deeper than 30m for now - tech certification is something I will probably look at in the future but that’s going to need a lot of new kit anyway. So for now it’ll be aluminium singles only.
I was looking at the DGX package which is well priced but would need to be shipped over, and the savings are small. Locally I’ve narrowed my options down to the Apeks WTX D18, Hog system with 28lbs wing, or possibly the Mares XR package with a 16L wing. All are plain webbing and aluminium backplates with different wings. My preference is the Apeks (build quality, reputation, good dealer) but I’m a little concerned that the lift capacity may be an issue. The 30lbs Apeks wing isn’t available indefinitely. The HOG system is a little cheaper but the wing design is wider and much less streamlined. The Mares is the most expensive and the wing although streamlined is much larger capacity than I need.
Am I being shortsighted going for the Apeks?
I was looking at the DGX package which is well priced but would need to be shipped over, and the savings are small. Locally I’ve narrowed my options down to the Apeks WTX D18, Hog system with 28lbs wing, or possibly the Mares XR package with a 16L wing. All are plain webbing and aluminium backplates with different wings. My preference is the Apeks (build quality, reputation, good dealer) but I’m a little concerned that the lift capacity may be an issue. The 30lbs Apeks wing isn’t available indefinitely. The HOG system is a little cheaper but the wing design is wider and much less streamlined. The Mares is the most expensive and the wing although streamlined is much larger capacity than I need.
Am I being shortsighted going for the Apeks?