An Important Rule
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Warning: Never buy a piece of equipment from a company whose engineers don’t have considerable expertise in the kind of diving their equipment is supposed to be good for. |
In 1996, a company that usually makes exceptional recreational BCs came out with their first attempt at a “tech/rec” model. Supposedly, this BC could be used not only for recreational diving, but for cave and wreck diving as well. Unfortunately, the engineers who designed this BC were neither cave divers nor wreck divers.
- There was no way to mount canister lights, stage bottles or deco bottles on the harness.
- The only way you could use this BC with doubles was to bolt them onto a plastic channel using non-standard tank bands which had not been readily available since the 1970s.
- Even if you could find the right bands, your doubles would not nestle themselves tightly against your back. Instead, they stood off several inches, balancing on the narrow and flimsy plastic channel. This lead to serious instability problems.
Shortly after the BC was introduced, a diver bolted one to his favorite set of steel doubles. As he stood up to walk to the water, the plastic channel broke and the tanks promptly fell to the ground. The company was then forced to issue a statement that the BC was not to be used with doubles heavier than aluminum 80s.
Unfortunately, this particular BC was among the first in a plethora of what became known as Tech Wannabe BCs — BCs that had the look but not the ability to be used for technical diving. The sad part is, not only can such BCs not carry doubles, stage bottles or light canisters, they often perform poorly as recreational BCs.
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