- Messages
- 7,660
- Reaction score
- 4,717
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
Ankle floats?
- Thread starter JustWetRocks
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
- Messages
- 16,415
- Reaction score
- 5,225
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
When that was introduced by PADI (2015 I think) I was told the reason for the skill is so students get the feel of how buoyant they become (even though on the surface) when they drop the weights. So dropping them is (pardon pun) a last ditch solution. I guess that made sense, though it probably could just be explained to a person of normal intelligence.
because most new divers are overweighted and don't dive a balanced rig. One can read the DAN stats on deaths where divers had their ditchable weights intact. But then one can also read the 2016 report where DAN called for proper weighting.
I'm hoping to not get into a debate on this.....
- Messages
- 7,660
- Reaction score
- 4,717
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
@wetb4igetinthewater: (No debate, just my POV. We can end it here.)
How a Small Group of Instructors Spurred Reform in Scuba Instruction - ScubaBoard
“In its analysis of its school reform efforts, the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found that in every case in which one of their school reform efforts failed, the primary cause for that failure was attributed to the aggressively negative resistance of a few—sometimes only one or two—opposing teachers. We appear to be plagued by the same affliction on social media outlets like ScubaBoard.”
And now for the real world:
Fatality off of Point Lobos, California
No, I won’t tag the pertinent post. Read the entire thread or ignore it…
How a Small Group of Instructors Spurred Reform in Scuba Instruction - ScubaBoard
“In its analysis of its school reform efforts, the Annenberg Institute at Brown University found that in every case in which one of their school reform efforts failed, the primary cause for that failure was attributed to the aggressively negative resistance of a few—sometimes only one or two—opposing teachers. We appear to be plagued by the same affliction on social media outlets like ScubaBoard.”
And now for the real world:
Fatality off of Point Lobos, California
No, I won’t tag the pertinent post. Read the entire thread or ignore it…
- Messages
- 16,415
- Reaction score
- 5,225
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
No debate, and I'm sure you are correct. Are you talking about your own experiences regarding most being overweighted, or a statistic, or a general feeling among instructors? I was thinking this may be a lot less true than maybe 10-20 years ago? I'm just guessing.
:yawn: they are overweighted because they have poor trim and/or buoyancy control. OBTopic poor trim is what you get from being leg-heavy.
The statistics we've been through several times already, as I recall @boulderjohn even read the reports and found e.g. a guy who climbed aboard and had a heart attack before undoing his belt buckle. Correlation is not causation.
Well, for the first part, I do happen to know Peter. He's the one who gave me these exercises Simple exercises for students not completely comfortable with having their faces in the water | Facebook when he generally assisted in one of my early OW classes
I'm not sure of the point of the second however. I read just the first page for additional info. Sounds like they were overweighted. As discussed in the thread, are you recommending rescue skills be reintroduced to OW? Which ones?
- Messages
- 7,660
- Reaction score
- 4,717
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
No.
This discussion has drifted so far from what the OP is looking for that I need to drop off.
A number of years ago that I responded to a thread talking about the number of divers who die with their weights on by going through 2 years of DAN reports, reading the descriptions of the deaths to see how often removing weights would have made a difference. Yes, I did mention a case where the fatality was a heart attack that happened after the guy got on the boat, which I mentioned as an example of a case where ditching weights would not have made a difference.
IIRC, I found that in 10% of the fatality descriptions, it was possible that dropping weights MIGHT have made a difference. That included the cases in which a missing diver's body was found with no known reason for the fatality. If the circumstances of death were not well known, I gave weight dropping the benefit of the doubt. There were very, very few cases in which you would say, "yep, should have dropped the weights."
The most common cause of deaths was medical, usually a heart attack, with symptoms very sudden, with the diver either making it to the surface or passing out and dropping unconscious to the bottom. A joint PADI/DAN study that led to the latest changes in the PADI OW course found that the number one preventable (i.e., diver error) cause of death was a gas embolism following a panicked, rapid ascent to the surface, probably holding the breath, often following an OOA experience. In those cases, dropping weights would not only not have helped, they might have made it worse.
The primary cases in which dropping weights would have helped were a handful when an OOA diver reached the surface and could not stay there because of the inability to inflate the BCD with an empty cylinder. Those cases are the reason the current PADI standards emphasize both oral inflation and dropping weights on the surface. It should be noted, though, that a diver who cannot stay on the surface with an empty cylinder is grossly overweighted, especially considering the degree to which the BCD should have expanded upon ascent. In fact, a properly weighted recreational diver should have trouble descending with an empty cylinder.
Similar threads
