1st stage hitting back of head

[freedivernd]

I can't be the only one that has had this problem... but what was the cause? what's the cure. I am thinking it might have been that the b.c. was a bit too large and it allowed the tank valve to tip down against my head rather than holding the tank/b.c. tight against my lower back. I don't think it was that I was so inverted that I had to tilt my head so far back that I was hitting the 1st stage. I had my top tank strap set right at the ogive of the tank, in fact, if the strap had been any higher it wouldn't have been on the tank at all. Thoughts? This has happened to me before, but also, I have had dives that it doesn't happen.. They are all rented b.c.'s
Fred

[tcjtn0]

I don't have the exact answer for you but I used to have this happen once in a while when I had my old BC which didn't quite fit all that well. I haven't had an incident with the bp/w. Another thing I suppose would be how high/low you "strap-up" the tank onto the bc. I will leave it to other more wiser individuals to really get the answer to this one!!!

Jean

[LKunze]

Fred, two things factor into your problem. The first is that you need to position the tank so that it sits low enough to not bang your head on the first stage. What I do personally is set the tank height so that I can reach back and still grab the tank valve. If I can't reach the valve then I know it's too low.
The next factor is how secure of a fit is your BC and does it have a crotch strap? The problem I've seen with most BC's is that they ride up on you while in the water. This is not good. That is where the backplate wing setup is so nice in that once it's adjusted properly it stays right in place and doesn't shift side to side or up and down while in the water even in a heads down position.

[DRE]

With a single tank/BP I do sometimes hit my first stage depending on how far I tilt my head back. When you look closely at how the tank is positioned on your back this makes sense. With a lot of the wraparound BCD's, the tank gets mounted way lower, so the first stage sits about between the shoulder blades. Whereas that took care of the head hitting ptoblem, it created a slew of different ones: balance is off, cause the tank hangs way too low, which in turn causes the feet down swimming position of so many rec divers who don't know any better 'cause that's what they see in all the colorful brochures; secondly, with the valve mounted that low, it is impossible to turn off the valve yourself (my arms are for sure not long enough to reach that far back); thirdly, you can't route the hoses properly (that's why most of the hoses that come on equipment out-of-the-box are way too long)...

[LKunze]

Good points. I sometimes can still hit my head on the back of my first stage if I really bend my neck and look up. Like you said though, It's better to put up with that than have bad trim or difficulty maintaining a proper horizontal position in the water.

[Chris]

I'm starting to wonder if my tank is too low... I lowered it because I hit my head once. Now that you mention it, I do tend to have 'sinking feet' from time to time and I know I can't reach the valve.

[LKunze]

Yep, that's a good indication your tank is too low. I really struggled with that (being feet heavy) until I got my bp/wing setup. Not to say you can't achieve the right trim with a BC though it's just that for me I never could quite get it right to where I was happy with it until I got the bp/wing.

[Derrick]

Chris,

If raising your tank higher doesn't help, you may be over weighted or just just need to redistribute your weight. An easy fix for redistributing your weight would be to put a small ankle weight on your first stage. A second more expensive solution would be to get a BP&W setup.

Why don't you like 'sinking feet'? For some reason, most rec divers seem to like going vertical when they stop finning. It's great for silting out a lake bottom like Square

Derrick

[LKunze]

LOL!

[DRE]

Yeah, you sometimes wonder why they even have fins. It would be easier and less effort for these people just to walk around on the bottom than try to swim...

Where's all these Navy divers around here ;D