Why no weight pockets with doubles?

[rongoodman]

Separate right & left bladders allow you to correct this. For me, a 6-9 pound imbalance over a 1 foot span is not enough to concern myself with. I can rotate my body a few degrees to compensate for that. I guess that some people prefer to fine tune the difference. I don't see it as necessary for me, but I do understand the perspective.

What do you mean by "right and left bladders"? Just because the hoses are on opposite sides does mean they aren't attached to regular bladders which span the entire wing.

 

[ginti]

Well I will agree that almost anyone with 50+ experience in something can make it seem easy, but I don't think that's the case here. It is just easy.

What kind of drysuit are you speaking about? Neoprene or trilaminate? Also, how do you define "easy"? Something you need 20/30 dives to learn or something you instantly learn?

The thing is that, on my experience, usually a novice diver needs some dives to properly control a trilaminate drysuit, in the range of 5 to 30 dives, depending on the diver. And for a diver with something between 80 to 100 dives under the belt, well... 30 dives is a lot, and they would call the learning process "hard".

I'm basically almost convinced of just ordering the doubles wing with a steel plate (not much difference between wing alone and the whole set), and then I won't need any additional weights anyway.

I agree, you'd love it; if you dive trilaminate and if you do not wear very thick undergarment, you are not going to need any weights most likely. Worst case, 1/2kg of V-weight on the tail of the tanks will work (usually it is better on the tail on my experience, but many other options are possible) - or even a belt, which has its own advantages.

I was mostly motivated to use the pockets as I find them more convenient that the belt and would then be able to reuse the alu plate. I have yet to check if such a rig will be balanced indeed, e.g. whether I can also swim it up from the depth in case of failure of both wing and drysuit, but I don't see what could prevent that.

Just FYI, the DIR philosophy follows some principles, among them these two:
1) if you don't need it, do not use it
2) keep it as simple as you can
So, first of all, add some weights only if you need them - see the concept of balanced rig
In case you need some kilos, V-weights and similar things are much simpler than a belt, and the belt is much simpler than pockets. However, this concept is a bit of extreme in this case in my opinion, especially if you don't do overhead/decompression.

 

[greeniguana]

This guy is deploying his SMB as emergency BC:

 

[AfterDark]

You are the one who has failed reading comp. But that's understandable, cognitive decline is quite natural for old fogies, LOL!

If a person chooses to not use a dual baldder or bag, that's Fd up, that what you said. And why is that choice Fd up? Because it's not your way.... Doesn't take a genius to figure that out, LOL! But, it's ok that your brain cells are not working as good anymore, that's understandable.

Thanks again!

 

[AfterDark]

What kind of drysuit are you speaking about? Neoprene or trilaminate? Also, how do you define "easy"? Something you need 20/30 dives to learn or something you instantly learn?

The thing is that, on my experience, usually a novice diver needs some dives to properly control a trilaminate drysuit, in the range of 5 to 30 dives, depending on the diver. And for a diver with something between 80 to 100 dives under the belt, well... 30 dives is a lot, and they would call the learning process "hard".



I agree, you'd love it; if you dive trilaminate and if you do not wear very thick undergarment, you are not going to need any weights most likely. Worst case, 1/2kg of V-weight on the tail of the tanks will work (usually it is better on the tail on my experience, but many other options are possible) - or even a belt, which has its own advantages.



Just FYI, the DIR philosophy follows some principles, among them these two:
1) if you don't need it, do not use it
2) keep it as simple as you can
So, first of all, add some weights only if you need them - see the concept of balanced rig
In case you need some kilos, V-weights and similar things are much simpler than a belt, and the belt is much simpler than pockets. However, this concept is a bit of extreme in this case in my opinion, especially if you don't do overhead/decompression.

I didn't say there isn't a learning curve just that it's not very hard or complicated if you already have good BC skills which a diver should if going to a dry suit. My experience is probably much different from yours. I learned to dive pre-auto inflator so I went from no BCD at all,[ so I know what a balanced rig means ] to horse collars, jacket, and for the last 10 years a B/P wing. When I bought my 1st dry suit I already had good BC skills and by that time more than a basic understanding of diving physics; to learn to manage the bubble took one dive, an ugly dive at 1st but by the end I was happy with my new skill. I did a few more lake dives, then the lake froze over so a friend and I cut a hole in it and did our 1st ice dive. Diving was different in the 1970's a lot of the learning was DIY around New England anyway. Self sufficiency wasn't a cert it was the way diving was done. My dogma is doing what works for me because in the end I'm coming out of water hopefully bringing along a buddy if I have one, but I'm coming out.

I only dive neoprene dry suits for the extra insulation dry or wet and buoyancy they provide.
Currently I own a Pinnacle Black Ice 4mm crushed neoprene suit. Dry suits for me are used in cold and deep water which around here goes hand in hand.
It doesn't really feel like diving when I can't feel the water.

1) if you don't need it, do not use it. In 50+ years of diving I've never used my safe 2nd stage do I get rid of it? What do I tell the charter operator when asked where my safe 2nd is? Not to be a wise guy but rules that don't bend should always be questioned, IMO and life experience.

