Warm Water BP/W Travel Recommendation

[Lorenzoid]

. . .
This brings me to an important question. On a BP/W with no weight belt set-up, what options are there for secure, but dumpable weight? Is it an absolute must to have dumpable weight, from a safety perspective? If so, why? On my last few dives, when I was seemlingly perfectly weighted, I felt that if I was ever in an "emergency" situation, 2 strong kicks of the fins would have propelled me quickly to the surface - this left me wondering why "dumpability" is so important (not doubting that it is, just looking for better understanding). . . .

Colliam7 mentioned the term "balanced rig." Do a search on that term to read more, as it's a subject that has been discussed a lot. With little or no exposure suit, a so-called balanced rig can be a joy to dive. And safe, if you buy into the philosophy of it and do it correctly. As with everything in scuba, there is more than one school of thought on the subject. You decide.

 

[snowmaker]

My 2 cents. I dive a DSS rig. I have a SS plate and two wings a small single tank 26 lbs and a larger doubles wing. I have some Oxycheq mini single tank adapters. The DSS wings/plates can be set up nicely for single tanks without an adapter I just find it easier to switch between singles and doubles with the adaptor.

With the SS plate I need no weight with no exposure suit and 2-4 lbs with a 2-3mm suit. While the SS plate adds weight when traveling the benefits of it outweigh the weight when traveling. With single AL tanks it's well balanced.

There are lighter plates but I don't see the benefit when diving Al tanks.

 

[tbone1004]

1kg/2.2lbs Aluminium Backplate with a 11.3kg/25lbs travel single tank wing for 11L/AL80 cylinder. I wear a 0.5 mil full skinsuit with a 3mil hooded vest and battery heated cummerbund as needed for diving in the tropics. I don't use any additional lead weight. 168cm tall and weigh 70kg.

Do not use a single tank adapter (STA): it places the AL80 cylinder too high on your back such that the first stage of your Reg will keep butting the back of your head as you tilt your head up to look at that Manta Ray flying above you. Just use tank cam straps threaded through the BP slots, and a pair of bolt & wing nut fasteners to fix the wing to the BP.

That's just not true. The STA doesn't place the tank too high, rather it needs to be high enough so that you can safely manipulate the valve, most people have their tanks so low you can't actually reach it in an emergency. There is a nice happy medium in height, and the STA sets the tank far enough off of your back that you can keep it higher without hitting your head. It also adds 2lbs to your rig which is nice.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd...._=1417921023_f959e3e5c88caba700593b4c15b9a537
Note the picture there which isn't quite as clear as I'd like, but it's a student on their OW Checkout dive. SS BP/W with STA, tank is at appropriate height and they have their head back.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd...._=1418793308_af60073814bdbb11733a94c86630e93a
fellow instructor and you can see here that his head actually goes underneath most of the hoses. This is with a poseidon first stage, so nice and small, the big turret first stages are a little harder to work around because they're so tall, but doable. There is a fine balance on where the tank goes, and it usually is the top cam band on the STA sits just below the crown of the tank, which is also about where if you hold the shoulder straps up, they are inline with the valve outlet.

If you only need 4lbs, I would get the aluminum backplate, STA, and SS cam bands, that will give you right around 6lbs of ballast total which is just over what is needed to sink the AL80. If you expect to be wearing any sort of exposure protection and using an AL80, going to SS isn't going to hurt you. You'll be a little heavy when you're in a bathing suit, but nothing you can't safely kick back to the surface.

We require students to be able to pull a 10lb diving brick from the bottom and conveniently a full AL80 with a SS BP/W just so happens to be right around 12lbs with regulators and the odds of a total wing failure are pretty slip. Worst case you can usually clip it upside-down or on it's side and hold onto it in the event of a tear or inflator/dump failure. You need 4lbs of ballast with most aluminum tanks right of the bat, and if you're in shape that is usually all you need.

Your rig needs to be balanced with nonditachable weight to where in a bathing suit, you need no extra weight and are not using any air in your wing to mostly hover. Unfortunately this is damn near impossible to actually do, so you're usually 1-2lbs negative. The ditchable weight is your depth compensation for exposure protection. I.e. if you're 5mm wetsuit is 10lbs positive at the surface and you're diving to 100ft, you're now going to be 8lbs negative at the bottom, so the 8-10lbs of ditchable weight that you have to compensate for that exposure protection should be ditchable, so you're not kicking it up. There is a fine balance for this because in reality you only want maybe 4lbs of that to come off at a time depending on what depth you're at so you don't skyrocket to the surface in an emergency. Being 1-3lbs negative in a bathing suit is not going to kill you, and if you plan on being in a wetsuit for any of these dives, the extra weight of the SS plate is probably better. It can be taken as carryon anyway, and a fully kitted out single tank BP/W setup is between 10-12lbs, and most travel rigs are 6-8 ish, so you're not carrying a whole lot extra for the convenience of not having to use weight.

