I was reading a review on it by Bill Mac and thought I'd start a thread about the FRV here.
Quote from Bill McIntyreDisplay MoreBack in February, I was fortunate to get a ride on Terry Maas's boat to try out his prototype FRV. I got to see it inflate all the different ways it can inflate and got generally familiar with the menus and buttons, but this week I finally got my own in the mail. Today was the first time I went spearfishing with it, so I thought I'd relate some first impressions.
I realize that they damn things are expensive as hell. I realize that some people just wouldn't want to be bothered or may not think its "pure" to wear such a thing. I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm simply telling what it was like diving with it in order to provide information to anyone who is curious. I'll be making some comparisons to my D3 since that is my frame of reference for the display features, but obviously the D3 doesn't inflate anything.
The FRV arrived Monday. The users manual is a 45 minute DVD, and I spent a lot of time in front of the computer following the instructions for use. Its all pretty easy after you spend some time with it, but its not something that you should take out of the box and jump in the water with.
At my first stop today, I decided to go in the water without the vest just to establish a sort of baseline in terms of how I felt diving. Then at the next stop I wore the vest to see if I could tell any difference in terms of drag, etc.
I can't possibly mention all the features, but I need to mention the basics for those not familiar with the vest. It lets you set trigger depth and trigger time. If you exceed either one on a dive, it inflates and gives you a rapid trip to the surface where it leaves you on your back looking at the sky. You need to give some thought to your selections.
At that first stop, my longest dives were 1:07. You can adjust trigger time in increments of 5 seconds. It didn't make much sense to set 1:10 since just a slight improvement would interrupt my dive. Setting 2 minutes would not be appropriate for obvious reasons. So I selected 1:15. You can change the trigger any time you are on the surface, but not during a dive. If my dives had started getting longer (or shorter) then I could have changed the trigger appropriately.
Then I had to select a trigger depth. The water was 45 feet deep and I wanted to be able to get to the bottom if a fish wrapped up, so I set the trigger at 50 feet. In effect, it wasn't going to be a factor in this situation.
The 0.7 cubic foot air bottle holds 3000 psi full. Mine had 2400 psi. As I scrolled down through depths, the display told me how much lift I would have at each depth. The fully inflated vest has 43 pounds of lift. At my selected depth of 50 feet and with the pressure I had, it told me I would have 37 pounds of lift. That is a hell of a lot more than a Carter float. I would imagine that if I had a good grip on a white sea bass that was wrapped up in kelp, the vest would rip the line out of the kelp. Oops- that brings up another way it can inflate in addition to exceeding the triggers. You can push a certain button sequence on the wrist console and direct it to inflate.
I could tell it was on my back, but I really can't say I could detect any drag. My dives felt normal. Terry says that if bubbles are a concern (and they are for white sea bass), then the first few feet of the dive should be vertical to let all the bubbles out. I often dive at a shallow angle when I'm not going deep, so I had to take care to start out vertical.
The console is a lot bigger than a D3, and it shows a lot of information. You can see your surface interval, tank pressure, water temperature, and depth and time of last dive without toggling between presentations. The surface interval numbers are huge compared to the D3. The last dive numbers seem to be slightly smaller, but I could still read them without my bifocals. If you want to know the time of day, you have to push a button, then push it again to go back to the surface display.
When you dive, it goes into dive mode automatically, and the present depth and time numbers are huge, much bigger than on the D3.
I was worried about the thing being a pain in the ass to don and doff. It is one more thing to put on, but it wasn't that big a deal, and you guys who haven't had surgery on your shoulders should find it very easy. I'm not sure what I'll do moving from spot to spot. I suspect I'll just keep it on and sit in the helm chair for short moves, and take it off for longer moves. I guess I'll have to see where the break point is between short and long.
So far I'm glad I bought it. I suppose you could say that I got to age 72 without one, so why now? But you only have one life to give, and I'd like to dive at least until 82 if I can. And while the instructions emphasize that its not a replacement for a buddy, I'm like most CA divers. The only time I have a buddy close by is if I have a fish hung up. It might be a strain for a buddy to help me at 55 feet if I needed it, so hopefully this will make me much easier to help if it ever comes to that.
The review is good. I think the FRV is a great idea and kudos to Terry Maas for bringing it to the freediving community. Me personally I don't think I'll be using it, and it doesn't have to do with the cost. I think it's because I just don't want to deal with another piece of gear. Also as in any situation where you relegate responsibility to a machine, there are things that can go wrong. One situation I envision is being tangled at depth in some way, and needing to reach down to free yourself at the very end of your breathhold. If you had any kind of chance of success, and the vest deploys at this moment, you're toast.
