Wing Sizing for a Canadian Dry-Diver

[mplooy]

Hi, I'm looking for help in selecting a wing for a BP/W setup. I will be mainly diving cold, fresh water in the Rockies, with the occasional trip to the PNW coast. Seeing as I don't own my own tanks or drysuit, I will be renting both, probably AL80's for tanks and a BARE Nex Gen Trilam for drysuit. I'm 5'11", 185lbs.

Equipment on last dive:
-BARE Nex Gen Trilam drysuit with thick undergarments
-5mm wet gloves & hood
-single AL80
-BARE Blackjack jacket-style BCD
-34lbs on a weight belt to stay down comfortably (really strained my lower back after a while)

I'm assuming the medium SS plate will fit me best. For the wing, could you please walk me through the math to help me determine what lift capacity I'll need? Would the bolt-on weight plates be a good idea to help take some pressure off my lower back?

Thanks!

 

[cool_hardware52]

Hi, I'm looking for help in selecting a wing for a BP/W setup. I will be mainly diving cold, fresh water in the Rockies, with the occasional trip to the PNW coast. Seeing as I don't own my own tanks or drysuit, I will be renting both, probably AL80's for tanks and a BARE Nex Gen Trilam for drysuit. I'm 5'11", 185lbs.

Equipment on last dive:
-BARE Nex Gen Trilam drysuit with thick undergarments
-5mm wet gloves & hood
-single AL80
-BARE Blackjack jacket-style BCD
-34lbs on a weight belt to stay down comfortably (really strained my lower back after a while)

I'm assuming the medium SS plate will fit me best. For the wing, could you please walk me through the math to help me determine what lift capacity I'll need? Would the bolt-on weight plates be a good idea to help take some pressure off my lower back?

Thanks!

At 5'11 you need a medium plate.

If you need 34 lbs of lead with an al 80 and jacket BC it implies your exposure suit is about 26-27 lbs positive. That's reasonable for a drysuit with thick undies.

If you continue to use al 80's your rig, plate and harness, reg and full tank will be about -10 with a full tank and will provide about 4 lbs of ballast with an empty tank. That leaves about 20-22 on a belt. If you sue the weight plates your belt would be about 12 lbs.

If you add the weight plates your rig will now be about -18 with a full tank. Your suit @ 26-27 lbs still governs the wing size.

I'd suggest a LCD 30 wing.

Recap
Medium SS Plate
LCD 30 Wing
Hogarthian Harness
(cambands and wedge blocks are included)

optional 8.1 lbs (per pair) bolt on weight plates.


Tobin

 

[mplooy]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. Guess I'll be putting in an order tomorrow! Thanks Tobin!

 

[buddhasummer]

At 5'11 you need a medium plate.

If you need 34 lbs of lead with an al 80 and jacket BC it implies your exposure suit is about 26-27 lbs positive. That's reasonable for a drysuit with thick undies.

If you continue to use al 80's your rig, plate and harness, reg and full tank will be about -10 with a full tank and will provide about 4 lbs of ballast with an empty tank. That leaves about 20-22 on a belt. If you sue the weight plates your belt would be about 12 lbs.

If you add the weight plates your rig will now be about -18 with a full tank. Your suit @ 26-27 lbs still governs the wing size.

I'd suggest a LCD 30 wing.

Recap
Medium SS Plate
LCD 30 Wing
Hogarthian Harness
(cambands and wedge blocks are included)

optional 8.1 lbs (per pair) bolt on weight plates.


Tobin

Just curious, if he were to change to a steel tank would that then require a different sized wing? or would a 30lb wing still be sufficient? Thank you.

 

[cool_hardware52]

Just curious, if he were to change to a steel tank would that then require a different sized wing? or would a 30lb wing still be sufficient? Thank you.

If a typical steel tank was used the diver's rig would be about -26 ~-28 with a full cylinder, and a 30 lbs wing is still sufficient. If a very negative steel tank was used the weight plates could be removed.

Tobin

 

[buddhasummer]

If a typical steel tank was used the diver's rig would be about -26 ~-28 with a full cylinder, and a 30 lbs wing is still sufficient. If a very negative steel tank was used the weight plates could be removed.

Tobin

Thank you Tobin.

 

[mplooy]

Not intending to bump my own thread, but I just wanted to post a quick review of the setup I purchased from DSS and thank the crew there for their customer support.

I purchased the setup mentioned above by Tobin, including the optional weight plates, but swapped the LCD30 for a Torus 35. After threading the harness and getting everything adjusted, I made a trip to the pool to try it out along with my new reg setup. When I attached the LP inflator hose to the power inflator, I noticed a fairly significant leak and no amount of wiggling or disconnecting/reconnecting would get it to stop. I phoned Tobin and asked his opinion and he suggested to try lube the internal hose o-ring. Lubed o-ring? Still leaked. New lubed o-ring? Still leaked. My LDS lent me one of their hoses and everything worked fine. I let Tobin know that the faulty hose would be heading his way, and he had no problem sending me a replacement. No hassles makes me a happy camper.

New hose arrived and I finally had a chance to hit the pool again last weekend. No leaks! Yay! The setup performed flawlessly, was extremely comfortable underwater, never budged on me once, and helped trim me out perfectly. It's so freeing to be rid of the bulkiness of a jacket-style BCD, and the minimalism of the Hogarthian setup suits me to a tee. The ability to jump in with without a weight belt in a 3/2 wetsuit will also be an added bonus once my warm-water money jar fills up again.

Considering I've only got 2 OW dives logged after being certified, I'm very happy I've made the jump to a BP/W setup this early. Overall, the product is excellent and DSS has been a pleasure to do business with. They will certainly have more of my business in the future.

Now off to work on my buoyancy skills!! And AOW next month!!

 

[decompression]

That's great news and well done Tobin. Keep a watch on the board as I'll be scheduling another UTD essentials course soon. Hope you enjoy the BP/W!