Are there charts or is there a formula to how much weight you should need to wear?

[King Kong Matt]

In New England:

Assuming you are wearing full 7mm exposure protection with hood and gloves and diving with an AL80, a shop will tell a beginner that they need to start with 10% of their body weight plus an additional 10 lbs.

Lots of NE divers dive with steel tanks...depending on what kind, this will take off some of that weight. As you become more comfortable in the water, you can continue to take off weight. Obviously, if you are diving with a drysuit, that will make a difference.

Again, the formula I gave you of 10% + 10 is a rough starting point for a beginner that must be tuned for you as an individual.

You mentioned that you had 32 lbs of weight total at your disposal, and that you are 130 lbs. My advice...don't worry...I wear 32 lbs of weight (which is a little too much for me) and I am 6"8 and 300 lbs.

Hope this helps.

King Kong Matt

 

[jonnythan]

King Kong Matt once bubbled...
In New England:

Assuming you are wearing full 7mm exposure protection with hood and gloves and diving with an AL80, a shop will tell a beginner that they need to start with 10% of their body weight plus an additional 10 lbs.

Lots of NE divers dive with steel tanks...depending on what kind, this will take off some of that weight. As you become more comfortable in the water, you can continue to take off weight. Obviously, if you are diving with a drysuit, that will make a difference.

Again, the formula I gave you of 10% + 10 is a rough starting point for a beginner that must be tuned for you as an individual.

You mentioned that you had 32 lbs of weight total at your disposal, and that you are 130 lbs. My advice...don't worry...I wear 32 lbs of weight (which is a little too much for me) and I am 6"8 and 300 lbs.

Hope this helps.

King Kong Matt

I think I'm missing something.. why is it good for a beginner to be overweighted?

 

[King Kong Matt]

jonnythan once bubbled...
I think I'm missing something.. why is it good for a beginner to be overweighted?

I don't think it is...but, if you have no idea how much weight you need and you would like a ballpark idea of how much to put on...this is what, in my experience, the LDS' around here are going to suggest.

I don't believe I suggested, and I have never heard a local LDS suggest that beginners should dive overweighted...its just a formula that gets people in the vicinity...at which point you need to rigorously test your buoyancy to become absolutely neutral.

 

[jonnythan]

King Kong Matt once bubbled...


I don't think it is...but, if you have no idea how much weight you need and you would like a ballpark idea of how much to put on...this is what, in my experience, the LDS' around here are going to suggest.

I don't believe I suggested, and I have never heard a local LDS suggest that beginners should dive overweighted...its just a formula that gets people in the vicinity...at which point you need to rigorously test your buoyancy to become absolutely neutral.

Ah ok.. the guys at my LDS has a tendency to pile weight on students. The average for my OW class, with 2 piece 7mm suits, was around 35 pounds (!).

This is one of the many reasons I don't trust the guys there.

 

[SDAnderson]

Many instructors will "overweight" a student in order to insure that they don't become floaters.

Experienced divers learn how to control their bouyancy by regulating their breathing. (Not by holding their breath, just by varying it). It's common for new divers to have difficulty doing this. In particular, there is a tendency to become excited and to start top-breathing, thus adding several pounds of lift. If you've carefully adjusted the student's weighting for "normal" neutral bouyancy and they start hyper-ventilating, they're going to the surface. Better to slip a few extra pounds in so that you can keep them on the bottom the first time they see something exciting.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Once they become proficient at some basic bouyancy skills they can remove the "extra" weight.

Steven

 

[Soggy]

NetDoc once bubbled...
Do this at the pool... put on the full gear you will be wearing for your dive. Wet suit, booties, fins, and a FULL TANK TOO! This method will get you perfectly weighted for when you do that safety stop. I have used it on a ton of students with GREAT success!

Then add another 20-30% of that weight on top when you get into open water. Pools don't have currents. In a pool during my drysuit class, I was using 20 lbs....when I got to my OW dives, I couldn't even get under the water until I had 32 lbs on my belt. I now know I need 36 lbs in fresh water with AL80 tanks to safely hover.

 

[The Chairman]

Students who freak out and hyper ventilate in OW did not receive adequate training in the pool. When you guys say "most or many" instructors will overweight a student, this just scares the be-jeebers out of me. An overweighted student is an accident waiting to happen. If they have to be overweighted to dive, then I have not taught them properly... I need to slow it down and bring in some calm for these poor guys and gals.

Currents have no bearing on proper weighting EXCEPT in an upward flow situation (like a spring). Of course you need to go the other way in a siphon situation, but we are talking general open water here. You would need the same weight in the pool as you do in fresh open water UNLESS you changed something... more air in your dry suit to combat the cold, more hyperventilation due to nervousness, etc, etc.

There is absolutely NO reason to be overweighted... NONE! It is bad form for beginner, advanced or seasoned pro. The only problem that I have with steel tanks, is that they make me a tad negative even though I don't use weights with them. Neutral, neutral, neutral is the way to go. Instructors too! They should have the skills to do the demonstrations with neutral buoyancy and perfect weighting or they shouldn't be an instructor... End of rant... y'all can flame away, but it's what I believe in, and I'll stick to it!

 

[Soggy]

NetDoc once bubbled...
Currents have no bearing on proper weighting EXCEPT in an upward flow situation (like a spring). Of course you need to go the other way in a siphon situation, but we are talking general open water here. You would need the same weight in the pool as you do in fresh open water UNLESS you changed something... more air in your dry suit to combat the cold, more hyperventilation due to nervousness, etc, etc.

Well...it's nice that you can say that, but it doesn't change anything. I sink like a rock with 20 lbs in a pool and float like a boat in open water. I have frequently found that a rough surface makes it much more difficult to get under even with empty lungs, bc, and suit. This is true for me in a wetsuit, drysuit, and swim trunks. I tolerate a fair amount of drysuit squeeze and I'm pretty relaxed when I'm in the water. The other difference is 30 degrees of water temperature...Pools run around 80...lakes are usually around 60-65.

 

[Soggy]

NetDoc once bubbled...
There is absolutely NO reason to be overweighted... NONE!

There are several reasons to be slightly overweighted.

1) you are trying to figure out how much weight you need without the convenience of a pool to figure it out. Always better to be a bit over than a bit under because at the end of the dive we all know what happens...

2) you're an instructor and your students haven't put enough weight on in their first dive....they used what they needed in a pool, but now they are in their first open water situation and are tense...breathing shallow...the water is colder, etc. Now they need more weight so they don't bob up to the surface. Instructors frequently carry extra weight so they can stick it in the student's pocket so the student is safe.

3) You are doing a very shallow dive so you add a couple lbs so that staying down is a bit easier.

I know someone will harp on me about these reasons, but in the real world there are different applications for everything.

 

[The Chairman]

if all else is the same, it is probably the single most overlooked factor in diving. It is not logical to need more weight from fresh to fresh, and while colder water is a tad bit denser, it is not appreciably so. It is not until it approaches a phase change and the subsequent molecular alignment that water shows a significant change in density, and even then it only gets lighter. The density of gas changes far more but the change is based on the change in Kelvin (or Rankine) and not on Celsius (or Fahrenhiet).

I have yet to have a student need more than a pound or two from the time they did their pool session to their first open water experience in a spring... UNLESS, they had some real phobias or anxieties to deal with. I probably spend more time on exercizes to invoke confidence through skill mastery and really, really push neutral buoyancy (can you tell?) and hovering. Lots of no-mask breathing (the biggie) and lots of play time in the pool make the open water sessions a real breeze for most. It's time for them to show off!!!