IF I THINK AN ITEM OF EQUIPMENT IS NOT UP TO THE JOB IN HAND, I TELL YOU, THE READER. I don't enjoy writing bad things about products, but it is usually in the aftermath of a bad experience.
It is a pleasure to receive a very well-made product from Seacsub to test, rather than a lawyer's letter, but that is a measure of how far the Italian company has come with the quality of its offerings in the past few years. Where the former British importer chose all the company's cheapest products and tried to compete in the marketplace on price, the new agent seems to have settled on the safer tactic of competing on quality.
I was startled by the visible improvement in manufacturing quality and design of the Seacsub BCs sent in for our last big BC comparison (May 2000) and asked for one to take on a trip with me.
The Seacsub Pro 2000 looks like a conventional BC but its unique selling point is provision of two straps and buckles inside each outer pocket. When fastened, these ensure that any air injected using the normal direct-feed is kept out of the front part of the BC and stays at the back, as when using a wing-style BC.
Releasing the buckles during your safety stop makes the whole of the BC available, so that when you reach the surface you can fully inflate it and get the armchair-like support of a conventional BC.
The harness webbing is connected directly to the anatomically shaped hard backpack, but nicely integrated with the shoulder facings. In use it is like a parachute harness, which means that when fully inflated the BC does not expand inwards to give you that uncomfortable squeezed feeling.
A wide adjustable cummerbund with a 5cm strap and pinch-clip is complemented by a 2.5cm sternum strap. It's a strong single-bag design made from a 1000 denier weave material.
You want D-rings? This BC has eight, four on the shoulder straps, two of these with adjustable positions. I proved how strongly these were constructed and connected to the jacket when I attached myself with a reef-hook to a boulder as an 8 knot current flowed over me. To prove the point, another diver not equipped with a reef-hook held on to me too. The combined loading was considerable.
A big pocket closed with a strap and pinch-clip at the left side was ideal for stowing my late-deployment SMB.
There are also two useful, if not overly capacious, zipped pockets, one of which held the reef-hook and line with karabiner when not in use. I was able to access them easily.
These cover the integrated weight system, with familiar rip-away weight packets. However, these packets have an elastic weight retainer to keep the lead where you want it within them. That's useful if you are using a heavy steel tank and not much lead.
I was able to rip the front integrated weight-packets away easily and pass them up to the driver of the pick-up boat after a dive, yet they were no trouble to re-stow before the next dive.
The forward integrated weight system is complemented by two weight pockets (closed with a strap and pinch-clip) at the rear which are at last becoming common on many other BC designs. You cannot jettison the weights stowed here.
If you have ever drained an aluminium cylinder, you will know how floaty and uncomfortable it can become when empty, with a tendency to tip and whack your pillar-valve into the back of your head.
I used 8kg of lead, four at the back and four at the front, when using an aluminium tank which stayed part of me throughout the dive. With the steel tank I needed only 4kg, which was positioned at the front of the ditchable weight-pockets.
The trim weights balanced the rig when it was clipped into the tank rack on the boat. Often integrated weights can make a set fall forward when stood upright.
There are three dump valves, another feature familiar on top-of-the-line BCs. One is operated by pulling on the corrugated hose, the second is a quick dump operated by a toggle on a cord threaded through the right shoulder facing, and the third, at the lower back, was invaluable on rapid descents.
A single tank camband has alternative slots in the backpack, so that you can choose how high to rig your tank relative to it. It is down to the user to rig it correctly, but if you do, it can offer perfection.
As usual with good gear, I soon took it for granted. And the party trick with the straps to alter the buoyancy configuration proved unnecessary. I was so well trimmed under water, and so confident in the BC at the surface that I was able to leave them undone.
In fact, at the surface and confronted by big waves, other divers were jealous of the height the Pro 2000 gave me. The manufacturer claims only 19kg of lift for size M, but we found it closer to 23kg. It always seemed to be in the right place to be effective.
The BC never felt bulky or uncomfortable during the 40 hours I was under water with it, and nothing broke, even in the most arduous conditions.

