Finding the Right Gear for Women Technical Divers
I recall being angry when I looked at the seminar listings at the AquaCorps Tek Conference in the early 1990s. There was a session called “Tekkie la Femme” designed for women to gather together and talk about the potential of getting involved in technical diving. There was also a session about DPVs. Why wasn’t it called “Tekkie La Scoot Scoot?” It was hard to be taken seriously as a diver when we were always separated from men and deemed as “cute” in our efforts to be involved in the extreme end of the sport. In retrospect, I should thank Michael Menduno, the conference organizer, for getting me off my butt. I knew there were plenty of women tech divers doing remarkable things around the world. So I focussed my anger on creating new relationships with those women and telling their stories. Not long after that conference, my dear friend Patty Mortara and I launched a magazine called Women Underwater. Though we only ran it for a few years until our bank accounts ran dry, it set me on a course that will finally bear the fruit of a book by the same name, co-authored with Renee Power. We’ll release that in 2014, but in the interim, I want to offer a blog post to answer a few of the challenges that women face in technical diving.
To begin, I think that women are better suited for the extreme challenges of expeditionary and technical diving than men. There. I said it. To be frank, I find that my female students are extremely careful. They work patiently and meticulously to achieve their goals and they are very honest about risk assessment. Those are great traits for a division of the sport that carries very real risks of injury or death.
One of the greatest challenges to women tech divers therefore is generally not the attitude, but the very real issues that come with getting gear that fits. It takes a sensitive and thoughtful instructor or salesperson to help you navigate the issues of fit. Through ignorance or lack of patience, women are often steered to what’s available on the shelf rather than taken through a custom-fitted experience that gets them into perfectly fitted equipment. In addition to my diving efforts, I am an avid cyclist. It is easy to buy an off-the-rack bike and adjust the pedals, seat and handlebars to come close to a reasonable fit, but a cyclist involved in racing or long-range touring needs more attention. There are actually professional bike fitters that can measure your body and design the best bike with custom components that will optimize your ergonomics and increase your speed potential. Cyclists often pay hundreds of dollars for that service. Somehow, we lack that job description in the diving industry. So it will be incumbent on you to be aware of the issues and ask for solutions rather than accepting compromises in your large investment in equipment.
Women come in all shapes and size and that variation means, there are a lot of different fit issues. My friend and co-author Renee Power and I are great examples. I am closer to a man’s stature at 5’10” but my curves are all different. She is diminutive in height and has to look hard for tiny fins with real power and tanks that don’t exceed her body weight. When you are looking for a good fit, these are a few factors to take into consideration:
- Torso – no matter how tall you are, your torso is likely shorter than a man’s. Ensure your backplate does not feel like it is too long. Make sure the waist and crotch straps are comfortable and situated correctly on your body.
- Chest – Women come in all breast sizes. Make sure your harness isn’t digging into your boobs. The chest strap should help keep the rig on your shoulders but it should not dig into you or interfere with the dry suit inflation valve. This means the shoulder straps might need some adjustment. They may need to be attached further back on the waist band to clear your breasts. The chest strap may need to be raised or lowered to avoid discomfort.
- Shoulders – Women’s shoulder slope downward and are narrower than men’s. If you have ever had a harness or BCD that feels like it is slipping off the shoulder, it is because the straps are too far down your shoulders. A chest strap can help correct this as can weaving the harness to cross in the back behind the shoulders.
- Arms – Your arm length may be shorter than men. You might have more flexibility, but determine if you can reach all the standard attachment points for gear or whether you will need to make some adjustments to find places you can reach. Your arms have less “real estate” for multiple computers, wrist slates and compasses. You may need to find alternative attachments for that gear.
- Waist – Your waist may also have limited space for d-rings, knives or lighting attachments. Get creative and check to see if you can reach around all that equipment to get to your rear D-ring or other attachment point.
There are many other factors that will enhance fit. (In fact, we are literally writing an entire book about it!) The bottom line, is that you need to be very demonstrative about finding comfortable gear and locating the right attachment points for you. It may mean renting some gear and trying it out. It may mean using less conventional solutions that don’t prescribe to somebody else’s idea about how you should be diving. Be confident in your efforts. If you can show an instructor that your way works and does not create any safety issues for the team, then there is no reason why that is not a viable solution. Be strong. You know what feels right and you are capable of innovating and sharing your unique solutions with others!
