October 1998
Wings that soar
Dive Rite's latest BC and DUI's BC debut John Bantin knows which one he prefers
Wings that soar - Dive Rite Travel Wings
...and wings that let you down - DUI BCS
Who's spinning who a line? - Zeavu ResQ Disc
Bright weights, - bright idea if you're in the right place
Wing-style BCs are not just for tekkies. They can suit ordinary leisure divers too. But when it comes to choosing one, it's still a question of having the right kit for the job.
Here's an example: I love my car. It is an exalted German sports saloon. Chopped short for better stability and lithe on its lowered, gas-filled suspension, it looks purposeful with its colour-coded skirts diamond-black of course!
However, because parking near the office is difficult, I ride to work on an ancient lady's upright bike that no-one would ever want to steal.
US company Dive Rite makes what is often thought of as the ultimate technical diver's BC the Transpac II Super Wings. This has a massive buoyancy system with double redundant bladders and a host of gizmos. Fully inflated, it is like having a small dinghy on your back. For normal leisure diving that is a bit more than you need!
But because DIve Rite also offers an assortment of lesser-performing buoyancy bags to go with its standard multi-adjustable harness, anyone can enjoy its advantages.
I love the Dive Rite Transpac II Travel Wings. It has a minuscule bladder that inflates to an unexpected size, giving lift to match some 15kg.
Forget the "Travel Wings" I tried and reported on these pages last year. The importer had sent me something it had found among its old stock. I have at last got to use the latest version, which lashes to the standard Dive Rite harness.
It has two tank cam-bands; a padded back cushion; a waistband adjusted with a buckle and 5cm webbing; a sternum strap to discourage the long shoulder facings from slipping; and lots of possibility for adjustment.
It is covered with big D-rings from which to dangle peripheral equipment. There are no pockets these are an optional extra but it does have an octopus-rig holder.
The Travel Wings fills and dumps via the standard Dive Rite corrugated hose with its integrated dump-valve at the shoulder. A bottom dump has its pull-cord neatly threaded through an eyelet so that it falls easily to hand when in a head-down position.
The spare ends of the two tank cambands thread neatly away, and the whole thing becomes incredibly sleek when you are wearing it.
The tiny Travel Wings takes up little room in the gear bag, and this BC provides minimal resistance when swimming under water. The elasticated property of its outer shell keeps the bladder small and neat, and scrunched up inside it. This eliminates the"tank-wrap" I found so annoying with its predecessor.
Despite its compactness, I found that the Travel Wings still put my mouth well clear of the water when waiting vertically at the surface with the bladder fully inflated.
As a rule you should not need more lift than there is weight on your belt, provided the lift is positioned correctly. The part of the BC that rises clear of the water when fully inflated provides a downforce rather than contributing to lift.
This particular wing also showed little tendency to push me on to my front, even when used with a single lightweight aluminium cylinder. This is because the major expansion of the bag takes place low down near the wearer's kidneys, with a lesser amount near the back of the neck.
Dive Rite gear is not cheap, but it is of good quality. The Transpac II system allows the owner to have the choice of the ultimate performance BC when it is really needed, or less when that is appropriate.
I found the minimalistic Travel Wings ideal for diving with a single cylinder. In fact I believe that in this configuration it could be one of the best BCs I have yet tried!
The Dive Rite Transpac II Harness comes in sizes XS to XL. With the Travel Wings it costs £403. It comes in one colour only black of course!
Sea & Sea 01803 663012
and wings that let you down
Some things are made for buying and selling, others are made for using. Mike's Waterfront Warehouse tells me it has sold lots of examples of the new BC from that well-known American drysuit manufacturer, DUI. It obviously has lots of shop-counter appeal.
Now DUI makes some of the finest and most highly thought-of drysuits available. It also used to import the Zeagle range of wing-style BCs, a firm favourite with many tekkies. So, when I heard that DUI was offering a BC of its own, I expected something special. However, I fear that this product might well do better in the hands of a salesperson than in the water.
"Added-value" was obviously on the minds of those who briefed its designer. This DUI BC in fact DUI does not call it a BC, but a Buoyancy Control System or BCS comes loaded with extras to help persuade a buyer that this is the BC for them.
