"Correct Weighting" Identified as #1 Needed Improvement in SCUBA Diving

[bmbeaty]

A perfect example would be walking vs buying a car. Walking is cheaper, simpler, not maintenance etc. I'll take my truck any day though. Some people like to walk everywhere they go and it works for them. Great. There's no way you can convince me that I'd be happier walking everywhere.

 

[REVAN]

A perfect example would be walking vs buying a car. Walking is cheaper, simpler, not maintenance etc. I'll take my truck any day though. Some people like to walk everywhere they go and it works for them. Great. There's no way you can convince me that I'd be happier walking everywhere.

Now imagine that your truck can only go 1 mph but you can easily walk at 2. Now it's a perfect example.

Commercial truck drivers first learn to drive a basic car before moving up to an 18 wheeler. Commercial airline pilots learn stick and rudder skills in little planes that lack the all weather equipment, IFR instruments, autopilot, retractable gear, etc.... It makes sense to me to first learn scuba with the most basic equipment before piling on the specialty equipment, even if that specialty equipment can provide a capability to do other things like dive in bad weather and cold rough oceans, or carry big air for deep diving. The dive industry seems to think that it's just fine to not know the basics, as long as you can use the advanced equipment to fake your way through it. That would be like the FAA saying that a pilot can skip the stick and rudder skills, so long as you learn, train and fly in planes that are equipped with an autopilot.

Anyway, I've said my bit more than once and it does not appear that this is going anywhere. The current lot of instructors and training agencies seem to be set in their ways, and are too lazy and/or unmotivated to learn to do anything different. I imagine that 10 years from now, weight management will still be at the top of DAN's list of most needed improvements in scuba diving.

Peace and good diving everyone.

 

[KatieMac]

The current lot of instructors and training agencies seem to be set in their ways, and are too lazy and/or unmotivated to learn to do anything different. I imagine that 10 years from now, weight management will still be at the top of DAN's list of most needed improvements in scuba diving.

If the goal is to reduce deaths like the horrific example mentioned in the top post, having people dive without weights (and in fact without a BC) will certainly do that. But there would be increased deaths on the surface.

It seems to me all that needs to happen is that PADI (and instructors) simply need to add a weight check along with the O-ring inspection, reg check, BC inflation check, etc. This is one thing I didn't come across in the PADI OW course. I have since been taught this - check ALL equipment before every dive, including weights. I can't even imagine how someone didn't notice 50 lbs of weight, especially if they checked their equipment!

 

[2airishuman]

I didn't say that it was hard. It's like riding a bike. It's pretty easy when you know how. It's only hard if you have never learned to do it. Once you know how, it's easy to do and difficult to forget.

A BC is like having training wheels on your bike. It interferes with the feedback loop that is the learning process. It has this illusion of making things easier, while at the same time making it harder to actually learn how to properly ride the bike. I see the BC as having a similar impact on new divers learning weight management skills.

I have dived both with and without a BC and am at a loss to explain why you think it is a good idea for students to start their training without one. BCs enhance safety by providing buoyancy at the surface. They provide compensation for wetsuit compression, which is of vital importance in cold water diving.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I have dived both with and without a BC and am at a loss to explain why you think it is a good idea for students to start their training without one. BCs enhance safety by providing buoyancy at the surface. They provide compensation for wetsuit compression, which is of vital importance in cold water diving.

I wonder how students learning in dry suits are going to fare without a BCD.

 

[2airishuman]

Most of the diving I've done has been at Southern California beaches. The best spots usually have cliffs and surf. In order to get to some of these dive spots it is necessary to carry all of that gear down the bluffs, and, at the end of the dive, back up. I prefer to bring as little junk as possible. I prefer a steel 72 over an aluminum 80 because it weighs a few pounds less plus I don't need as much weight on my belt--this reduces my load by around 7-8 pounds.

I'm with you on all counts, so far. Minnesota lakes pose some of the same problems.

A typical jacket-style BC weighs around 5-8 pounds, possibly more. By eliminating the BC I have now removed around 14-16 pounds of stuff I don't need to carry. I have never gone through the surf wearing a BC but I cannot imagine that it is not more difficult with all of the added bulk and water resistance. I have gone beach diving with people who bought BCs but I have never felt the need to get one. If there was an advantage to having one for this type of diving it was not apparent. After all, I am just going scuba diving. I (and some others on SB) approach this kind of scuba diving as free diving with a tank strapped to my back.

