Recommend me a travel BC for advanced diver

i dive back plate wings when doing local lake and quarry diving. I am technical trained. Local diving I use drysuit and doubles. I’ve done the travel backplate wing for tropical diving and while I love diving plates and wings I admit I get jealous of my friends simplicity of their travel BC rigs. This rig will never see serious dives with doubles and such. It will strictly be a warm water travel rig. I’ve been thinking something like an Zeagle covert xt. Seems like it has trim pockets which will be a must. Thoughts? Thanks!

 

I have a Halcyon Carbon Fibre plate with Eclipse wing for travel. Prior to that I had a Zeagle Express Tech which my wife now uses. I like the BP/W style BC also for travel. First because it’s the same setup as what I normally dive at home (albeit with doubles, stages, etc). Second because it packs down smaller than recreational BCDs, and isnt any heavier.

Regarding weight, I have small trim weight pouches for the cam bands. If I need more weight, I either slide it onto the waist harness, or use zip ties to fix it to the back plate. If I feel it needs to be ditchable, I use bungee loops through regular lead weights which then go around the harness. Hard to explain, I can try to take a pic. There also is a thread somewhere here on SB dealing with weights on travel BP/W.

 

Yeah but the most recent place we dove only had soft weights so no weight belt option. This is why I’m trying to get a BC setup as opposed to a wing harness. I have lots of wings, plates and harnesses so really don’t need anymore of those options.

 

I've been using the same Zeagle Scout since the late 90s for traveling. Tough as nails, packs super small. I'm sure the covert is even better in that respect.

 

I've got 2 bpw's that I travel with. 1 DSS kydex bp w/ 20lb wing, and a SS Freedom plate with 18lb wing. No jacket envy here. Use weight pockets on the cam bands if you need some extra weight, but imo it doesn't get much simpler to pack, travel, and dive with either of these setups. GL

 

What of the Halcyon plate, with spots for trim/ballast weight pockets on the plate.
I'm not sure how easily you can buy just that plate, and pockets.
Plus some trim weight pockets on the belt or on a web weight belt depending on preference.
I use DGX or ScubaPro trim weight pockets on a web belt as a light and easy weight belt.

Halcyon Traveler BC - Halcyon Dive Systems

 

And what do you do when the boat doesn’t offer hard weights for a weight belt and only offers soft weights?

 

Covert XT is a great choice. I have the Covert, and am seriously thinking of selling it and getting the XT.

 

Really? Soft weights fit in the cam band weight pockets. They close with velcro. You mentioned that this was a warm water rig. How much weight do you need to add? 4lbs for Kydex bpw, 2-3 lbs for FP? I'm assuming AL 80's. If you dive steels like for example with Aldora in Cozumel, you shouldn't need any extra weight at all. Oh, I did leave out another option. A stainless bpw like my DSS can also be used to offset buoyancy of AL tanks. This works fine with an 18# or 20# wing and packs in my carry on easily.