How long does a BCD, ABLJ last in your experience.

[ChangeAgent]

We just discovered that after about 1,000 hours underwater, the seams at the bottom of my wife’s jacket are giving up. The stitching has held but the material is coming apart. These seams are not typical stress points, so I am also a bit puzzled as to why, but that is a different question. I have the same jacket (be it one size bigger), and no such problem exists. Yes, they both have wear and tear, but that is to be expected.

What interests me is what your experience is with how long a BCD/ABLJ lasts.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I started scuba diving in 1954 but I'm afraid I never kept track of hours. And of course BCDs didn't exist then. But much later when they were introduced I don't recall ever wearing one out. However, a thousand hours sounds like a lot use for a product like that. I think you got your money's worth.

 

[ChangeAgent]

Thanks, well we both saw the arrival of the toilet seats and next the BCD and a few other gadgets . Was trained as a military diver and we always think in hours UW. I asked as my BCD has done more hours and does not have this problem.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Thanks, well we both saw the arrival of the toilet seats and next the BCD and a few other gadgets . Was trained as a military diver and we always think in hours UW. I asked as my BCD has done more hours and does not have this problem.

The first time I saw anything like a BC was when I was a Marine 2/LT and went to a month-long Navy diving school at Pearl Harbor in 1962. We wore submarine escape vests and adjusted buoyancy by blowing into the oral inflation tube. Some company must have started making something similar for sport divers because this photo shows my wife wearing one.

 

[ChangeAgent]

Ha, you are a creative person like me. We used safety vests from airplanes, the ones with a CO2 cartridge, and inflated those orally; not ideal but it worked. I cannot remember when we started that, but a problem was getting the water out that inevitable entered into it. Then came the horse collar, or as we called it, the toilet seat, invented by Maurice Fenzy, who called it an Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jacket (ABLJ). Later it was just called a Fenzy. I saved up for one of those. It could be Oraly inflated and had a CO2 cartridge. I remember later on having the discussions when Dacor and US Divers started to produce direct-feed jackets, if Oraly inflation would save air or not.

Then one day I dove with Peter Parker, owner of then called AP Valves (now AP Diving), visited their production shed, and since I knew AP ABLJ’ from the service, I became a lifelong fan of their products.

O well those where the days when unprotected sex was safe and diving dangerous. Now it is more the other way around.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Ha, you are a creative person like me. We used safety vests from airplanes, the ones with a CO2 cartridge, and inflated those orally; not ideal but it worked. I cannot remember when we started that, but a problem was getting the water out that inevitable entered into it. Then came the horse collar, or as we called it, the toilet seat, invented by Maurice Fenzy, who called it an Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jacket (ABLJ). Later it was just called a Fenzy. I saved up for one of those. It could be Oraly inflated and had a CO2 cartridge. I remember later on having the discussions when Dacor and US Divers started to produce direct-feed jackets, if Oraly inflation would save air or not.

Then one day I dove with Peter Parker, owner of then called AP Valves (now AP Diving), visited their production shed, and since I knew AP ABLJ’ from the service, I became a lifelong fan of their products.

O well those where the days when unprotected sex was safe and diving dangerous. Now it is more the other way around.

All this talk about diving before I had a way to adjust buoyancy made me wonder how I did it. In my case it was pretty simple- I grew up diving on the Gulf Cost of Florida and dove in trunks because the water was warm. I didn't have to adjust for changing buoyancy with changes in depth. It did get cold in the winter but wet suits had not been invented, or at least I ever saw any, so we just didn't dive in the winter. Then after college my first tour in the Marine Corps was in Hawaii. I think I did wear a thin wet suit jacket there, but buoyancy must not have changed with depth enough to matter much. And then I did get a vest with an oral inflation tube. But I can't imagine how divers in California hacked it. They must have been real men.