two years on – the Maldives - Bracknell Sub Aqua Club

winging it
Jon Payne
Many divers, at
some point in their
diving career, make
the move from BCD
to wing, and having
recently reached
said point, I’ll share
my experiences
for those who
may be thinking
of doing likewise...
Shawn Bishop demos the wing
Firstly, a comparison of the <strong>two</strong> styles.
A wing comprises a separate non
wrap around bladder, backplate and
harness, as opposed to the BCD which
combines all three into more or less a
single component.
Typically a wing will have more
lift than a BCD, and the option of
a dual bladder for redundancy. In
addition, clutter is removed from the
divers’ front.
A wing is more oriented towards
twinset and technical diving. On the
other hand, a BCD is well suited to
single cylinder recreational diving,
simple to adjust, has the benefit of
pockets, and tends to hold the diver
face up at the surface.
my personal experience
So, to my experience in moving from
BCD to wing. The main driver behind
the change was a desire to move to a
twinset, to extend my dive times.
Whilst my Buddy Pioneer was
certainly capable of dealing with
twin 10’s, I really wanted something
designed outright for the job. An
added bonus would be the reduction
of clutter up front.
After some deliberation, I plumped
for the AP Valves Tekwing – not
perhaps the best looking or most
‘techie’ wing around, but robust,
functional, and with the legendary
AP Valves lifetime guarantee and
customer service behind it.
I’ve dived the wing half a dozen
times now, and I’m still getting to grips
with it. The first thing I did was ditch
the crotch straps. They weren’t really
necessary (for me anyway) and meant
I had to get the wing on and straps
done up before donning my weight
belt. I then spent a lot of time on the
harness adjustment, to get the wing to
sit properly.
Ryan Francis models a traditional
jacket style BCD
My next discovery was that attaching
weighty items to the D rings on the belt
caused them to slide down and pull
the belt undone – a problem specific to
this harness I suspect. This meant new
locations had to be found for torch and
reel. One problem here is that diving a
semi dry means my only pockets were
in my BCD... so now I don’t have any!
For the moment I’ve added some strap
on cargo pockets to deal with this.
the verdict
Generally the wing dives well. So
far I’m using it with a single cylinder
and pony. There is no shortage of lift
(22.5kg), though there is a tendency
to tip face down at the surface if it is
inflated too much. I expect this may be
better when the twins are introduced.
There’s always the option of lying on
my back in calmer water. In fact fully
inflated all I need is a set of oars and
I have a small raft!
I do have in mind a few
modifications. I’ll probably add a pull
string to the shoulder dump valve
– it doesn’t come with one. I’ll look
at adding Inspiration weight pockets
fairly soon, and in the longer term may
change the harness. Overall however,
I’m happy with the setup. Next job
– the twinset…