Seaquest Balance BC- it's a bit big

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ketchumid

Contributor
Messages
142
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0
Location
Idaho
# of dives
50 - 99
I bought a Seaquest Balance BC size Large a year ago and just love it- have about 50 dives on it but I lost about 15 pounds since buying it and now it swings around after I my wet suit compress with no adjustments left in the straps- I would now buy a M/L not the large.
I would hate to give it up if if there is a way to have this one "altered"

Has any one ever done anything to make this style of BC a bit smaller?

Thanks in advance for any comments- FYI I live in the mountians of Idaho so there's no shop local but we have mail.
 
I love my balance. However, I switched to a backplate and wings. I'm EBaying my balance.
 
What is the sizing (height/chest diameter etc) for Large versus M/L Seaquest vests ?
 
Not trying to thread jack but I saw this thread with the SeaQuest Balance in the subject line so, I thought I would report and ask about an issue that happened to me with this BC.

I have 11 dives with this BC and I was on my 12th dive with this BC so, it is what I would call relatively new. I only dive in warm water, mostly in the Carribean and Central/South America. My Balance has the integrated octo and about 2 minutes into the dive at a depth of 25 feet, I pressed the inflator button just to add a little shot of air into my BC and the inflator stuck in the "on" position. My BC started inflating immediately and by the time I reached around and pulled the quick-release on the inflator hose out, I was sitting on top at the surface.

I was given some oxygen but luckily I didn't suffer any DCS symptons and I stopped diving for 5 days. Once I got back to the shop, I dropped the BC off with the tech and he went over it for 4 days, cleaning and trying to replicate the problem. I was given the BC back with a clean bill of health and on the 6th day after my initial incident, I went back down again with the Balance on.

Everything was fine with this dive, we went down to roughly 80', began ascending slowly and about 20 minutes into the dive at roughly 60' I notice that I was having trouble staying down. So, I reach over and tug on my inflator hose to exhaust some air, nothing happens. I reach behind me to tug on the rear exhaust, nothing happens. At this point, I realize that I'm definately starting to ascend alot faster than I would like to so, I invert and begin kicking to stay down. The dive master notices that I'm having problems, comes over and he begins to start tugging on everything on my BC trying to get air to vent. Nothing is working/venting. Ultimately he has to let me go and I reach the surface with a partially inflated BC again. At the surface, I realize the dive master must have pulled my inflator hose as I wanted to add more air to my BC to help me remain afloat but the inflator hose isn't attached anymore. Looking back at the incident now, my inflator must have been very slowly introducing air into my BC so, I didn't realize what was happening to me at first until it was too late.

So, now I have a looooong swim back to the boat, on the surface, with a partially inflated BC that isn't really helping to keep me afloat. I was sucking air ridiculously fast at this point, my mask was all fogged up now and I could not for the life of me get the inflator hose back on. I tried to put some breaths into my BC manually, but I just couldn't get my breathing under control and the water was rough that day so, I just couldn't do it. I began to feel panic setting in and I just wanted to ditch everything that was weighing me down. Instead, I put my reg back into my mouth, tried to start controlling my breathing, rolled over onto my back and just started kicking, in order to reach the boat. I consider myself to be a good swimmer and I run 1.5 miles every other day... but that ended up being the toughest swim of my life.

Everyone else at this point had surfaced and was making their way back to the boat. I did eventually make it back, utterly exhausted and after a visit to the hospital, I'm glad to be sitting here typing this out in front of my computer.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a report of my dive incident, I guess it just turned out that way. I am interested in hearing about other people having anything similar happen to them and their SeaQuest BC. About a week after this happened to me, I was speaking to an instructor at the dive shop who happened to be wearing a SeaQuest Black Diamond BC and he told me that he had issues with venting air from his rear exhaust valve. At this point, I cannot trust this BC anymore and I'm looking into purchasing a ScubaPro BC now. But has anyone else had issues with the inflator sticking, slowly inflating, or their BC not being able to vent air?
 
Iam not a small person i had a XL jacket it was so much to tall,i changed to a L

was also to tall,know i have a M that is exact siced for me.I tink you must be

exterm fat or somfing to neet a Xl or XXL off those stuff.

E.L.7*
 
I would try a "Want to Trade" post on ScubaBoard's Gear and Equipment Classified forum.

ScubaBoard - Gear / Equipment Classifieds

Chances are there's someone out there with the exact OPPOSITE problem as you!

Worth a shot.

PS-I sold my M/L Balance on their last year, so I know there's at least ONE guy out there who owns one this size. Maybe he's put a few pounds on in the last few months?
 
wwll, I bought a Scubapro BC that I discovered first time in the water had a crack in the inflator, so stuff can happen with any brand. I had a Dacor once that got a bit of grit or something in the inflator and scratched the metal barrel and it was doing the slow autoinflate thing.

Were you heads up, down, or what? If the DM pulled your inflator hose off, and you were heads up, I don't see how it wouldn't have vented. And if you were heads up, the bottom dumps wouldn't have been helping much.

(Did you drop your weights? It's rare to actually drop weights, but it you were near panic on the surface and having trouble making the swim back that might have been a good time to do it.)
 
Damselfish ...dijinn is trolling ...!
 
Damselfish ...dijinn is trolling ...!

Excuse me? What do you mean by "dijinn is trolling"? I logged into the forums to see if anyone had any issues with the same BC that I own and had problems with. I saw a post with the BC in the subject line. I figured other owners of a Seaquest BC would read this thread and thought I would ask a question in it, as well as relate a personal experience/issue I had with the BC.

Are these forums not setup for people to gain knowledge and learn from? If you don't have anything useful to add to a post, why are you wasting bandwidth?

Damselfish: I do appreciate your reply and I realize that there are always quality control issues no matter what manufacturer you go with. It's just that after what happened to me, I've pretty much decided that I cannot trust this BC anymore. I plan to return it to SeaQuest so, they can figure out what happened and perhaps prevent it from happening to others in the future but after I get it back, I will destroy it. I could not in good conscience sell it to someone else for a few hundred dollars after all the grief it has caused me.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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