koksie
Registered
Hi all,
In July I bought a new Mares Icon BCD in St. Domingo, Dominican Republic, during my holidays. I had no chance to try it in the water, since the dealer is in the center of St. Domingo and it was one of the last days we had there. I tried it in the diveshop and the diveshop salespeople told me the fit was perfect. I have used other Mares BCD's in the past and normally the L size fits me well. I also consulted the size chart on this forum and that also indicated that L would be the right size. All this combined, I decided to buy it.
Last weekend I made my first dive with it: it was awfull! The Icon kept riding up on me, resulting in the belly-strap hovering around my chest and the chest strap under my chin. I was fighting my BCD the whole time, thereby creating possible unsafe situations, so I had no choice but to abort the dive after 30 minutes of struggling.
I think the BCD is too big for me after all. I tried tightening the waist strap under water but it could not be tightened any further and there was still room between the strap and my belly. I guess the absence of a cumberbund style velcro strap was missing for my posture. Because it did not tighten good enough on my belly, it kept riding up during the dive. There are also no crotch straps to prevent this. Since I heard no one else about this, my conclusion is that the size L is too big for me and an M would be a better fit.
Since I bought it far away from home rather than at my LDS, flying back and exchanging it for a size M at the shop is not an option (well, it is, but a very expensive one
). I thought it may be an option to ask Mares to exchange it for a smaller size. Since I made only 1 dive with it and cleaned it very thoroughly, I hope this is an option. However, on the Mares website there is no central number to contact, so I thought I would try to contact Mares through this forum.
Mares, can you help me out?
In July I bought a new Mares Icon BCD in St. Domingo, Dominican Republic, during my holidays. I had no chance to try it in the water, since the dealer is in the center of St. Domingo and it was one of the last days we had there. I tried it in the diveshop and the diveshop salespeople told me the fit was perfect. I have used other Mares BCD's in the past and normally the L size fits me well. I also consulted the size chart on this forum and that also indicated that L would be the right size. All this combined, I decided to buy it.
Last weekend I made my first dive with it: it was awfull! The Icon kept riding up on me, resulting in the belly-strap hovering around my chest and the chest strap under my chin. I was fighting my BCD the whole time, thereby creating possible unsafe situations, so I had no choice but to abort the dive after 30 minutes of struggling.
I think the BCD is too big for me after all. I tried tightening the waist strap under water but it could not be tightened any further and there was still room between the strap and my belly. I guess the absence of a cumberbund style velcro strap was missing for my posture. Because it did not tighten good enough on my belly, it kept riding up during the dive. There are also no crotch straps to prevent this. Since I heard no one else about this, my conclusion is that the size L is too big for me and an M would be a better fit.
Since I bought it far away from home rather than at my LDS, flying back and exchanging it for a size M at the shop is not an option (well, it is, but a very expensive one
). I thought it may be an option to ask Mares to exchange it for a smaller size. Since I made only 1 dive with it and cleaned it very thoroughly, I hope this is an option. However, on the Mares website there is no central number to contact, so I thought I would try to contact Mares through this forum. Mares, can you help me out?
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