BC Design, Which one is for you? Part 2

Posted on Oct, 2009 in Home/Reviews/BC Design, Which one is for you? Part 2

Hello Dip ‘N Divers

Ok we are back for part two of our reviews on BC Systems, Today we are gonna talk about the Back Inflation Style BC. Many manufacturers today make back inflation style BC’s, some of them include, Oceanic, Aeris, Hollis Gear, Aqualung, Seaquest, Mares, Sherwood, Genesis and Zeagle. Zeagle actually only makes back inflation style BC’s.

Now onto actually talking about the BC itself, I will say this, the first time that i tried a back inflation BC i thought i was never going to like it, most of this though was due to the unfamiliarity with the BC, after diving it a few times i found that it was in fact a very comfortable BC design and had many features not found on other types of BC’s. So lets start with the plusses, first there is no squeeze when inflating the BC due to the fact that all of the inflation is behind the diver. This means that as the diver is underwater they are completely free in front of them because there is nothing inflating on their stomach. One of the biggest plusses to the back inflation though is the amount of lift that they can provide. Because the lift is all in a seperate bladder and not attached at the front the lift is not limited to the size of the BC. Due to the wide variety of different size bladders that can be used on back inflation BC’s it has become one of the more popular designs for travel BC’s.

So we have gone through all of the plusses of this BC but what about negatives, yes i wish i could say that there were no negatives but yes there are some. The first, due to all of the inflation being behind the diver, when the diver is at the surface this type of BC will tend to tip the diver face first into the water, this can be an uncomfortable feeling for some, it just takes a while to learn how far the BC can be inflated without pushing face first into the water. The only other negative that i found with this type of BC is that it does not have the same type of large pockets that are available on the jackter style BC’s..

OK so we have now covered the Jacket and The Back inflation style, in the next couple of days look for part three to come out which will be a review of the Hybrid style BC. Once again i will leave you with a list of some of my favorite BC’s for this category, check out the Seaquest Black Diamond, Zeagle Ranger, Aeris 5 Oceans and the Mares Pegasus, each one offers many different features and price points sure to meet every divers needs.

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Tags: 5 oceans, AERIS, Aqualung, Back Inflation, black diamond, Genesis, hollis, Mares, Oceanic, pegasus, ranger, Seaquest, sherwood, Zeagle Systems

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