October 2000 Solid titanium, easy action, big bucks

Solid titanium, easy action, big bucks - Mares Ti Planet regulator Buoy goes ballistic on own air supply - Buddy Self-Sealing Surface Marker Buoy Japanese make their move on computer-watches - Cressi-sub Visor Plus Titanio Draw the curtains, and slip into something more comfortable - PRO CBX 450 suit

John Bantin has been a full-time professional diving writer and underwater photographer since 1990. He makes around 300 dives each year testing diving equipment.

I often wonder how people come to buy those Riva motorboats. They obviously go into the boat shop and ask: "Have you got something a bit more expensive?"
Marinas of the western Med are packed with them, like Mondeos parked at Dagenham, so the hefty price tag obviously causes no marketing disadvantage.
Million-dollar Rivas are built in Italy, and so is the new Mares Ti Planet regulator. I wonder if we'll see Ti Planets dotted around dive sites? Or will they all be all tucked away in Riva lockers, for that moment when the owner wants to splash around under the boat, checking his gel coat for damage sustained running over a pedalo at 60 knots!
Mares, maker of some of the finest and highest-performing regulators in the world (including some of the most expensive) has produced the Ti Planet for the purchaser who wants more than just the best.
The entire first stage is crafted from titanium. Not titanium-plated, like that cheap old £500-plus Mares Ruby - this is the difference between your mum's silver-plated cutlery and that used at Buckingham Palace banquets.
Titanium is the buzz metal for the 21st century. Anything of consequence is made from it: aircraft parts, international space stations, Richard Branson's balloon, Peter Mandelson's political career. It's very strong, hence the Ti Planet's light weight, and for resisting corrosion it comes second only to platinum and gold.
This property is connected with the oxide layer which forms spontaneously on its surface. The first stage of the Ti Planet looks rather unprepossessing. With its vertical barrel, with four medium-pressure and two high-pressure ports, it has obvious similarities with less-expensive siblings but the matt finish make it look like a regulator that has seen a lot of use - and that's when it's straight from the box.
Of course, when anyone queries the lack of shine, that is the owner's cue to explain that his rather shabby-looking valve is made from solid titanium.
The second stage is a bit like that from an earlier Mares rather than one of the latest retro designs. Instead of the Harley Davidson carburettor-look, it has a plain front with side openings to allow water access to the diaphragm. This is intended to permit high flow rates and yet for the regulator to be unaffected by strong currents.
It has all the usual Mares features, including the bypass tube which removes the need for any venturi control (the switch other regulator manufacturers install to prevent free-flow at the moment of entering the water). The air flow avoids the back of the second-stage diaphragm.
And, as usual, Mares eschews the breathing-resistance control knob beloved of other designers. Quite right - if your regulator gives you an easy breathe and is properly tuned, why de-tune it? Just suck more gently!
The second stage is made of lightweight plastic with a titanium front plate, though this too looks as if it could be plastic. The mechanicals are also pure titanium. Additional heat exchangers are built in to help combat the combination of high performance and cold water, something that can lead to freeze-ups.
Not that the person who buys this regulator is likely to be found at Stoney Cove in January. If he is still learning to dive, he will surely jet off with his personal trainer to dive off the beach at Cobbler's Cove in Barbados. Otherwise he will be seen entering the water from the stern of a Dancer or Aggressor, while an anxious steward awaits his return, hot towel at the ready.
By now, you will have guessed that the Ti Planet is expensive. I tried it in the Galapagos. You didn't think I was going to take it to Swanage, did you? It breathed like a dream, but then, so does the Mares Ruby and the Abyss.
The lighter weight of the unit in my mouth was welcome. It seemed less liable to drag from my mouth, and not only because its hose was longer. I guess the usual rather small Mares mouthpiece is more suited to a lightweight second stage than to the somewhat heavy metal of a Ruby.
In the fierce currents we encountered, there was little of the free-flowing effect so often experienced with other regulators, which react to pressure over the purge button. However, I was disappointed to find that rough handling by the boat's crew, dragging sets down the deck with second stages bouncing off the floor, resulted in some deep scratches in that highly polished front plate.
An owner would have been deeply upset, but how do you take to task a crew-member who earns less than the price of this regulator in a whole year?
The last all-titanium regulator I tried was beautifully made but, unbeknown to me or the company that sent it to me, another journalist had taken it apart to see how it was made and had then wrongly reassembled it. It breathed beautifully until it fell apart. I am pleased to say that Blandford Sub-Aqua, the Mares importer, checked the Ti Planet before giving it to me and it never let me down - but then, no regulator should.
When Mares introduced the Abyss, I heard dealers say that no one would pay the price. When it brought in the Abyss Titanium, they said the same. By the time it launched the Ruby, those dealers were starting to realise that the boys at HTM (Mares' parent company) had done their homework.
I suppose a price of around £850 for the Ti Planet is not too much to pay if you can afford it, and you perceive that your life depends on it.

