Why no weight pockets with doubles?

[EireDiver606]

I just don't like be told by some tadpole that after decades of diving safely, even rescuing others divers that I'm diving unsafe

You most certainly are a fabulous diver just because you have almost 5 decades experience. Old grannys have more than 5 decades of driving cars but it doesn't mean they are good drivers either. I've seen plenty of divers who claim to have 2000 plus dives and they aren't stable and can't even do a valve drill hovering.

Lol tadpole is a hilarious comeback though

 

[Bob DBF]

The whole concept of technical diving was unknown before 1990.

The concept was known, but it had no exclusive name and was just looked at as diving.

Then around 1979 the first BCD did appear, and this changed the world.

The Scubapro Stab Jacket that was the predecessor of the jackets popular now, came out then. Back in the '60's, or earlier, the horsecollar BC was available on this side of the pond, although new divers like me did not have the money, or the need, to use them until later in our diving.

I stll think that people should first learn diving that way, without BCD.

Agree 100%. I'd add learning a reasonable amount of free diving as well.

DS have been around since the 1950's.

Late 1800's and were used for surface supplied. In the '30's the Italians developed a rubber wetsuit for their Frogmen. This was marketed for recreational divers in 1951 by Pirelli.

 

[AfterDark]

You most certainly are a fabulous diver just because you have almost 5 decades experience. Old grannys have more than 5 decades of driving cars but it doesn't mean they are good drivers either. I've seen plenty of divers who claim to have 2000 plus dives and they aren't stable and can't even do a valve drill hovering.

Lol tadpole is a hilarious comeback though

It's more like golf where a 60 year old still can beat a 20 year old.

 

[PBcatfish]

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.

I'm referring to a BC that a friend used to use with doubles. It had a right bladder & a left bladder, with individual fill & dump valves for each. I had assumed that all 2-hose BCs were like that, but based on your statement, I guess that isn't the case. I don't dive DB BCs, so I haven't done a lot of research on them.

 

[wstorms]

It's quite funny, with new divers, a common issue I see is that they tend to overweight themselves, just in order to sink. They forget that they are treading water the entire time at the surface, and as soon as they learn to keep their legs still, they can leave a few kilo off their belt.
When reading this tread, it seems the opposite is happening. People seem to forget you actually CAN break trim and point your fins down. I am not suggesting it's comfortable to ascent like that, but at the very least you should be able to remain at a relatively constant depth for a few minutes in case of bc failure.
It does make me wonder how much weight I actually can swim up. I know from treading water in the pool and adding some weights, I can easily do 4 kg, 6kg is hard, with 8 kg I struggle. But that is all based on lung volume and (a bit too much) bioprene, no fins. So I recon I with fins I can easily do 10-12 kilo. Think I will put some increasingly heavy weight belts in the water next time and find out

 

[Angelo Farina]

It's quite funny, with new divers, a common issue I see is that they tend to overweight themselves, just in order to sink. They forget that they are treading water the entire time at the surface, and as soon as they learn to keep their legs still, they can leave a few kilo off their belt.
When reading this tread, it seems the opposite is happening. People seem to forget you actually CAN break trim and point your fins down. I am not suggesting it's comfortable to ascent like that, but at the very least you should be able to remain at a relatively constant depth for a few minutes in case of bc failure.
It does make me wonder how much weight I actually can swim up. I know from treading water in the pool and adding some weights, I can easily do 4 kg, 6kg is hard, with 8 kg I struggle. But that is all based on lung volume and (a bit too much) bioprene, no fins. So I recon I with fins I can easily do 10-12 kilo. Think I will put some increasingly heavy weight belts in the water next time and find out

One of the exercises I had to accomplish during my instructor course (Nervi, 1978) was to carry a 15 kg weight for 50 m swimming horizontally, with a standard 10+10 l steel double on my back, and of course no BCD. Powerful kicking and proper fins were required, of course.
No Jetfins, nor frog kicking for accomplishing such an heavy task...
The proper trim was something as 45°, so half of the thrust was used for counterbalancing the negative thrust of the weight, and half was used for propulsion.
In the whole Instructor course we did not use any suit (wet or dry), just the naked body. The course director was Duilio Marcante, and one of the things we had to learn is that an instructor is never cold, never hot, never hungry, and suffers no pain.

 

[wstorms]

No pain no gain instructor course I take it
I can't say I really agree with the old school way of doing things, but I definitely enjoy reading your adventures

 

[chillyinCanada]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Closed for clean up

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[Colliam7]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Re-opened for discussion. Keep it civil, or don't participate.

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[wstorms]

This guy is deploying his SMB as emergency BC:

It does make me wonder how much weight I actually can swim up. I know from treading water in the pool and adding some weights, I can easily do 4 kg, 6kg is hard, with 8 kg I struggle. But that is all based on lung volume and (a bit too much) bioprene, no fins. So I recon I with fins I can easily do 10-12 kilo. Think I will put some increasingly heavy weight belts in the water next time and find out

I did sort of try this the other day. Double 12 liter (steel), nearly full, a very old 7 mm wetsuit, fresh water, alu plate. Dumped everything from the wing. I could not maintain buoyancy by lung control alone, but with some kicking it was easy to maintain depth or ascent. I stayed at depth, pulled my dsmb out of my pocket and put it between my legs like in the youtube clip. works pretty well, you can even reestablish horizontal trim if you want. Still need to do the weight belts to find my max, but it is comfortable to know you have some options