OxyCheq Light BP & wing setup
- Thread starter maged_mmh
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
OP
Well, I took my new toy for the first submersion; here is my experience so far:
Environment:
Our local dive site, shore entry with winter grey overcast (no sun :thinking:), air temp 16C, wind speed reported to be 20km/h. waves were about 1-1.5ft.
Donning the gear:
I had to use 2 wetsuits 3mm each, put 2x3lbs weights on the weight pockets on the tank strap, 6x4lbs on weight belt.
While tightening the tank strap screw (refer to pic above); noticed that the ULTP material creases due to tension, nothing affects functionality, but little feeling that I didn't like it very much.
Putting the harness on (whole SCUBA unit) was fairly easy; in fact much easier than my experience so far with jacket + integrated weights. Did not tighten the crotch strap & let it all way loose like it wasn't there.
Had a small chat with my buddy to convince her eventually to move the waist release buckle to the right side (previously she was against the idea of having it off center).
We headed to water:
Once on surface we swam to the descend point, during the swim I noticed that there is no tendency of the wing riding on me nor tendency of it pushing my face down at all, don't know whether it is the case for everyone, or is it due to the trimming weights, I was happy for that since I had some concern to have to work for the posture, but none at all (even with the wing fully inflated), the swim is fairly long (about 120mt) and I noticed one huge advantage: nothing pressing against my ribs like I used to have while swimming with my jacket BC.
We began our dive:
I dumped all the air from the BC, began descending immediately, current below was about 2kts. During the dive the only noticeable difference I felt was that, compared to jacket BC, you cannot tell by the feeling how much air is in the BC, needed to add air VERY carefully & slowly "used to feel the all-round jacket against my body whenever adding/dumping air"; which is actually awesome, but I think if someone has any buoyancy issues or new diver would not be very welcomed, but again even for myself there is a lot to improve by practice.
At some point of the time, I had a feeling that the tank butt is logging around, signaled my buddy to have a look at my back to check all ok, and she signaled back nothing wrong, maybe false feeling or because I was fooling around a bit, or maybe these small anti-rolling notches on the wing are not doing very good job with current and all our chasing fish (my buddy was in to spearfish).
Our max depth was 16mt and with a bottom time of 40min.
Ascent:
During ascend, I had a feeling that I was over weighted that my cyl. was only having 80bars left, I could have went away with less lead in the fist place, I had to add air few times to maintain the safety stop.:headscratch:
at surface, waves were becoming more rapid with a strong surface current, our exit was still a bit far from shore, which was not very good decision:sad:, I really hoped at this point that I had less lead, swimming to shore (against current) and I felt that I need to tuck that crotch strap, and felt some drag, but sure it would've been worse with the jacket BC.
After a tiring swim we made it back, forgot to check that weight issue
(until I got on the way back to home) so maybe next time then.
Doffing:
removed weight belt, chicken-winged my way out of the harness, without having to use the shoulder buckles at all, I had the shoulder straps somewhat loose in the fist place, I wonder if I'm gonna need them at all, by time, maybe I'll move to a pure hog harness.
Overall experience was very pleasing,:wow: to my surprise, even it was much colder that I usually dive, air consumption was less by at least 20 bars for the very same dive time and depth, & with more active profile on this dive due to current & game. Except for that darn surface/bottom swim against the current, I liked the feeling of the uncluttered chest area & less drag is surely obvious. But I think there is still lot of room for improvements
Now, what needs to be done is to cut those waist straps to length, but still fearing that I might need some alterations/adjustments, I think I'll wait to give it another go, with more relaxed dive profile.
Environment:
Our local dive site, shore entry with winter grey overcast (no sun :thinking:), air temp 16C, wind speed reported to be 20km/h. waves were about 1-1.5ft.
Donning the gear:
I had to use 2 wetsuits 3mm each, put 2x3lbs weights on the weight pockets on the tank strap, 6x4lbs on weight belt.
While tightening the tank strap screw (refer to pic above); noticed that the ULTP material creases due to tension, nothing affects functionality, but little feeling that I didn't like it very much.
Putting the harness on (whole SCUBA unit) was fairly easy; in fact much easier than my experience so far with jacket + integrated weights. Did not tighten the crotch strap & let it all way loose like it wasn't there.
Had a small chat with my buddy to convince her eventually to move the waist release buckle to the right side (previously she was against the idea of having it off center).
We headed to water:
Once on surface we swam to the descend point, during the swim I noticed that there is no tendency of the wing riding on me nor tendency of it pushing my face down at all, don't know whether it is the case for everyone, or is it due to the trimming weights, I was happy for that since I had some concern to have to work for the posture, but none at all (even with the wing fully inflated), the swim is fairly long (about 120mt) and I noticed one huge advantage: nothing pressing against my ribs like I used to have while swimming with my jacket BC.
We began our dive:
I dumped all the air from the BC, began descending immediately, current below was about 2kts. During the dive the only noticeable difference I felt was that, compared to jacket BC, you cannot tell by the feeling how much air is in the BC, needed to add air VERY carefully & slowly "used to feel the all-round jacket against my body whenever adding/dumping air"; which is actually awesome, but I think if someone has any buoyancy issues or new diver would not be very welcomed, but again even for myself there is a lot to improve by practice.
At some point of the time, I had a feeling that the tank butt is logging around, signaled my buddy to have a look at my back to check all ok, and she signaled back nothing wrong, maybe false feeling or because I was fooling around a bit, or maybe these small anti-rolling notches on the wing are not doing very good job with current and all our chasing fish (my buddy was in to spearfish).
Our max depth was 16mt and with a bottom time of 40min.
Ascent:
During ascend, I had a feeling that I was over weighted that my cyl. was only having 80bars left, I could have went away with less lead in the fist place, I had to add air few times to maintain the safety stop.:headscratch:
at surface, waves were becoming more rapid with a strong surface current, our exit was still a bit far from shore, which was not very good decision:sad:, I really hoped at this point that I had less lead, swimming to shore (against current) and I felt that I need to tuck that crotch strap, and felt some drag, but sure it would've been worse with the jacket BC.
After a tiring swim we made it back, forgot to check that weight issue
(until I got on the way back to home) so maybe next time then.Doffing:
removed weight belt, chicken-winged my way out of the harness, without having to use the shoulder buckles at all, I had the shoulder straps somewhat loose in the fist place, I wonder if I'm gonna need them at all, by time, maybe I'll move to a pure hog harness.
Overall experience was very pleasing,:wow: to my surprise, even it was much colder that I usually dive, air consumption was less by at least 20 bars for the very same dive time and depth, & with more active profile on this dive due to current & game. Except for that darn surface/bottom swim against the current, I liked the feeling of the uncluttered chest area & less drag is surely obvious. But I think there is still lot of room for improvements
Now, what needs to be done is to cut those waist straps to length, but still fearing that I might need some alterations/adjustments, I think I'll wait to give it another go, with more relaxed dive profile.
ZzzKing
Contributor
Similar threads
