Review: The Tecline Avenger and Side 16

Polish technical diving equipment manufacturer Tecline recently released several new versions of it’s sidemount BCD. The basic 16kg bladder BCD is now available with a hogarthian or comfort/adjustable harness, in cordura 2000 material or an upgraded kevlar reinforced version. There is also a special edition ‘Maya’ variant with some elaborate embroidery on the back.

Tecline Avenger 16

The Tecline is a Polish manufactured sidemount system that offers 16kg/36lb of buoyancy. The Avenger model comes with a bare webbing, hogarthian / DIR inspired harness, detachable buttplate and four integral weight pockets that can hold up to 10kg. When the buttplate is detached, you have the option of fitting two custom designed off-set D-rings in its place.

There is a special edition ‘Avenger Maya’ option with some elaborate Mexican skull embroidery across the back. It is available in 2 material options; nylon and reinforced kevlar. The rear dump valve is concealed at the bottom of the wing, to aid protection in overhead environment diving. All of the new range of Tecline sidemount BCDs now ship with loop bungees as standard.

The special edition ‘Maya’ version, showing some awesome Mexican style embroidery.

One of the features that I like most about the Tecline Avenger is that it now incorporates a removable buttplate. I do wish that other certain sidemount manufacturers would encompass the fact that buttplates do not work well for diving aluminum cylinders. When the cylinder is moved to the forward D-ring (which is necessary as the cylinders become positively buoyant) moving from a low hung buttplate to a D-ring that is relatively hgher on the torso only serves to push cylinders up beyond the armpits. Proper cylinder trim is ruined. I am very pleased to see that Tecline acknowledges this – and supplied some nice large offset D-rings to replace the buttplate, if desired.

The off-set D-rings used to replace the buttplate, when detached for using aluminum cylinders.

Buoyancy: 36 lb / 16kg
Material: Cordura 2000 or reinforced kevlar options
Weight: Not known
Manual: Tecline Avenger Manual
Manufacturers Link: Tecline Sidemount

Tecline Side 16

The second option from Tecline is another 16kg sidemount BCD that is more aimed at the recreational and student/rental market. This features a comfort-style padded, adjustable harness, along with extra padding on the back. It has an external top-mounted OPV, along with an OPV mounted on the left underside. A blanking lug is included for those who prefer not to use the top-outer LPI. It has 4 weight pockets concealed beneath the back padding, with a further zipped, 1kg trim weight pocket on the upper wing. The buttplate on the Side 16 is permanently attached.