Blandford Sub-Aqua 01923 801572

PLUS	MINUS
+ Usual terrific Mares performance + High-tech talking point	- Incredibly expensive - Not invulnerable to damage - Its looks belie its nature

Buoy goes ballistic on own air supply

The Buddy Self-Sealing Surface Marker Buoy has established itself as an industry standard. If you haven't seen one, you obviously haven't dived in home waters. I usually take one on every diving trip abroad and rarely come back with it. Once seen demonstrated, the local dive guides so clearly covet it that I inevitably leave it as part of their gratuity.
So how can this product be improved?
Well, there have been times when, decompressing in mid-water, I have found it inconvenient to have the winder-reel and buoy in one hand and my octopus mouthpiece in the other for filling, all the time holding my camera and flash between my knees and trying to maintain a constant breath by lung volume alone. I am always left feeling cack-handed.
Some divers leave their winder-reel clipped to their BC but I always consider the possibility of it jamming and being dragged up after the buoy. If you have it in your hand, you can let go if necessary.
AP Valves now offers the option of a fixed inflation method, with the addition of a tiddly 100ml or 200ml aluminium air cylinder to the buoy. It is a smaller version of the familiar 400ml cylinder often supplied with Buddy BCs, and is available in either A-clamp or DIN-fitting to match your tank.
Always a believer in "less is more", I took the smaller cylinder on a trip and expected to find that, even at 30m, I could crack its valve and wave it on its way. As shallow as 6m, the sudden loss of weight caused by the jettisoning of such a small aluminium cylinder would make little difference to my overall buoyancy, I reckoned.
I was right. The device proved satisfactory, and though I still found myself holding my camera-rig between my knees, it saved me having to unravel the sausage-shaped buoy before deploying it. There was an added dimension. I asked my buddy to hold the buoy while I took pictures. Then I gave him the camera, took the buoy and winder in one hand and the 100ml cylinder in the other, and cracked open the valve. "Booshshshsh!"
The buoy was gone instantly and the winder reel was a blur in my hand. There was a pause, and I saw the flash as my buddy belatedly released the shutter, to record an image of me looking extremely unimpressed by his skill, although very impressed by that of AP Valves.
The Buddy Self-Sealing Buoy alone costs £30. With either a 100ml or 200ml cylinder, it costs £85.

AP Valves 01326 561 040

PLUS	MINUS
+ Makes deploying a buoy even easier	- Still takes two hands to deploy it - Do not get your winder reel tangled!