The Pro 2000 is a move to position Seacsub in the top range of diving products. It comes in sizes XS, S, M, L & XL and costs £369.
Alpha Distribution 01226 341133

Front weight packet

trim weight packet at rear

strong parachute-style harness independent of the Seacsub Pro 2000 BC

Never short of an excuse to dress up in women's clothing, I included the Seaquest Diva LX in our last big comparison test of BCs and found that even though the example I had was a tiny size XS, it acquitted itself very well.
Naturally, to test it more appropriately, I had to call in the services of someone whose body could benefit from a BC that did away with uncomfortable cross-chest straps and instead located itself about the torso by means of a rubberised Lycra bodice.
Seaquest has been rather coy about the Diva LX. It has not advertised it heavily and I was surprised to find that it is in fact an example of the latest dragonfly design. It has a wing-style air cell which is used under water to provide comfortable horizontal buoyancy, but this is combined with an additional air cell akin to a conventional BC.
This provides buoyancy under the arms and at the back of the neck to give a comfortable upright stance when fully inflated and at the surface. My test-diver found it kept her head well clear of the water.
An adjustable cummerbund with over-strap and buckles keeps the whole thing snugly in position, so there is no tendency for it to ride up in the water. There are two useful zipped pockets, four small but perfectly useful stainless-steel D-rings and an expanding zipped pocket with integral loop which proved ideal for tucking away the TAG Heuer.
The standard Seaquest weight pockets are not the best design since sliced bread. We combined it with half the weight needed on an additional belt, because a single slab of velcro on each pocket to secure the lead did not fill us with confidence.
Trim pockets at the back, attached to the tank camband, take lead that helps counteract the effect of a floaty empty aluminium cylinder at the end of the dive. There are dump valves either side, and both worked admirably. Unlike some other dragonfly designs we have tested recently, there was no tendency for air to get trapped in the rear cell when trying to dump from the front. We put this down to the way the rear wing is shaped.
Admittedly, there was a need to be slightly more head-up than horizontal, but then you tend to dump air when ascending, and I would hope you always do this looking where you're going!
One dump works by pulling on the corrugated hose with which the direct-feed neatly integrates, while at the other shoulder a pull-cord dump has a toggle neatly threaded through the facing. The bottom dump is handy when finning down from the surface.
The inside of the BC is finished in a mixture of soft velveteen and latex on Lycra. It looked very comfortable, but try as I might I could not persuade my tester to try it without a suit. Sorry, boys!
This excellent bit of kit takes up little room in the dive bag. In some clubs it might be thought of as under-engineered and too sexy, and I don't know what the long-term effect of strong sunlight will be on the bodice.

The Seaquest Diva LX costs £340 and is available in lady's sizes S, XS, M and ML.
Aqua-Lung UK 0116 212 4200, www.aqualung.co.uk!

