APEKS BACKMOUNT TWIN BC SYSTEM

This Apeks set puts the Deluxe harness on a steel backplate and WTX-D40T twinset wing together in black. It is the buoyancy half of a back-mounted twinset, ready for a wing bolt-up.

The Deluxe harness is padded webbing on a stainless steel backplate, which carries ballast high on the back and is fixed rather than ditchable. The WTX-D40T is a donut wing cut for back-mounted doubles, shaped to clear the manifold and the bands and to move gas around the bladder rather than trap it. Stainless steel is the heavier of the plate materials Apeks offers, which suits a wetsuit diver carrying lead rather than a traveller counting baggage. The WTX range also runs a D30 and a D60T redundant wing, so lift is matched to the cylinders rather than assumed. A webbing harness fits a drysuit in winter and a rash vest in summer, which a moulded jacket does not.

The result is a harness, plate and wing that were specified together, which removes the guesswork from a first twinset build. Matching a wing to a plate and a harness separately is where most first doubles rigs go wrong, and the parts here were chosen against one another.

Each piece in the set is one size. Supplied as Deluxe harness with stainless steel backplate and WTX-D40T twinset wing. Wing bolts, tank bands, cylinders and regulator are separate. Twinset diving is a trained configuration, so this is not a first buoyancy compensator.