Maybe you could try a BP+W. That's what I use, with a small wing when circumstances permit. The bulk and weight of your overall setup would not then be materially different than with just a tank. I know, I dive both ways.

The BC I bought is a good, used one that didn't cost very much money. I consider it a temporary device and I'm looking into making or buying a back wing which will have a much smaller profile and should fit into my carry-on nicely. I will have to bring a checked bag with the BC I just bought. I figure I only need about 3-5 pounds of lift with the back wing and that is mainly because I have yet to use any tank other than an AL80 while on a dive trip so I need to add about 4 pounds of lead to my weight belt.

You could, you know, get a stainless steel backplate that weighs enough to offset the buoyancy of the AL80, and a compact 17# wing. People have done that. You can go out and buy that stuff. It isn't expensive.

Additionally, due to the desirable buoyancy characteristics of the steel tanks vs the aluminum tanks (in general) I am surprised that nobody is making a modern version of the steel 72. All it would take is to make the same sized tank that can be filled to about 3000 psi instead of 2475 and it will then hold about the same amount of air (or more) as the typical AL 80 plus it will probably still weigh a little less and they seem to last longer. I realize that aluminum 80s are cheap but if they mass-produce enough steel 80s the price should come down. I don't think that the additional weight of 8 cu/ft of air will be much of an issue.

Steel cylinders are inherently more expensive to make.

Faber LP85s are substantially identical to the old LP72s and could be seen as a modern version of them. You can even get galvanized ones now.

 

[dmaziuk]

It seems to me all that needs to happen is that PADI (and instructors) simply need to add a weight check along with the O-ring inspection, reg check, BC inflation check, etc. This is one thing I didn't come across in the PADI OW course

... probably because they couldn't conceive of a diver accidentally putting on 50lbs of gear and not noticing. Or, for that matter, of accidentally having a 50lb weight belt laying around.

To me it looks like an error someplace between the author's chair and keyboard: note how the quote goes "... weights but only 17 pounds of that was on his weight belt". To me it spells he needed, and presumably didn't have, [at least] a 40lb aircell. I'm having a hard time stretching the the phrase "incorrect weighting" to cover this particular scenario.

PS. I did my OW in a 7mm suit, I don't recall how much weight I had on, but I don't think "17lbs on the weight belt" is that far off.

PPS. Actually, it spells it out:

The diver was found with a fully inflated BCD and he had removed his weight belt. However, this was not enough to become positively buoyant at the depth he was found.

I read this as his aircell did not have enough lift to compensate for wetsuit compression at "depth he was found" -- and clearly, 40lbs wouldn't be enough as he removed his belt and would've had 50 - 17 = 33 lbs on non-ditchable weight on him.

Which seems to be an exact opposite of what R.Evan's been arguing in the rest of the thread: it's the clear case of needing a bigger BCD.

 

[2airishuman]

For the average person the work involved to dive without a BC isn't worth the hassle.

I find it useful to be prepared to dive without a BC for shallow dives in relatively warm water. I can leave a tank, backpack, and regulator assembled and in the trunk of the car or bottom of the boat or whatever and go for a short dive whenever the opportunity/reason exists. Then if someone drops their sunglasses I can go get them.

 

[2airishuman]

The problem with this idea is that most divers (or at least some very vocal divers) seem to think that diving without a BC is basically impossible to the point that if I bring up the subject it inevitably kicks off an argument with these nay-sayers. I don't know what to do about that.

I don't, either, but I have difficulty believing that the answer has anything to do with routinely training new open water divers without BCs.

If the real goal is to legitimize diving without a BC then maybe changing the PADI boy scout pledge to remove the "I will never dive without a BC" would be a good place to start. On the other hand, then there would have to be some discussion about the safety hazards and procedures specific to no-BC diving in place of a hard and fast rule.

 

[soggybadger]

I wonder how students learning in dry suits are going to fare without a BCD.

New to diving and all my dives have been drysuit. Probably would have been a right ball ache without a bc but simple easy and safe with one. If I was spamming around in tropical shallow waters I'd give it a go without a bc but in the North Sea in a drysuit with variable equipment I say f*#k that.