For a start, you can choose to have the harness combined with either a conventionally shaped buoyancy bag, to give you a wrap-around jacket-style BC, or opt for a wing style. The buoyancy bag with the conventional layout comes in four sizes.
The harness itself is multi-adjustable, with a soft back-cushion, loads of big stainless-steel D-rings, waist-strap, sternum-strap and jock-strap. The effect is rather like a parachute harness.
On top of that there is a new integrated weight system, with a large yellow plastic rip-cord each side for emergency jettisoning of the weights. This is optional and the modular design allows the whole idea of integrated weights to be jettisoned, if you so wish, even before you start diving!
A nice touch is the pair of novel little karabiner clips attached to the ends of elasticated cords at the harness front, one each side. The harness is attached to the diver's cylinder by twin 5cm bands with substantial cam-buckles.
I chose to mate the harness to the wing, which comes with a dump valve at the top of the corrugated hose fed by the direct-feed, plus a lower dump valve for use in case of inversion. The wing has folds that allow it to expand to give around 26kg of lift when fully inflated.
You can fit a second, redundant wing if you wish, and the dump-valves and corrugated hose can be swapped with blanking plugs so that the whole thing can be either right or left-handed.
So far so good.
In use, the DUI BCS was less than satisfactory. For a start it takes quite a bit of time to personalise the harness, so if you want to lend it to someone of different dimensions it is impractical to re-adjust it.
It is just too modular! Dropped loose on the deck, the DUI BC turns into a nightmare tangle of webbing straps. The buoyancy bag is held in place simply by being sandwiched between the cylinder and the harness, the cambands passing through slots in the latter. Without the tank to take the strain I found I needed to wrestle with this BC in the style of Rod Hull with his Emu. Only once it was dressed to a tank was I able to contemplate it dressed to me.
After I had experienced putting it on more than a few times I got to be quite slick with it. In fact once it was on it felt very comfortable and looked as if it would be the business. However, under water I detected other problems.
It did not help that the dump valve at the end of the corrugated hose tended to leak air. I am sure other examples do not do this. But the leak proved to be of consequence at the surface during long waits in big swells for the cover-boat.
Needless to say, I never got to enjoy that massive amount of lift the specification promised. Ever keen to use the minimum amount of lead necessary, I did not need great amounts of air for buoyancy control down to the depths of around 35m in which I tried it.
Tank-wrap is something that happens with many wing-style BCs, especially those unrestricted by a system of elasticated cords or similar when not inflated. The DUI wing has two such cords that run laterally across the buoyancy bag.
Alas, the DUI BCS introduced me to yet another way in which a wing can wrap itself around a tank. The harness meets the bag about one third of the way down from top to bottom, and I found that this allowed the uninflated bag to wrap itself back over the top of the tank, pulling the corrugated hose with it.
This had the effect of both looking very untidy in the water, and causing the direct-feed end of the hose to disappear up to the hose's tethering point on a front-of-shoulder epaulette.
Because I would pull down on the corrugated hose (once I had located its end) to dump air, this pulled the buoyancy bag and the wing forwards on the left side but left air trapped in the top right corner a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. Under water, other divers observed that the whole thing just looked a lopsided mess!
What else? Well, generally, the build quality certainly exceeds that of the design. Yet sadly, when I lent the BC to a friend to use, it came back minus one of the little karabiners formerly attached to an elasticated cord. I asked DUI to send me a replacement and they admitted that a lot of these items seem to have gone missing.
I used the remaining one to hold my octopus second stage, for which it proved eminently suitable. I caution anyone not to hang anything more substantial from one of these natty little features.
I am sorry, DUI, if you think I have done a hatchet job on your new product. I love your drysuits. I think they are among the best. I applaud your attempt to come up with something different in the way of a BC, but for me this one is flawed. I am sure the mark two version will be heavily improved.
The DUI BCS costs £344 with a wing and £353 in a jacket style; both cost £420 including weight system.
DUI 01493 332676
Who's spinning who a line?
How often have you seen someone throw a mooring line that is nothing more than a cat's cradle of knots? How often have you seen someone throw a line that is not long enough sometimes because they are standing on it!