 

[diver 85]

DR Travel Wing with alum B/P........Doesn't get any easier than that......

[/URL]bp-w[1] by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[C Dub]

I also concur with the Aluminum BP/W from HOG, DiveRite, or Deep Sea Supply. If you have no local venders, I've had good experiences and pricing from Dive Right In Scuba, Dive Gear Express, Deep Sea Supply.

 

[TSandM]

Deep Sea Supply doesn't make an aluminum plate, but they make a Kydex plate, which is what I use. That, with the 17 lb travel wing, would be a perfect setup for the OP, I think. The tiny wings are very streamlined and dump like a dream.

The major theory behind ditchable weight is to have the ability to make yourself irretrievably positive on the surface. If, though some catastrophe, you lost ALL the lift from your wing, you could have trouble staying on the surface, if your tank is not completely empty. It's up to you whether you are willing to take that risk. When I dove a 3 mil suit, I used 2 lbs on the cambands, and had no ditchable weight.

 

[Kevrumbo]

:shocked2:

That's just not true. The STA doesn't place the tank too high, rather it needs to be high enough so that you can safely manipulate the valve, most people have their tanks so low you can't actually reach it in an emergency. There is a nice happy medium in height, and the STA sets the tank far enough off of your back that you can keep it higher without hitting your head. It also adds 2lbs to your rig which is nice. . .
.

The STA places the length of a 11L/AL80 tank at 66cm (26in), the most common cylinder in use for hire at all resort & dive-ops worldwide, too high on the back such that the first stage will be annoyingly banging the back the head. That's absolutely true in my experience (and the reason why I prefer single tank sidemount when traveling/recreational diving abroad overseas).

 

[tbone1004]

the STA puts the cam band slots where they actually need to be and the unfortunate problem is that most people run with the backplates sitting too high on their back. We have 5' tall girls properly fitted with AL80's and STA's and 0 issues with hitting their head once everything is fit properly. You can get a tank quite low in a STA, far lower than it needs to be for diving. Tank height has absolutely nothing to do with placement on the backplate, the plate should always be placed in the same spot regardless of tank height and is a function of where the plate rides on your back combined with where you are able to safely reach the tank valve. For me the standard plates ride very low, so I have to run the cam bands very low on the tank. For shorter divers the top cam band can be almost at the crown.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd...._=1419659103_1d22eaee7beb5c1f162b7cb0b6e0a35b
DiveRite Backplate, Halcyon STA, AL80. Diver is approx 6' so rather tall, but you can see how much room is left for that tank to go down if it has to, the important part is how far off of the diver it places the tanks so you have more headroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ORPlMibeQO0
If you watch that video you can see how low the upper cam band is on poor Rich's back. You have approx 6 inches minimum above that for the lowest valve position. Sticks the first stage right at the top of the wing, nowhere close to your head. Should also be noted that most wings don't have great stabilizers for the tank, so the STA makes a much more stable platform when used on a hard backplate.

 

[cb5150]

DR Travel Wing with alum B/P........Doesn't get any easier than that......

[/URL]bp-w[1] by GEAUXtiger, on Flickr[/IMG]

Is this the rig that DGX sells for $320? Non-branded Dive Rite EXP 25# wing, backplate, harness and cam bands?

I'm really close to hitting the "Buy" button on that rig, but I just keep drifting over to Oxycheq. I dove with a guy that had an Oxycheq wing and I was quite impressed with the quality. I have no experience with the Dive Rite travel wings.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Quick

the STA puts the cam band slots where they actually need to be and the unfortunate problem is that most people run with the backplates sitting too high on their back. We have 5' tall girls properly fitted with AL80's and STA's and 0 issues with hitting their head once everything is fit properly. You can get a tank quite low in a STA, far lower than it needs to be for diving. Tank height has absolutely nothing to do with placement on the backplate, the plate should always be placed in the same spot regardless of tank height and is a function of where the plate rides on your back combined with where you are able to safely reach the tank valve. . . .

For me tank height absolutely has everything to do with the first stage hitting the back of my head, especially with the 26'/66cm length of the taller 11L/AL80 fixed in place with a STA.

The solution if you want to use a STA --is to cut two sets of additional cam band slots inboard of the existing slots. These "auxiliary slots" cut in the STA would approximately be at the same place as the standard cam band slots in the Backplate, so why use a STA? (unless you need the convenience of quick interchangeability between STA attached tanks or a single tank STA to doubles manifold backmount configuration).

The most useful advice -rather than looking at YouTube videos- is obviously to try it on yourself before you buy (especially with different tank sizes including the AL80, the most common cylinder in use for rent at dive-ops when traveling worldwide). Better yet, consider single tank recreational sidemount like the UTD Z-system.