Equipment If you can't drop your weights and you are sinking

[CT-Rich]

Why?

Quick releases on weights cause more problems than they solve IMO. I prefer a balanced rig along with backup buoyancy (DSMB) in the event it is needed.

So you would have been fumbling with a DSMB as this woman sank even deeper in the lake?

No need for quick drop mechanism — you just need to be diving a balanced rig (ie minimum weight).

For whatever reason, she was over weighted. The absence of a quick release was a contributing factor to her death. She could have embolized on her way to the surface, but that was never an option since she was over weighted and drowned. If she had a catastrophic flood in her dry suit, the inflator hose would still not have done anything and she would still have been unable to swim up her rig and if she had gotten to the surface, she would not have been able to stay there.

If you guys think a balanced rig is the way to go... live and let dive, but I think relying on a your DSMB and accurately planning your weight needs is more risky than relying on a quick release. For a newbie diver, I would say check your gear and learn to self rescue. The OP is a new diver, he should learn to dive with ditchable lead.

Quick release weights are an equipment solution to a training problem and are discouraged by almost all technical diving instruction.

That is a little bit like saying a seat belt is equipment solution to training problem. If you drive defensively you will never need it. Ditchable weights is a form of redundant buoyancy. I thought tech divers were all about two is one and one is none? It would seem that not making sure your gear is secured and the quick release in appropriate is the fault of the diver and not the fault of the buckle....

Technical diving in an overhead environment or beyond the NDL is completely different type of diving than your basic OW diver.

At the very most the weight of the gas in the tanks should be releasable and only when diving wet.

Are you say that a diver should vent breathing gas to become buoyant? Really? Which would I rather keep with me on the surface as I wait for a pickup? lead or or air for my regulator and my LP inflator?

I found a 24 lb weight belt diving last weekend I tried moving it up the bottom, but it was a steep rock wall and was a lot of work. I attached my 6' DSMB to it and it was still not enough lift, but it was enough for me to get it to shore. I don't know who lost it, but I know they didn't die. 90% of dead diver are recovered with their weights intact.

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

I was on a 3-day trip to the Northern Channel Islands recently and one of the trip "leaders" (he owned a dive shop and brought customers along as part of the folks on the trip - although I was on board independently) was using a drysuit and a 34lb separate weight belt. On the first day I usually sit out the first dive, sit back, and observe everyone else on board kit-up to see who I need to stay clear of. This instructor puts on his tank harness and weight belt, then proceeds to bring a crotch strap under and cinch it onto his tank harness OVER the weightbelt, effectively locking the weightbelt to his body. My old-school training of the weightbelt being last on, first off so there was no possibility of it being trapped anywhere rose to the surface and I politely mentioned the faux paw to him. His response was vitriolic. "I've been diving 8 years, an instructor for 7 years, and now own a dive shop and I've never heard of such a thing and who are you to tell me how to dive - this is how I teach all my students and no one has died yet...." My response was to the effect of, "Of course you are correct, in my 58 years of diving I have learned nothing. You do you." My 2psi.

 

[LFMarm]

So you would have been fumbling with a DSMB as this woman sank even deeper in the lake?

For whatever reason, she was over weighted. The absence of a quick release was a contributing factor to her death. She could have embolized on her way to the surface, but that was never an option since she was over weighted and drowned. If she had a catastrophic flood in her dry suit, the inflator hose would still not have done anything and she would still have been unable to swim up her rig and if she had gotten to the surface, she would not have been able to stay there.

If you guys think a balanced rig is the way to go... live and let dive, but I think relying on a your DSMB and accurately planning your weight needs is more risky than relying on a quick release. For a newbie diver, I would say check your gear and learn to self rescue. The OP is a new diver, he should learn to dive with ditchable lead.

That is a little bit like saying a seat belt is equipment solution to training problem. If you drive defensively you will never need it. Ditchable weights is a form of redundant buoyancy. I thought tech divers were all about two is one and one is none? It would seem that not making sure your gear is secured and the quick release in appropriate is the fault of the diver and not the fault of the buckle....

Technical diving in an overhead environment or beyond the NDL is completely different type of diving than your basic OW diver.

Are you say that a diver should vent breathing gas to become buoyant? Really? Which would I rather keep with me on the surface as I wait for a pickup? lead or or air for my regulator and my LP inflator?

I found a 24 lb weight belt diving last weekend I tried moving it up the bottom, but it was a steep rock wall and was a lot of work. I attached my 6' DSMB to it and it was still not enough lift, but it was enough for me to get it to shore. I don't know who lost it, but I know they didn't die. 90% of dead diver are recovered with their weights intact.

Nothing easier for self rescue than the ability to swim up at any point during the dive. Of course everyone is free to dive the way they prefer but I find being balanced a far safer way regardless of skill level.

 

[inquis]

My old-school training of the weightbelt being last on, first off so there was no possibility of it being trapped anywhere rose to the surface

The flip side to this is that it can slip or become accidentally unbuckled and up you go. With the weight belt under the crotch strap, it will be caught instead of lost. Think of it as risk mitigation.

The vitriol from that instructor was absolutely unwarranted. It was an excellent opportunity to explain the pros/cons as well as the relatively likelihood of various scenarios. Especially in his case of a drysuit, an uncontrolled ascent after losing lead is a much greater risk than sinking after failure to drop lead.

 

[Ukmc]

Balanced rig is important but so are ditchable weights. I dive a balanced rig but keep 4 pounds in quick release. Think of a heart attack or sickness when you are near passing out at depth - quick release may save your life.

