My buddy has been diving a Boris for over a year now and is constantly trying to badger me into getting one myself. Now despite my DIR-leanings, I'll admit that I'm definately starting to look at a CCR as 'the way to go', purely from a gas logistics point of view.
Now I've always really liked the KISS as it's probably about as close as you can currently get to a 'DIR friendly' CCR but the Ouroborus is clearly a different league again. Designed by reknowned technical diver Kevin Gurr, the Boris is an extremely well thought out unit that gives a whole new meaning to 'fail safe' and redundancy - in a nutshell, it seems Kev has thought of just about every 'what if' situation a CCR user could encounter! The Boris is built like a Sherman tank too - comparing the build quality of the Boris to something like an Inspiration is like comparing a Bentley to a Ford Escort!
Now by my own admission, I'm no CCR expert so my opinions of the unit are those of a CCR layman. There are aspects of the unit's design that I've never really like - namely the horrible Custom Divers wing and harness which, I'm led to believe, even CCRB are now changing in favour of a OMS wing. I haven't seen the OMS wing they're planning to use on the Boris but anything will be an improvement over the Custom Divers wing that's currently in use!
Knowing what a Halcyon fan I am, my mate thought he'd make the Boris a bit more Bardo friendly by fitting his Ouroborus with a Halcyon Explorer wing and a standard Hogarthian harness. Now this isn't the first time I've seen a Halcyon wing on a Boris - Phil Short has a 60lb Evolve wing on his Boris - but it's the first time I've got to dive one with a Halcyon wing for myself! Now a Halcyon wing will not go onto a Boris without a couple of minor modifications - mainly, it's neccessary to cut two 'L'-shaped slots into the wing to allow the over the shoulder gas injector blocks and the handset & PO2 displays to be routed around to the diver but this is a fairly simple and straightforward modification that anyone can do.
Once we'd sorted out my weighting (too much weight made the unit difficult to trim out and kept pushing up the loop volume), the Boris was surprisingly easy to dive, even for a non-CCR diver like myself. Whilst I found the VR3-style operating software a little too complicated for its own good (despite having it explained to me *twice*, I still couldn't get the unit to change set point!), the unit itself was a pleasure to dive. Obviously bouyancy control takes some getting used to if you've never dived a rebreather before but the Halcyon Explorer and its 'over the shoulder' inflator gave me a real 'comfort zone' feeling that allowed me to just get on with flying the unit rather than struggling with my own bouyancy.
Would I buy one? If I had the money, yes. Unfortunately, the £8250 asking price is a little too rich for me but who knows - maybe one day when my lottery numbers come in! I'd certainly *love* to own and dive one as it's a very well thought out and solidly put together unit that's clearly aimed at the more technical rebreather diver. Whilst the Boris will function perfectly happy on a 30m bimble, it doesn't take a CCR expert to see that - thanks to its radial scubber and mission critical design - this unit is geared towards the more adventurous exploration-level trimix depths. Even if you're not diving the Britannic on your day off, though, the safety and redundancy that is the cornerstone of the unit's design will clearly benefit any diver...
To say I'm smitten would be an understatement!
