Dive Rite Hydro Lite: The Divers Ready Review

when an equipment manufacturer with a strong technical pedigree says that they're coming out with a lightweight travel BCD they have my attention this is the Hydra light from dive right [Music] ladies and gentlemen what's going on welcome to divers ready my name's James and on this channel we make videos with one simple goal in mind and that's to help make you a better diver like for example today where I'm gonna be taking this beautiful new travelbee CD for a spin so if you haven't done so already making next time on our subscribe button click the little bell icon and you'll be really helping us out supporting our channel to grow a short while ago we made a video on this channel comparing a backplane wing setup to a traditional travel jacket BCD but what if you could have all convenience of a jacket style BCD in terms of its lightweight nature and ease to pack but the donek performance of a backplane and wing while it would probably look something like this [Music] now before we get into it this is not a sponsored review I first saw the Hydra like BCD at Deema where I was hanging in the dive right booth with Jared hires and we shot some video together which I will link above there somewhere and I asked Jared if he would give me one of these to test and he said no and I asked him if he would loan me one to test and he said okay so this is just on loan to me to try out to get wet I haven't taken it diving yet but by the end of this video I will have and yeah I just really like to look at it from the first off and I wanted to give it a go not a sponsored video just piques my interest in curiosity and I thought it might be interesting to you guys to let's do a quick rundown of the specs in this BCD then I'm gonna take it done living and come back and give you my honest thoughts about how this BCD performs let's start with of course the most important factor whenever you call anything a travel whatever travel jacket travel piece of dive gear and that's weight the hydro light BCD comes in at six point two pounds dry that's about 2.8 kilos now that's only a couple of ounces heavier than your average travel jacket star BCD which is normally in the four to six pound range but for that couple of extra ounces you're getting a hell of a lot more durability all of the hardware on this back in flight BCD is the exact same specification as dive right use on all of their technical diving wings and harnesses including the stainless steel D rings the belt buckle the power inflator the inflator hose assembly itself it's all the same quality that they're using for their technical diving gear only on a recreational BCD even the tank band and Kanban buckle system on the back is stainless steel not plastic all these little factors point towards a BCD that yes is lightweight and good to travel with but also should last you a long time and be durable the harness itself is designed to fit you like a hiking backpack and the anchor point is back here on the kidneys on the base of the back plate so what that does is transfer the weight of the tanks and your regulator and everything you're carrying to your hips rather than have them hang off of your shoulders and if you've ever done multi day hiking you'll know how important a proper fitting backpack is to avoid okay and the same concept is applied here the wing itself is a 210 denier nylon bladder encased in a 600 denier polyester wing encasement which is dyed with a colorfast dye that should stay looking sharp for years to come and the design of this oval 360 degree wing is such that gas can pass freely around the whole wing so it should always be stable and balanced in the same way that a backplate on wing is and avoid the tackling the other back inflate jackets d'Arby CDs suffer from what I mean by tackling is with some backing plate jacket B CDs I'm thinking of the scubapro hydrous Pro for example you can put a little bit of gas into it and the wing actually folds around the tank and makes a crease at the top like a taco and that prevents the gas from circling around the wing freely now what happens there is when you're diving it if you go slightly to one side you end up fixing a roll on I have a student right now who's suffering with that with the skewer Pro high gross other nice features on this BCD includes tons of padding on the back this is really super comfortable back padding and on the hips and the lumbar region here so that's nicely supported lots of padding on the shoulder straps making them super comfortable that's where your extra weight is coming in but it also means that it's going to be a really comfortable PCD to dive I hope and then of course your quick release straps on your shoulders and your chest excellent for recreational diving not in my opinion suitable for diving but this is not a tech piece of gear the weight pockets on each hip are quick release design so you just pull down and you can release your weights super quickly we'll see how it dies with just the weight pockets on the waist belt here but I'm gonna guess that I'm probably going to want to add some trim pockets up top here just to distribute the weight along the length the tank they are not included in this BCD you have to purchase them separately which I've gone ahead and done preemptively and then you have the crotch strap which is also quick-release so this is made of the softer type of webbing for comfort down there you know what I mean yeah good now let's get this bad boy wet and see how it performs in the water and I'll be right back with my thoughts and feelings on this BCD after that [Music] guys when I review a piece of dive gear for you I don't just want to take it for like one or two dives to get a feel for it and to shoot some footage that I can show you in a montage like the one you just watched but I actually want to incorporate it into my life and see if it's useful for me and really get a feel for the piece of kit whatever it may be the montage that you just watched was shot with her with a fun dive with me and my wife but I've actually been diving this BCD solidly for the last two weeks now on every recreational dive that I've done so I've done some deep dives with it I've done some wrecks whim throughs with it I've done some shallow reef dives