 

[inquis]

Think of a heart attack or sickness when you are near passing out at depth - quick release may save your life.

As will mashing on the inflator. In either case, I'd wish for an attentive buddy, as I'm unlikely to be face up on the surface if I pass out.

 

[Herrick]

I dive sidemount, so my weights are in dorsal pockets and not ditchable. Many technical divers won’t use droppable weights at all, since losing them can actually be more dangerous if it causes an uncontrolled ascent.


If you’re properly weighted, it should be possible to fin against the negative buoyancy until you regain control. The real issue is that a lot of divers dive overweighted, which makes that almost impossible.


In an emergency descent, ditching weights wouldn’t be the instructor’s first response. The priority is to add gas to the student’s BCD and/or drysuit to establish neutral buoyancy. If for some reason the student’s system isn’t functioning, the instructor still has plenty of lift available through their own BCD and/or drysuit to help stabilize and bring the student up.


Unbuckling and removing the BCD mid-water seems like a very far-fetched scenario. That would only come into play if:

• you somehow forgot to open your tank valve (missed pre-dive check), or run out of air
• you were diving significantly overweighted,
• you had no way to ditch weight, and
• your buddy couldn’t assist.

And even then, the most important thing is to keep your regulator in your mouth. That’s your best bet to avoid drowning while you troubleshoot or await help. So removing your BCD seems like a bad idea

What you’re suggesting is basically dismounting your gear and trying to ascend holding just the tank and regulator without a BCD. Honestly, that seems even more far-fetched — I doubt you’d be able to manage that in a real uncontrolled descent. At that point, it would almost always be easier and safer to just remove some weights somehow.

 

[CT-Rich]

The flip side to this is that it can slip or become accidentally unbuckled and up you go. With the weight belt under the crotch strap, it will be caught instead of lost. Think of it as risk mitigation.

Having a weight belt fall off is just the same as forgetting to connect an LP inflator. It is a user error. Saying that ditchable weights are a liability is really saying "I don't want to deal with making sure my gear works reliably". You should never ditch weight at depth, but being able to hand weights up to a boat crew or take it off so I can get into a RIB seems pretty handy to me. If I were lost from a boat and was going to be in the water for a long time seems like a pretty easy choice...

The vitriol from that instructor was absolutely unwarranted. It was an excellent opportunity to explain the pros/cons as well as the relatively likelihood of various scenarios. Especially in his case of a drysuit, an uncontrolled ascent after losing lead is a much greater risk than sinking after failure to drop lead.

I have a DUI harness and it allows for ditching weights. I have never heard of anyone accidentally dropping weights off a DUI harness.

 

[DiveLikeAMuppet]

The scariest thing is jumping off a boat and sinking with all the kit at the beginning of the dive. Hence I make sure that my wing is fully inflated, can hold the gas and my drysuit is plugged in and closed. It also means that I wouldn’t make a serious dive with 99% of jacket BCDs because those are unsafe given the number of different dumps and pull dumps, each one of which could leak and fail.

Second most scariest thing is embolising myself or getting bent by being underweight. Hence I wouldn’t touch quick release weights, those are incredibly unsafe. If diving a weight belt, it would be under my harness to secure it and preferably most of the lead would be attached to the rig. However, I do have kit I could ditch once on the surface to make my life easier - torches, cylinders. I also have 1 kg in a weight pocket that is physically tied with a bungee that I could cut when diving CCR (it’s in the right spot to balance bailouts).

Oh and I did put stones into my drysuit pocket when I felt underweight.

Outside of people who dive Buddy Comandos, nobody in my circles dives any quick release weights. One person who uses a weight belt has it under a harness and he dives places we all can only dream about diving.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I will start by saying I'm aware of the fact that you should always have a quick release mechanism to drop your weights in case of an emergency.

I saw this video of a terrible accident that happened. The girl was in a drysuit and she kept descending rapidly. One of her instructors tried to save her but was unsuccessful. I have some questions.

1. No quick release on the weight pockets? I thought all BCDs had a quick release. If a BCD didn't have a quick release, to put on the weights wouldn't that mean you would have to unzip the pockets, then drop the weights inside? If so, why couldn't the instructor unzip the pockets and just pull the weights out?
2. If you can't get rid of your weights for whatever reason, couldn't you just unbuckle your BCD, take it off, turn it around then unbuckle the tank strap, pull the cylinder out, disconnect the low-pressure inflator hose, drop the BCD then swim to the surface and still breathe from your regulator?

I was on a dive when a divers inflator hose and mount to the BCD blew out at 35m depth.
He was pretty anxious and had to fin to maintain depth. I took out my DSMB inflated it to the point it unfurled, hooked it onto a D Ring on his BCD put in some more air and slowy brought the diver to the surface. At the surface I fully inflated the DSMB laid it flat so diver could use it for staying on the surface.

That diver was almost going to remove his weight belt and I stopped him from doing so. Back on the boat he asked why and I said an uncontrolled speed event to the surface not a good thing. I showe my inserts that have 2kg in each pocket so if I never wanted to release weights it would not be all my weights as dropping a weight belt is.

A simple thing to use a DSMB to provide emergency lift. Taught to me by my BSAC Sports Diving instructor. Part if what was called a CBL Controlled Buoyancy Lift to bring another diver to the surface.
That diver did not own an smb / dsmb. He bought one before his next dive.