The Swiss firm Uwatec, now part of Scubapro, has always been in the forefront of diving computer technology. I remember greeting with disbelief the news that the company had dreamt up an air-integrated computer that was hoseless and wrist-mounted. Today, the Aladin Air X is a common sight among divers.
The Air Z is an Air X in a more modern package, more a case of fine-tuning and subtle evolution than any shattering advance.
The software is unchanged, pure Bühlmann, with the ZH-L8 ADT that has become almost a standard decompression algorithm, and able to compensate for all sorts of variables as disparate as yo-yo dives, water temperature and heavy breathing rates.
I greeted the clearly readable display like an old friend. New features include a less boxy shape, nice rubber non-slip backing to the unit, an elasticated wrist-strap that is easy to thread through the snap-shut buckle, and a screen guard in the form of an extra layer of clear perspex that clips over the main display.
The most welcome new feature must be the integral back-light, operated by tapping the upper part of the case, in or out of water. It stays on for around 7sec.
The radio transmitter plugs into an hp port on your regulator. The wrist unit displays tank pressure and remaining air-time calculated from your breathing rate and depth, and a little "lung" icon tells you if you're breathing too heavily - which in itself is likely to accelerate your heart rate and breathing!
The main display gives depth and dive time, remaining no-stop time or time to the surface if you are into deco stops, and depth of the first mandatory stop and time required to stay there.
Ascent rates are variable according to ambient depth, and as you go up it displays either percentage of the maximum rate you are achieving (up to 180 per cent) or the up arrow icon and "Slow".
Provocative diving practices such as sawtooth profiles or fast ascents are signalled by an "Attn" display at the end of a dive. The computer will take this into account when calculating the deco requirement for the next dive. Serious behaviour, such as missing a mandatory stop, is revealed by the "SOS" signal.
Visual warnings are accompanied by various peeps and whistles. I used the unit with a depth warning set at 40m, useful on a downward journey in pursuit of photographs of large animals.
Latest models from other manufacturers seem to include a 3min safety stop as part of the display. This comes up after every dive or is included in the 3m deco stop if one is required. The manual instructs users to make a 3min stop between 5 and 3m but the user is expected to add this to the dive profile after the computer deco requirement has cleared the screen.
There are comprehensive dive-planning and logbook modes and you can download the profiles of the past 37 dives using DataTrak software, the Uwatec interface and a suitable PC. A "Memomouse" enables you to download all the dives you have ever done with the unit, and DataTalk software allows you to alter many of the embedded settings.
The Aladin Air Z still relies on operation by wet contacts. Other manufacturers are going over to push-buttons and I wouldn't be surprised to see this on the next Aladin (what comes after "Z"?). Batteries have to be replaced by Uwatec but that for the wrist unit could last more than six years and the transmitter unit more than 10.
I compared the decompression information given with that from the latest Suunto. Apart from the 3min stop which the Suunto adds once you reach 6m, the Finnish computer was always the more cautious. Sometimes this meant only a minute or so of extra no-stop time but once, after a series of deep dives, the Suunto showed 11 minutes of stops (plus the 3min safety stop) while the Aladin showed that I was clear to go to the surface. I always follow the more cautious instrument, but it made me wonder.
Aladin also perseveres with a time-to-fly figure, while other computers simply count down from 24 or 48 hours. At the end of my trip, the Aladin showed 19 hours to fly but the Suunto wanted me to wait 48.
Finally, I encountered a snag familiar on many regulators. The hp port was so close to the mp ports that fitting the rather fat transmitter unit denied access to them.
Scubapro has two solutions. The first is a simple rigid extension which sets the transmitter about 10cm from the port. The second is a quick-release which, besides allowing room for other hoses, means you don't have to leave your transmitter attached to your regulator between dives. Both make the transmitter vulnerable to someone gripping it to pick up a fully rigged tank.

I am told that an Aladin Air Z Nitrox /O2 is waiting in the wings, but meanwhile the Aladin Air Z costs £585. The quick-release connection costs £18 and the rigid extension costs £10.
Uwatec Scubapro 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk

Dacor is a well-respected and long-standing brand in the giant US diving market but it is only recently that it has been well-promoted in the UK.
Since it came under the HTM umbrella, Dacor has benefited from the massive research and development capacity of the group, which includes Mares among its brands. The company which, some would say, had lost its way, is back on track. Many of the new Dacor products are the result of shared resources and badge-engineering.
The first offerings we saw in the UK, the Viper and Viper Tec regulators, were a bold step for a company that had previously been rather staid in its product line-up. Thanks to the HTM connection, these regulators were CE approved, whereas in the past the Dacor management obviously didn't feel that the European market was important enough to warrant the cost.
Less avant garde than the ambidextrous side-exhaust Vipers, the new Fury and Fury Adjustable are much more conventional but represent Dacor's attempt to secure some brand loyalty at entry level. New divers who might not be sure about their commitment to the sport, and to whom price is important, might buy one of these new low-cost Dacors and, being well-satisfied, go on to buy a more expensive model later.
It's sound business practice. Not all new divers become full-blown enthusiasts, but there will always be plenty of new divers.
The basic Fury has a simple unbalanced first stage, uncannily similar to a Mares R2. The more expensive Fury Adjustable has a balanced-diaphragm first stage in common with the Viper and Mares V16, with six ports, two hp and four mp, arranged around its barrel. This, unlike the Mares version, has no sexy rubber covering.
I took the Fury Adjustable on a diving trip alongside a top-of-the-range regulator from Mares for comparison and could detect no difference in the way it delivered air. Excellent!
Its second stage does not have the bypass tube which characterises Mares products but does have a breathing-resistance adjustment knob. In fact, it looks very conventional. There is no venturi ± switch but it never freeflowed when I jumped into the water, which is when such a switch comes in useful.
I did 36 consecutive dives with the Fury Adjustable and it always gave me what I wanted. I dived in some very strong currents, often tied off and facing into the flow, and dived as deep as 50m with it.
In fact I soon forgot I was meant to be reviewing it and got on with my other task of reporting on some exceedingly exciting diving. What more can I say?

The Dacor Fury regulator costs £128 and the Dacor Fury Adjustable costs £200.
Hydrotech 01455 274106