I've taught in it I fun dived in it I've just put it through the dive instructor life to see how it fits in and you know who I best think this BCD is suited for now in the description for this product on the website it lists it as a travel BCD but I haven't been using for that in fact I don't put it in a suitcase at all I've been using it as my primary BCD for home-based diving for as I said two weeks now it is really truly a great BCD for quick things I love about this BCD number one plushness plushness I don't even I think I'm just making up words I don't know plushness comfort everything about it the strap the back plate the wing the webbing everything is built for comfort it has the performance in the water of a back playing wing but the comfort of your Nan's favorite blanket probably the most comfortable BCD I've ever dived and that's saying a lot because I've dived everyone that is out there but the backplate the cushioning the wing and the harness itself are absolutely deluxe I did 20 dives with this BCD just last week there's 20 climbs up a ladder and this backpack style harness I can't put a price on how comfortable that was number two is lightness and I don't just mean lightness of the piece itself but in BCD design there is a sweet spot between the weight of the unit the mass the amount of displacement it gives you and the amount of lift available to you now that sweet spot is where you don't need a ton of lead to make a BCD sink but you have enough lift to support you when you're on the surface and hold steady underneath all wrapped up in a lightweight low mass design and this BCD nails it the third thing I love about this BCD is the wing itself if I could describe the performance of this wing using only the sound effect that sound effect would be no tackling none nada no tacos for you James not a perfectly stable wing 360 degrees all encompassed no folding and it just holds you in all the best positions the fourth thing I absolutely love about this BCD is that dive right lied to me they told me this was a travel BCD they told me it was a lightweight high functioning Travel BCD it's not it's not I'm sorry this has the strength and durability to be my everyday recreational BCD and I honestly believe that only diving a-b-c-d of this quality when you're on vacation would be a shame and a waste I really only have two slightly constructive observations about this BCD and probably both for them and just personal to me number one is as I predicted trim pockets are a must now these aren't included but they were readily available and I purchased them myself and added them in there I'm not going to even show you the footage idea to the first dive without the trim pockets because I have quite a large tidal range if all my weight is down here around my waist I end up just sea soaring through the water and it's it's not elegant it doesn't look good no you're not seeing that footage nah it's not happening forget it move on so second dive I immediately added these trim pockets and as I said I bought them preemptively and they've been a feature of the BCD ever since so instead of having ten pounds of weight around the waist I now have three on each side around the waist and two in each of the trim pockets and that's just got me in a really nice position as I move forward the only other criticism I have about the this BCD and it's really a mild one it's personal to me is I have great big shoulders so when I got the harness fitted Welby inflate I was actually up here on my collarbone not really a big problem but it just took a little bit of getting used to because I'm used to having one sit down on my chest and I can grab it and make adjustments as necessary whereas I had to get used to finding it there was like up here on my neck for some reason so yeah I'd prefer a slightly longer inflator hose but maybe that's just me ladies and gentlemen just another quick update from me it's been another two weeks since I recorded that last piece with my thoughts and feelings having dived it for two weeks and I just keep diving that BCD I keep going out to my garage I've got some recreational diving to do today I'll take the hydro light I love that BCD so much that when jared has called me up and said hey when am I getting my beating gear I loaned you back I said you're not how much do I owe you not only that but I went ahead and ordered additional Hydra light B CDs to add to my rental fleet so if you come and take a recreational level diving course for me and you don't have your own equipment already that's the BCD that I'm gonna put you in and even if you do come to me with your own gear and you want to try it out you'd be very welcome to there is a link in the description of this video below to the Hydra like BCD so go and check it out and if you make a purchase through that link it is an affiliate link and can owe me a small commission at no additional cost to you I thank you in advance for supporting our channel and if you want an additional chance to try out the dive right Hydra like BCD I will be bringing them with me on our divers ready on tour trip to bon-aire this coming October 2020 so the link for that trip is in the description as video below I'll have a whole bunch of gear with me including the Hydra lights and you can test drive it to your heart's content ladies and gentlemen over there I will put some links to our other gear review videos and just below that will be some of our other content for you to enjoy if you haven't done so already don't forget to subscribe to our Channel ladies and gentlemen we really do appreciate each and every one of your support and until next time my name's James this is thumper dive safe dive often

Channel: Divers Ready

Views: 15,459

Rating: 4.9507909 out of 5

Keywords: james blackman, scuba diver, dive rite transpac, diving, dive gear, dive equipment, scuba, diver, open water, scubadiver, scubadiving, new diver, scuba certified, scuba certification, scuba gear, scuba review, diving hints & tips, dive master, padi open water course, dive rite bcd, dive rite hydro lite, dive rite hydro lite review, divers ready, hydrolite, dive rite, new BCD 2020, scuba gear reviews 2020, new dive gear 2020, simply scuba, simplyscuba

Id: M9TItxL9e4k

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2020