BP/W..... one BC to rule them all??

[dumpsterDiver]

I just want to correct this, which was caused by some misinformation related to the recovery that came out early in the discussion of that incident.

There is no question that Marcia was overweighted, but she was comfortably buoyant on the surface only minutes before submerging to swim to shore in shallow water. No one who has looked carefully at full the details of that incident has even a reasonable theory of its cause. There is no indication that being overweighted was at fault.

Thanks for the correction. I thought there was discussion that her BC was completely full when diving and that people thought she was over weighted and/or had too small of a wing. My recollection is a little hazy however.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I don't get the obsession with a balanced rig, (as I understand it to be) which is having all your ballast on your rig with no ditchable weight. What difference does it make where your weight is even if you put a few lbs on a belt, as long as the overall weighting is correct.
Wouldn't it be better to have at least some ditchable weight in case you needed to establish some badly needed positive buoyancy?
Who came up with that concept in the first place?

 

[decompression]

I don't get the obsession with a balanced rig, (as I understand it to be) which is having all your ballast on your rig with no ditchable weight. What difference does it make where your weight is even if you put a few lbs on a belt, as long as the overall weighting is correct.
Wouldn't it be better to have at least some ditchable weight in case you needed to establish some badly needed positive buoyancy?
Who came up with that concept in the first place?

Hey Eric, a balanced rig isn't the placement of weight or even wether it's ditch able or not.
It's the calculation of the minimum amount of weight you require to remain neutral throughout the entire dive.
This eliminates the many drawbacks of being overweighted and the ability to do a controlled ascent in case of a catastrophic wing failure.

Not sure of the individual that came up with it but it's been used in DIR world for many years.


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[tbone1004]

I don't get the obsession with a balanced rig, (as I understand it to be) which is having all your ballast on your rig with no ditchable weight. What difference does it make where your weight is even if you put a few lbs on a belt, as long as the overall weighting is correct.
Wouldn't it be better to have at least some ditchable weight in case you needed to establish some badly needed positive buoyancy?
Who came up with that concept in the first place?

what deco said. The concept of a balanced rig has nothing to do with the weight or where it is. Your wing needs to compensate for two things, lost buoyancy of the exposure suit, and mass of gas in the cylinder. If you have a balanced rig then the wing isn't compensating for anything else, but if you have an unbalanced rig it also has to pick up carry extra ballast. This is part of why it is unsafe to dive deep in thick wetsuits. With a balanced rig the diver is able to kick up their rig from the bottom without a need for redundant buoyancy.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Well I guess I've been diving a balanced rig the whole time then and never knew it.
What is described above, I know that as just being properly weighted. What it should be called is a balanced 'configuration'. The "rig" part is what threw me off.

 

[Aquavelvet]

... And in true Scubaboard form, the discussion runs completely off the rails. Thanks guys.


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[phoenix31tt]

What is described above, I know that as just being properly weighted.

you could be properly weighted and not be balanced though... as described above if you were diving deep with a thick wetsuit... you'd be properly weighted for that wetsuit but at depth your wing would need to compensate for the loss of bouyancy in your wetsuit

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

you could be properly weighted and not be balanced though... as described above if you were diving deep with a thick wetsuit... you'd be properly weighted for that wetsuit but at depth your wing would need to compensate for the loss of bouyancy in your wetsuit

Well, I often dive with no wing at all in a 7mm wetsuit and they haven't found me yet pinned to the bottom dead, so I must be doing something right.
So let me ask this, if a person dives with no BC in a wetsuit and can maintain proper buoyancy throughout the dive does that mean they are diving a balanced rig by default?

BTW, there is no way to dive sans BC overweighted or beyond the parameters of the chosen wetsuit without being weighted exactly correct. there is no BC to cover for weighting errors.

 

[boulderjohn]

Thanks for the correction. I thought there was discussion that her BC was completely full when diving and that people thought she was over weighted and/or had too small of a wing. My recollection is a little hazy however.

She was overweighted--that part is true. There was an incorrect statement made early in the original discussion that said that she was so negative that they were unable to bring her to the surface. That led people to believe she was far more overweighted than she actually was, and it led to speculation that it could have been the cause of her problem. I suspect you may be remembering that. As I said, that information was incorrect.

 

[cool_hardware52]

Well, I often dive with no wing at all in a 7mm wetsuit and they haven't found me yet pinned to the bottom dead, so I must be doing something right.
So let me ask this, if a person dives with no BC in a wetsuit and can maintain proper buoyancy throughout the dive does that mean they are diving a balanced rig by default?

BTW, there is no way to dive overweighted or beyond the parameters of the chosen wetsuit without being weighted exactly right; there is no BC to cover for weighting errors.

This is how I learned to dive, except in those days wetsuits were still imperial, i.e. "1/4" Not a lot of hovering at a given depth, but early scuba was seen as an extension of skin diving.

For me the goal is to have zero gas in my bc with empty tanks at my shallow stop. If I need gas in my bc at my shallow stop with a empty tank I'm over weighted. When weighted this way, with modest sized single cylinders, diving at recreational depths or less it's quite easy to conduct the dive with little to no gas in the BC for most or all of the dive.

We used to point and laugh at the guys using horse collars……..

Tobin