2) keep it as simple as you can My life is KISSed

 

[ginti]

I didn't say there isn't a learning curve just that it's not very hard or complicated if you already have BC skills which a diver should if going to a dry suit. My experience is probably much different from yours. I learned to dive per-auto inflator so I went from no BCD at all,[ so I know what a balanced rig means ] to horse collars, jacket, and for the last 10 years a B/P wing. When I bought my 1st dry suit I already had BC skills and by that time more than a basic understanding of diving physics; to learn to manage the bubble took one dive, an ugly dive at 1st but by the end I was happy with my new skill. I did a few more lake dives, then the lake froze over so a friend and I cut a hole in it and did our 1st ice dive. Diving was different in the 1970's a lot of the learning was DIY around New England anyway. Self sufficiency wasn't a cert it was the way diving was done.

two things came up to my mind:
1 - most people I know started using dry-suits when they switched from recreational diving to technical diving (read it: during their fundies/itt/something similar); most of them learned diving overweighted and didn't have very good BC skills, so maybe one of the reasons why they found it "hard" was that they had to learn multiple skills at once (maybe?); this was my case by the way
2 - nowadays the process of learning is very different from your times, especially if you learned in a fashion similar to what Angelo Farina described; so maybe this also plays a role here

Anyway, I believe that people consider "hard" something with a long learning process. For most novice divers, even 20 dives look like a very long process - and, therefore, hard.

It's probably just a matter of language here. But I got your point (surely managing a drysuit is easier than managing multiple stages inside a cave while wearing the drysuit itself )

 

[ginti]

I only dive neoprene suits for the extra insulation dry or wet and buoyancy they provide.
Currently I own a Pinnacle Black Ice 4mm crushed neoprene suit. Dry suits for me are used in cold and deep water which around here goes hand in hand.
It doesn't really feel like diving when I can't feel the water.

Ok, I see. Actually the trilaminate suit can be a little harder to manage***, but what I said in the previous post is still valid, so I guess we agree here

*** reason being that you can put more gas inside it, and especially at shallow depth, when you are coming back from the dive, gas can expand quickly and becoming very annoying. I have never dove neoprene suits, but as far as they told me, you have the same problem, just it is less intense since you have less gas.

1) if you don't need it, do not use it. In 50+ years of diving I've never used my safe 2nd stage do I get rid of it? What do I tell the charter operator when asked where my safe 2nd is? Not to be a wise guy but rules that don't bend should always be questioned, IMO and life experience.

I am not sure if I get your point here. Anyway, the concept "if you don't need it, don't use it" is not that straightforward. For instance, most GUE divers I know never switched to their backup lights during a regular dive, because they never had a failure with their primary (obviously, they switch to the backup when they prectice). But they will always carry two back up lights during their tech/cave dives. Why? Because "what you need" doesn't come only from your personal experience, but also from accident analysis and, sometimes, science papers (this is true principally for gas management). So even if you have never used something, it doesn't mean that you don't need it

 

[AfterDark]

Ok, I see. Actually the trilaminate suit can be a little harder to manage***, but what I said in the previous post is still valid, so I guess we agree here

*** reason being that you can put more gas inside it, and especially at shallow depth, when you are coming back from the dive, gas can expand quickly and becoming very annoying. I have never dove neoprene suits, but as far as they told me, you have the same problem, just it is less intense since you have less gas.

I am not sure if I get your point here. Anyway, the concept "if you don't need it, don't use it" is not that straightforward. For instance, most GUE divers I know never switched to their backup lights, since they never had problems with their primary. But they will always carry two of them dring their tech/cave dives. Why? Because "what you need" doesn't come only from your personal experience, but also from accident analysis and, sometimes, science papers (this is true principally for gas management). So even if you have never used something, it doesn't mean that you don't need it

Would the text I made bold comply with rule #2 keeping it simple? Since less intense could I imagine make it easier and thus more simple. Would that make neoprene suit more KISS compliant?

 

[Colliam7]

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OK, enough of the personal attack exchanges in this thread! Cut it out, or leave the thread. Post in a civil, fact-based manner, or don't post at all!

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[ginti]

Would the text I made bold comply with rule #2 keeping it simple? Since less intense could I imagine make it easier and thus more simple. Would that make neoprene suit more KISS compliant?

We are a bit OT, but I hope the OP can find this interesting.

There are two disadvantages of neoprene suits that I understand:
1) you cannot use a lot of undergarment, so if water gets cold, you may have trouble (I have serious trouble with cold, I wouldn't be able to dive it in cold water)
2) at depth, they compress a lot, changing your buoyancy and providing less thermal protection
For these reasons, most divers I know prefer trilaminate suits and, if I remember well, the trilaminate suits are the only drysuits suggested by GUE (cannot speak for other agencies). You should ask people with more experience than me if you want to have more details, you know many of them in this forum.

There might be other disadvantages (e.g. can you use external heating systems with neoprene suits? I am not sure), and I bet that standardization plays a role as well (remember, GUE has born for project diving, where standardization really has a huge value)

Just to be clear, it looks like the drysuit is not a requirement for GUE courses; in their standards, they always mention between brackets "if using a drysuit", even for advanced technical courses... So if you want you can probably take all the courses with a wetsuit (but I bet you must first convince your instructor that you will never need a drysuit). Check it here:
https://www.gue.com/files/Standards_and_Procedures/GUE-Standards-v9.pdf