BC Design, which one is for you?

Posted on Oct, 2009 in Home/News and Events/BC Design, which one is for you?

Hello Dip ‘N Divers

Currently there is a debate about which BC system is the right choice for every diver out there. Currently there are four styles that are most commonly used. These styles are Jacket, Back Inflation, Hybrid and the Backplate and Wing design. In my opinion each system has its pros and its cons. With that said I believe it is up to each diver to choose the system that they feel is proper for them. Today I am going to talk about the jacket style BC, check back each day for a review on each system.

The jacket style BC is one of the most common used BC systems on the market today; many manufacturers tend to have multiple selections of this style with different feature on each BC. Major manufactures include Oceanic, Aeris, Aqualung, Mares, Sherwood, Seaquest, Genesis, Scuba Pro and TUSA. The jacket style BC can come as the very basic BC or it can come fully loaded like the Rolls Royce. Before I get into all of the features I will talk about the things that will stay the same with any Jacket Style BC. First off this BC provides the best surface support out of any of these systems; it provides effortless support to the diver by having the lift evenly spread out between the front and the back. Another great plus to the Jacket Style is that they offer really big pockets that are great for storing any items needed while diving, these pockets will either be zippered or Velcro shut. Some of the features that you can add to this BC are weight integration, stainless steel D-Rings, depth compensating cummerbund, bioflex material, octopus pockets, utility pockets and much more.

Now the Jacket Style is not the perfect BC so here are some of the cons. The first is the squeeze felt when the jacket is fully inflated, this squeeze is felt at the stomach, it is not painful just a little uncomfortable. The second biggest downside is the weight of the system, now divers that usually wear the smaller sizes it is not that big of a deal but when someone needs to wear an X-Large or even a XX-Large the BC usually weighs anywhere from 10-15 lbs just depending on which model they are using, when packing for a trip and every extra pound that can be saved is vital this can be a little bit of a chore for the diver.

OK we are a quarter of the way through this review; remember to check back tomorrow as I will be posting about the back inflation style.

And just to let everyone know some of my favorite Jacket Style BC’s include the Oceanic Probe, The Aqualung PRO QD and the Seaquest Wave. The Probe and the PRO QD are two of the more feature rich BC’s while the Wave is as basic as they come.

Related interesting posts:

Tags: AERIS, Aqualung, Back Inflation, Backplate, Dip 'N Dive, Genesis, Hybrid, Jacket Style BC, Oceanic, Probe LX, Scuba, Scuba Pro, Seaquest, sherwood, Wing

Comments are closed.