Japanese make their move on computer-watches
Not so long ago, watches were expensive, Swiss and ran by clockwork. If you wanted to know the time, you asked a policeman. Now policeman are only glimpsed hurtling by in their patrol cars, and the watch industry has changed too. Watches are cheap and made in Japan - many by Seiko.
Diving computers used to be expensive, ran on large batteries and flooded just when you needed them. Now most divers have at least one and take them for granted, so I suppose it was inevitable that the fiendishly clever Japanese would get in on that act too.
The Cressi-sub Visor Plus Titanio is one of two new Italian diving computers made by Seiko in Japan. Like its non-titanium sibling the Multivisor, it has watch-like dimensions and tells the time, day, date and what you're having for dinner (I exaggerate).
Take it diving, and it becomes a diving computer for use with air. Using a nine-tissue algorithm by Bühlmann, modified by Bohrer, it first displays depth, elapsed time and remaining no-stop time.
You can watch a little graph fill up with pixels until it is in the red section. Then it displays stop depths and times alongside the actual depth and elapsed time. Press the "plan" button and the secondary display shows water temperature, maximum depth achieved and the actual time, so you won't miss that dinner I mentioned.
Ascent rate varies between 16m/min deeper than 18m, and 8m/min between 6m and the surface.
The Cressi Visor Plus Titanio comes equipped with "plan" and "logbook" modes accessible by press-buttons. Does this mean we've seen the last of frantic finger-licking?
There is nothing pretty or petite about this titanium computer. James Bond used his stainless-steel Rolex as a knuckle-duster and this might equally qualify as an offensive weapon. However, the display is tiny - I almost needed a magnifying glass to check its peripheral functions.
It didn't help that the instruction book, this being one of the first units imported, was in Italian. I have a limited vocabulary derived from years of dining in trattorias, but it could have been worse - I've spent little time in sushi bars. If you buy one, the instructions will be in English.
What I did glean was that there is a personal safety factor setting, and altitude is automatically measured. You can also cancel the memory, useful for dive centres which might want to rent them out. The little battery can be changed only by an authorised Cressi service agent, and the phosphorescent screen is triggered by torchlight.
For no-stop dives, I was surprised to find that this computer was even more cautious than the ultra-conservative Suunto Vyper alongside it on my wrist. It did not include an optional 5-3m safety stop like the Suunto.
I lent it to another middle-aged male diver who told me he had no trouble reading it under water but thought it too conservative. I couldn't entirely fathom this - would anyone buy a computer because it was less conservative?
I cannot see me swapping this in day-to-day use for my Swiss chronometer, but it comes into its own on a dedicated diving trip, when you wouldn't look too silly with a flight deck strapped to your wrist.
The Cressi Visor Plus Titanio costs £440. The Multivisor has fewer features and costs £340.

Cressi-sub 01484 310130

PLUS	MINUS
+ Everything you need in an air computer included within the dimensions of a watch	- It's a very big watch - Some say digital watches are uncool

Draw the curtains, and slip into something more comfortable
I unpacked the box that had arrived unannounced from Gates Rubber Company with some curiosity. Inside I found a drysuit made from a material that was strong, yet lightweight and flexible.
The PRO CBX 450 uses a sandwich of tough Cordura on the outside and polyester on the inside, with a waterproofing layer of butyl in-between.
It has all the features I like about Gates suits: long, conical, manchette wrist seals; silky-smooth neck seal that passed over my head without taking any precious hair with it; a high standard of construction, with reinforced, watertight seams vulcanised on the inside with secret Gates Vulcaseam technology; and soft, comfortable, neoprene-lined boots.
Gates should know how to make boots. Along with UniRoyal tyres and engine belts, it made its name with Hunter wellies, and if you have never seen a pair of these up close, ask any member of the Royal Family for an opinion!
I have said before how much I like the bullet-proof feeling imparted by the Gates PRO-VSN drysuit. The material of the PRO CBX450 is less like Ned Kelly's armour and more like slipping into something comfortable.
You could sleep in it. In fact, my neighbours think I do. I was so keen to check its fit that I tried it on that evening in my bedroom without closing the curtains. Observers who don't know what I do for a living and seeing me dressing in what must look at a distance like S& M gear must wonder what goes on in these suburban homes.
A Gates (Apeks) revolving inflation valve eliminates any last-minute connection snags for the drysuit hose. Both this and the low-profile, constant-volume auto dump on the shoulder are mounted on substantial rubber gaskets, so there is little chance of a leak at either point. If every auto-dump worked this well, no one would buy a cuff-dump again.
The suit is a textured black but the material is double-layered at shins and shoulders, and the designer has taken the trouble to use panels of an attractive contrasting colour. Nice touches are the strongly fixed internal loops for braces and the detachable braces supplied. These too are black, which makes them hard to see properly, but at least if you get them in a twist you don't have to climb back out of the suit to resolve the problem.
The zip is a conventional cross-shoulder one, well-proven on the PRO-TDX. Like other Gates suits, the new one represents excellent build-quality rather than startlingly innovative design. It's a high-quality suit designed to do its job for a good long time.
The Gates PRO CBX 450 comes in a range of 13 men's and five ladies' stock sizes and in three colour combinations, all black, black/grey and black/blue. With valves as tested, it costs £565.

Gates Rubber Company 01387 269591

PLUS	MINUS
+ Innovative material + High quality construction + Smart + Keeps you dry	- Very conventional design - Not the cheapest suit available

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Appeared in DIVER - October 2000

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