Well, I did it. Yesterday I went and played with the backplate and wing (plus single 12 & usual side-slung pony) art the St*n*y place (shhh!!)
It was a very weird day. I can honestly say that I experienced the worst dive I have ever had!!
First dive was planned to be a plop down to the Stanegarth, swim around a bit and then practise SMB deployment, me hovering off the bottom and Caroline however she felt happy. Unfortunately it was not a happy dive from start to end as for some reason the demons got a hold of Caroline and she spent most of the dive looking terrified. Neither of us have any idea what caused it but her old fear of wrecks came back (to a woman who has loved wrecks since I dragged her onto the Thistlegorm) and everytime something loomed out of the gloom (the viz was dreadful) she was close to panic. So I spent most of that dive baby-sitting in the nicest possible way and not really thinking about the wing.
Second dive and we were going for a long shallow swim for me to play about seriously with the wing and this was the one. It was horrible. I was too heavy full-stop, plus the weight was all too far forwards and all I wanted to do was to plough a furrow in the shale with my nose!! Have you ever seen a purple –clad woman having a serious temper tantrum underwater – if you were at Stoney yesterday you would have done! I struggled for 40 mins and then gave in and surfaced. I was so mad with myself for feeling like a total novice again, so we gave it a reasonable SI then went back in. I was 2 kg lighter and the tank was moved lower. That dive was much better. Trim still isn’t right but I did feel something of what the wing should feel like and it was good.
The major conclusion is that I need to adjust the harness to sit it further down on my back – I think the harness is too tight making it sit too high. I saw a site from a link once that showed where it should sit (is it the second vertebrae down?).
The second thing is that it needs a crotch strap adding. We bought it second hand and the crotch strap had been removed. This meant that there was a tendency for the wing to ride up and that exacerbated the “head heavy” feeling.
Finally I need to work out where I am putting the damn inflator. The previous owner obviously had it under his arm as it now appears preshaped to want to go there. That’s fine but it clashes a bit with my pony so I will need to “bungee” it, and that then means I can only dump by pulling it. I couldn’t really reach the “arse dump” with any ease – this might improve when I move the whole lot down?
Anyway, I thought I would share my experiences so all you guys who are in the same boat and just getting a wing won’t feel quite so bad if your first experience is a shite as mine!! Plus of course, I will accept grateful any handy tips to remedy my problems from the experienced users on the forum!
Cheers all
Lou