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John, I have a couple of flames for you. On Fri, 26 Apr 1996, John Vanderleest wrote: > The concept of single/dual bag BCs should not be considered alone. Yes, it is > safer to have dual bag BCs with your dry suit, but do you really need it. It will > provide additional drag in a current or when scootering as well as adding > additional equipment to manage. These items have to weighed against each > other. You do not need a dual bladder BC when wearing a dry suit (period!!). Your bouyancy should be maintained only with your dry suit and your (single bladder) BC should be used only as a back up. However, a dual bladder BC is a good idea when technical diving with a considerable amount of weight and using a WETSUIT. > Other things you need to consider in addition to the number of BCs bags is the > lift available on each alone. Twin steels at 100 plus feet can be very very > heavy. Have you tried fully deflating a BC or dry suit (Yes it is uncomfortable) to > see if you can still lift yourself off the bottom. I think you will be amazed to find > just how negative you have become. This problem is compounded the deeper > you go or the more equipment you carry. This last statement is WRONG. If you are diving with a dry suit it doesn't matter how deep you are. The volume of air in your dry suit and it's subsequent lift should be the same at all depths (assuming you are adding and releasing air appropiately). When wearing a WETSUIT you become more negative at depth becasue the wetsuit compresses the deeper you go. > One advantage of dual bag BC's is that when you do use a wetsuit, you have > no need to reconfigure your equipment to retain your redundancy. Good point. Use dual bladder BC's only when wearing a wetsuit. > There is always such a thing as too much or too little but no such thing as THE > ONLY way, only a "Seems to be working OK in this environment way ". In your > situation, you will need to look carefully at the depth, equipment and current, > and then make your own valued judgment. In your case you have too much if your using dual bladder and a dry suit. Do you actually have 3 inflator hoses running off your regs?? That's a little overkill. > > If you would like a personal view. I wear a Dive Rite Transpac for all dives on > twins, regardless of whether I'm wearing a wet suit or dry suit. I live with the drag > and sometimes curse it, but I haven't changed because of it. The transpac is basically your harness, what do you use for lift. If it's a dual bladder BC then it is probably the superwings. One could also use the orginal single bladder DR wings, or sport wings, or junior wings with the transpac. Just my $.02 Dive On, Sean Creagan Virginia Institute of Marine Science Dept. of Fisheries Oceanography screagan@vi*.ed*
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