Throwing a rope takes a little practice and preparation. Throwing a rope to a person in the water in an emergency takes both practice, preparation and presence of mind!
The Zeavu ResQ Disc is a neat solution that can be called into play in a moment and avoids most of the pitfalls encountered by those inadequately versed in the art of line-throwing especially in an emergency.
It comprises a rather heavy Frisbee-like disc that unwinds a length of strong poly-line from its rim as it spins towards its target. The bright orange disc floats, and so does the bright yellow line.
The line is kept neatly in place when not deployed by a length of velcro-covered tape, and this can be used to secure the line's end quickly in the heat of the moment.
The maker suggests attaching it to the thrower's wrist, but I suggest using a substantial part of the boat!
We compared the disc's accuracy and the distance achieved with that of both a lifebelt and a small buoy.
Our first attempt with the buoy was somewhat marred by the fact that its line had not been attached securely enough. It took some time to retrieve it!
In a direct comparison, the ResQ Disc did achieve slightly greater distances, though it flew neither as effortlessly nor as far as we had anticipated. It is not a lightweight Frisbee!
After exhaustive tests (It was our arms that became exhausted) the experienced skipper of our boat preferred to stay with his previously prepared lifebelt and rope.
When we became involved in a dramatic real-life rescue of two people in rough sea conditions soon afterwards he had already resorted to the familiar lifebelt while I was in the middle of asking him whether I should use the ResQ Disc!
It must also be said that people will swim towards a lifebelt enthusiastically, even if it does not quite reach them. However, my faith in the ResQ Disc did not falter. For I know that in the hands of the less experienced it is lighter and easier to handle and accurately deploy than a standard lifebelt. There is also less likelihood of embarrassing and time-consuming cock-ups with the line.
Its full title, the Tired Diver Tow ResQ Disc, is misleading because divers, unlike those without the benefit of an inflated BC, are probably the least likely of all people seen in the water to need a quick response.
I suggest that this product will find a useful place, installed and ready for action, on any leisure craft. It costs around £42.
Markat 01935 815424
Bright weights, bright idea if you're in the right place
It is hard to be innovative with something as low-tech as a lump of lead, but this is what Aquascience, the manufacturer of Bright Weights, has tried to be.
The idea is not in fact a new one. It is to distribute the lead you need in small parcels about your body instead of having it all in one place around the waist.
The weights are shaped like12-bore cartridges and weigh in at 600gm each, making it awkward to calculate the total lead you need.
Larger weights at 1.5kg each are intended to strap directly to a diver's tank, whereas the smaller ones are for the waist and ankles.
Strapping weights to a tank seems a good idea if you are using a floaty aluminium one. Alas, these are usually encountered at dive centres overseas and I was not keen to devote my valuable checked-baggage allowance to weights, so I tried them with a steel tank at home.
The weights slip through preformed slots in the 5cm double-layered webbing, which for the waist has a conventional quick-release buckle. The ankle weights are secured by a buckle and velcro.
The tank weights were a little fiddly to set up so that both would be symmetrically placed and forward of the centre line. The two velcro-covered straps need to be equally tensioned if the weights are to be both secure and straight.
The BC's camband has to go over the top of the weights if you do not want to refit them every time you take off the BC. I found a BC with a camband high enough to clear the weights and clamp on to the high part of the tank left uncovered.
It was certainly nice to have less weight on the belt I carried eight 600gm units. The 600gm weight on each ankle also reduced the possibility of my legs floating up.
Combined with four 1.5kg weights on the tank I was perfectly weighted for my somewhat bulky drysuit. Of course, you can drop only the weights around your waist if you find yourself in circumstances in which ditching is necessary one good reason not to be overweighted.
The tank weights posed a problem only when time came to haul the cylinder to the compressor. I could not be bothered to de-rig them!
It is a pity this weight system is not available in places like Eilat, which in winter has cold water with a high salt content and where aluminium tanks are commonly used.
Often those divers with thick suits and lots of weight on their belts complain of backache because their spines end up arched backwards between the heavy waist and the buoyant upper torso.
In the UK the advantages of spreading the load are less apparent, and at £100 per set you might consider the Bright Weight system something of a luxury.
Rye Diving & Rescue 01797 252200
Appeared in DIVER - October 1998
