Hi All,
Yesterday I did a leisure dive in about seven metres of water, and it was my second dive for the day. All was going to very well as I controlled my breathing and underwater ‘flew’ ascended and descended around largish boulders and coral. Indeed, I was feeling pretty good with myself after finally establishing the right amount of additional weights I need to acquire a balanced buoyancy with my relatively all new Mares 'kit', including the new Mares Prestige BCD.
However, suddenly I found myself helpless in an uncontrolled ascent and before I knew it, I was on the surface looking down with other divers below me - passing by, pretty much oblivious to my rapid ascent predicament, including my buddy mystified by my disappearance. It only took me a few seconds for me to work out what had happened. Clearly the front right-side weight insert ‘bag’ to my ‘inbuilt’ ‘Prestige’ BCD pocket had fallen out, and consequently the loss of weight had send me to the top, cutting my dive short, and then reluctantly having to accept a surface swim in choppy waves. I signal I was safe, and swam a good distance back to the boat.
The incident confirmed a concern I’ve had for some time, about lack of reassurance that each weight insert is firmly secured, and I’ve always worried my weight inserts will pop out at some stage, especially on inflating BCD. But fortunately this problem has not occurred. Tell me if I’m wrong but what I don’t like about the design is there seems to be no confirmation sound – a click! - that tells one, that the weight inserts are securely in place, and no need for further adjustments, or concern about losing all?
What worries me about this incident - is not ascending uncontrollably in a mere sevenish metres of water, but in a much deeper dive, i.e. 30ish metres to say a wreck etc. and finding I have no control in my ascent, including by-passing a safety stop. What is worrying In this recent incident is that I’m sure I did not hit anything that made it come out, and the only explanation I can give is that I had 2 x 2kg weights in the insert bag and the external insert bag teeth did not latch correctly, and through gradual body movement, it edged itself out slowly until it finally fell out of the BCD pocket.
The good news was my buddy, who was relatively close by, did find the missing weight insert, and although mystified as to my immediate disappearance, brought it back to the boat shortly afterwards. Also note: He lost one of his Mares weight inserts too, a week previously, but on alighting the boat, and so was very sympathetic to my situation, losing mine.
So what should I do? I’m now considering the following options:
 No longer use the Prestige weight inserts and accept that this might be a design deficiency (a not so happy option given I bought the Mares Prestige for the reason of not playing around with a separate weight belt)
 Use the weight inserts but put into it, not the solid weights, but the soft bags;
 Do what my buddy does, buy an optional spear gun leed attachment and attach to each, so they will not be lost. That seems cumbersome. The other concern here is an emergency ascent scenario, how to quickly drop the weights - probably having to resort to using a knife for each!;:depressed:
 Other suggestion by a Mares specialist on overcoming all.
So my questions are:
 am I, and my buddy, the only ones to lose their Mares weight inserts??
 Is anyone in the Mares company willing to confide in the number of losses by divers and give a perspective on the design?
 Is there a design deficiency here, or is it a case of doing something to adjust - say the teeth that can give the diver reassurance that they are firmly clicked in (fastened in)?
 In case of loss, will Mares give a discount replacement?
 Are they cheap to replace?
 Is my buddy foolish to attach the spear-gun loop rings to each weight inserts, so he can reassure against - avoid losing them??
Lastly, and more importantly, is an uncontrolled descent a serious issue and can I do something to stop this even if the inbuilt Mares Prestige weight inserts fall out? i.e. what is the normal procedure if you lose your weight belt???
At the moment I’m contemplating going back to using a weight belt, at least until someone from Mares can suggest how I can confidently secure the weight inserts, hence using their product is safe, and not have the uncontrolled ascent scenario detailed explained herein above.
Note: Beyond this problem, I am happy customer with Mares products and hope that there is a solution to this problem.:kiss2:
