Question about “balanced rigs” and having all ballast unditchable

[Diving Dubai]

Why are people talking about OOG situations in this thread? You would have been neutral (or close to) before you ran out of air so as soon as you ascend you become positive. No reason to drop any weight in an OOG emergency. This is covered in the basic PADI course and is why we don't get taught to ditch weights during a CESA. If need be then orally inflate your BCD further when you are on the surface.

If people wan't to discuss dropping weights to counter a blown BCD then I can follow the logic but not OOG.

Perhaps I can clarify, given I put OOA my post.

During your OW, you're quite correct in stating what you were taught. It's taught this way to make thing simple and clear, rather than overwhelming the student with options. When you are under training your instructor supports you (although you may not realise this) generally by holding your 1st stage. In a calm situation yes oral inflate rather than weigh drop is one way. Generally people aren't calm though.

The reality is this. If you are at the surface you want to achieve positive buoyancy as quickly as possible. You know from your course that oral inflating your bcd can take 3 or 4 good breaths.

In real life say you surface in a slight swell, say with a malfunctioning power inflator, you may not wish to take your reg out to oral inflate, and chose to ditch weights first. The priority always is to get positively buoyant on the surface first by the quickest way whatever the circumstances. So it doesn't matter whether you oral inflate power inflate or weight drop or combine inflate and weight drop. Always get positively buoyant at the surface by the fastest means

Safe diving

 

[Tom_Ivan]

If you are at the surface you want to achieve positive buoyancy as quickly as possible. You know from your course that oral inflating your bcd can take 3 or 4 good breaths.
....
The priority always is to get positively buoyant on the surface first by the quickest way whatever the circumstances. So it doesn't matter whether you oral inflate power inflate or weight drop or combine inflate and weight drop.

But your already positively buoyant before you do anything. If you were at 10m when you had to ascend, your BCD is now twice as big as it was before. If your objective is to become more positive then I agree that dropping weights is a very quick method of achieving this. However it is not needed to stay on the surface.

 

[Edward3c]

But your already positively buoyant before you do anything. If you were at 10m when you had to ascend, your BCD is now twice as big as it was before. If your objective is to become more positive then I agree that dropping weights is a very quick method of achieving this. However it is not needed to stay on the surface.

Diving incident reports do not support your assumption. The BSAC annual incident reports contained sufficient numbers of deaths where the casualty had reached the surface, but then descended and drowned. The casualties were found to still be wearing their weight belts.

Since 2007 the self removal of weight belts has been included the the syllabus of all BSAC diver grade trainng; Ocean Diver upward. I’ve had Dive Leader and Advanced Diver candidates who couldn’t:
* jettison their weight belt (it was trapped by other equipment), or
* deploy a secondary buoyancy device to achieve positive buoyancy.

 

[CT-Rich]

However it is not needed to stay on the surface.

You are offering an absolute answer assuming it will always apply which is not realistic. You can say
However, it should not be needed to stay on the surface.

You can also make a bunch of similar. Statements;
Should never be out of gas
Should never have a BCD fail
Should never surface in a chop
Should never get separated from the dive boat
Should never be over weighted
Should never put yourself in a situation where you are exhausted on the surface
Should never create a situation where you are unconscious in the water
Should never freak out on the surface
Should always inspect your gear
Should always check your BCD
Should always check you hoses are properly connected
Should always check your air is on
Should always check you are correctly weighted
Should always check the weather forecast

Take your pick, add to the list, but the saddest words in the English language “should have”.

Redundancy is there to save you from yourself. I am really good about self checking my gear, but a interesting conversation, a interest animal, a pretty girl or watching another diver fall on his ass is all that it takes to distract me in to making a dumb ass mistake. Redundancy prevents turning a mistake into a tragedy.

 

[Dan_P]

@Dan_P, this is the basic forum. We are not concerned about what tech divers or cave divers do. This thread was created to ask the question of how non ditchable lead leaked into standard recreational diving and if such a practice is really that good of an idea when presented to new divers who may not have a handle of what properly weighted means yet.

Not all OWD-courses are taught in a BCD with weight belt, and BP/W isn't a tech-specific solution. Particularly not with a single tank.
The only reason I mention the solutions in the context of development (towards the heavier end of the spectrum) is because that's particularly relevant to divers earlier on in their progress.
Tech divers already know.
It's just that BP/W originally (with two tanks) came from heavy-end diving and then grew back from there - which I think is a pretty good indicator of whether a solution is a strong one - by divers for divers (not anno 1960's).

I don't think it is a good idea for any diver, new or old, to start using a rig without understanding why it is set up the way it is, and whether it is the proper rig for the their diving. This should start with proper weighting and the safety procedures and gear needed to conduct their dives.

OW training includes the use of ditchable weight in order to respond to an emergency, and without further training,formal or informal, to discuss how to mitigate not having ditchable weight, the diver looses an emergency procedure without an alternative.

Definitely agree very strongly with this!

...The BSAC annual incident reports contained sufficient numbers of deaths where the casualty had reached the surface, but then descended and drowned. The casualties were found to still be wearing their weight belts.

A recent seminar at Copenhagen General Hospital in Denmark came to the same conclusion (rather, "if only" people would drop their weight belts when it made sense to, they'd be safer).

----

One can say that BCD and weight belt works okay for OWD-level diving, and that's absolutely true - nothing wrong with using that solution. But it's suboptimal and won't scale anywhere - that's my opinion.

 

[Tom_Ivan]

You are offering an absolute answer assuming it will always apply which is not realistic. You can say
However, it should not be needed to stay on the surface.

Fair point.


I just finished reading through the 2017 BSAC Incident Report. Here are some cases which I though were relevant to this discussion.

• one case of lost weights from a BCD causing a uncontrolled buoyant ascent.
• one case of almost lost weight belt.
• Three case of lost weight belts causing uncontrolled ascents.

Some of these divers ended up in A&E but none resulted any long term issues.


I didn't find any cases of people surfacing but then being unable to stay buoyant except for one strange fatality where they eventually found the diver jammed against a rock with her gear half removed. Its not clear if she deliberately descended or was unable to stay on the surface.

 

[CT-Rich]

The same report had 22 instances of lost divers. Some were lost because of boat malfunctions, some were lost by changing weather.

If you are nine miles off the coast of England in deteriorating weather conditions, how much are you going to careif your rig is in perfect trim? You will definitely want to be positively buoyant and by a lot, not a little.

I haven’t read the full report, but on at least two of the fatalities, the divers had attempted to de-kit underwater. So everyone who suggested throwing away your rig is a great idea, you may want to think twice about that.

Unless you can show statistical data that ditchable weights causes more death and injury divers than divers with static weights, I would hesitate to promote diving with exclusively fixed weights.

I did see that there were a couple of instances of unintentional dropping of weight causing rapid ascents, but I don’t believe any of them resulted in injury.

 

[AJ]

Unless you can show statistical data that ditchable weights causes more death and injury divers than divers with static weights, I would hesitate to promote diving with exclusively fixed weights.

Do you know the saying: there are lies, big lies and statistics? Statistics don't proof your statement or the other way around fot that matter. Unless specific data about this issue is recorded (which to me seems almost impossible) there are a lot of opinions. Yours is one of them, others have other opinions

Statisctics won't convince me. And no, I don't object to ditchable weight, just have no use for it. So why not dive and let dive, ditchable weight or not. What's the issue here?

 

[MichaelMc]

One can say that BCD and weight belt works okay for OWD-level diving, and that's absolutely true - nothing wrong with using that solution. But it's suboptimal and won't scale anywhere - that's my opinion.

What do you mean 'won't scale anywhere'? And I mean ditchable weight, like integrated pockets or weight belt, not specifically just weight belt. Staying in rec. diving.

The tropics for low body fat people, not always the vacationer or local norm, who still care for no wetsuit, and want lots of gas, and in uncommon steels are a problem. That may be a big worry, but it does not leave the rest of rec. dives as 'won't scale anywhere'.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . . This thread was created to ask the question of how non ditchable lead leaked into standard recreational diving and if such a practice is really that good of an idea when presented to new divers who may not have a handle of what properly weighted means yet.

I think you (and Bob) know (or at least have the same suspicion I do) how it leaked in. The "DIR" crowd. But the thing is that the DIR crowd also teach what "properly weighted" means--and various other things that all work together to help keep a diver safe. The idea is that various things work harmoniously in a coherent "system." People who don't otherwise understand the system should exercise caution in borrowing just one idea from it into their own style of diving. A "new diver" would do well to learn and stick to whatever they were taught, whether that's PADI or GUE/UTD or otherwise. If that means diving a little overweighted with an understanding of when you may need to release weights because that's what you were taught, fine. I know some people are just born experimenters, but my philosophy is that mixing and matching bits and pieces because each individually seems like a good idea is for clothing, not diving.