Air in arms

[Tek Adventure Diver]

When i was diving with my brand new drysuit, i couldnt seem to get any air into my arms and it was going all to my feet. I was wondering what i could do to get the air into my upper body? Do i have to change my trim to that there is more to my lower back to raise my upper body more??
Thanks for the help
Thatcher

 

[TSandM]

It's a fairly simple issue: Air moves to the highest point in the "sack" composed of your dry suit. If you raise your chest and arms relative to your legs, air will move there. If you can't get your feet lower than your chest, you may be badly overweighted up high -- Are you diving doubles, perchance? More likely, you just aren't dropping your feet.

 

[MSilvia]

Too much gas in the suit maybe? I know I had similar problems at first, but they went away once I got comfortable keeping just enough gas in the suit to keep some loft in the undergarment. Also, my boots were too big, and they added a lot of buoyancy to my feet. Switching the rubber boots (boats) out for neoprene socks and sneakers helped a lot too.

 

[Web Monkey]

When i was diving with my brand new drysuit, i couldnt seem to get any air into my arms and it was going all to my feet. I was wondering what i could do to get the air into my upper body? Do i have to change my trim to that there is more to my lower back to raise my upper body more??
Thanks for the help
Thatcher

Physics is a harsh mistress

The problem isn't that you can't get air into your arms, it's that you have air in your feet.

Too much air almost always means "overweighted". Once you get your weight figured out, your trim issue will probabaly go away. If not, you may need to shift things around a little (move tank or weights up or down a little).

Proper weighting will make your drysuit much more "user friendly".

Terry

 

[JKSteger]

... If you can't get your feet lower than your chest, you may be badly overweighted up high ...

I've had the problem before and it WAS do to me being too "head heavy". Made for a very disapointing dive. I was fighting it the whole dive. I moved my trim weights down lower to the bottom tank band and not a problem since.

 

[Tek Adventure Diver]

Thanks guys it makes alot of sence. I am in doubles so i moved my plate and wing up higher. Im going to try it out as soon as i get back from the bahamas...SOOO excited Anyother advice for diving in a drysuit??

 

[cummings66]

Practice your emergency skills. At some point in your diving of the suit somethings going to happen. For me my first was a stuck inflator valve.

 

[ianr33]

Are you using your BC/Wing for bouyancy or your drysuit?

Once in a while my feet will get very floaty when using my drysuit due to air in the feet.Only solution I have found is to get my head up maybe 45 degrees (hoping that no DIR types are watching ) ,roll to the right and let the gas vent out of the shoulder dump

 

[Tek Adventure Diver]

Thanks Ianr33 . Im using my wing as bouyancy. Also the boots are a little bit big so that as to do with it. So i grabbed some ankle weights to help with that.

 

[TSandM]

Fin keepers! If your boots are roomy, it's easy to feel as though you are going to kick your feet right out of them if there's any air in there (and you can do it, too!) Fin keepers are these Y-shaped elastic bands that you can wear over the boots that collapse the boots around your feet and make the boots much more secure. They're wonderful.

Also remember that, if you are on ascent in open water, there is NO reason not to go slightly out of trim, drop your feet and get the air up to vent. When Joe Talavera taught our Rec 2 class, he told us he's had to get behind tech divers and yank their feet down, because they were so concerned with being out of trim that they wouldn't get the gas out of their boots.

In my very limited experience, getting a set of doubles weighted and trimmed out properly takes some fiddling around and sometimes some gear changes. If you're head heavy, you may need to a) move the wing up b) move the tanks down (limited by needing to reach valves) or c) go to a lighter BP and a weight belt. I had to buy an Al backplate to get balanced in my doubles.