Cost of GUE fundies

[beester]

Once you understand how to hover and appear motionless (I say appear because my fins always move a little for balance, much like you are always correcting balance with your hands on a bicycle), then switchign gear should be no problem

The aim (or at least my aim and that of my tech buddies) is to stay in trim without moving anything. Not your feet, not your hands, nothing! Like I already said, of course you can stay in trim with a bcd if you use your body position and feet to adjust. But that's not in total trim.

If I'm doing a blue water deco stop and I'm writing in my wetnotes, or doing something else (tank rotation or what) or just zoning out I don't need to use my fins to balance my trim. It's just there.

I don't get why you are defending a BCD in this regard. Of course any good diver can setup any equipment to be able to stay in horizontal trim, specially if you use your hands or feet to adjust your balance. But if you want to stay in trim without moving it will take a lot of adjustment on a bcd. On a bp/wing I can get most newbies in trim within a 2 hour pool session.

Finally horizontal trim is not the end all... Many times I'm not in perfect 100% horizontal trim, because the situation does not require it, but I'm always in perfect controlled trim.

 

[rivers]

The aim (or at least my aim and that of my tech buddies) is to stay in trim without moving anything. Not your feet, not your hands, nothing! Like I already said, of course you can stay in trim with a bcd if you use your body position and feet to adjust. But that's not in total trim.

If I'm doing a blue water deco stop and I'm writing in my wetnotes, or doing something else (tank rotation or what) or just zoning out I don't need to use my fins to balance my trim. It's just there.

I don't get why you are defending a BCD in this regard. Of course any good diver can setup any equipment to be able to stay in horizontal trim, specially if you use your hands or feet to adjust your balance. But if you want to stay in trim without moving it will take a lot of adjustment on a bcd. On a bp/wing I can get most newbies in trim within a 2 hour pool session.

Finally horizontal trim is not the end all... Many times I'm not in perfect 100% horizontal trim, because the situation does not require it, but I'm always in perfect controlled trim.

Bollocks, I can stay in trim, motionless in a jacket BCD (although it is rare, generally if I am in the pool DMing and my single tank wing is on loan to a mate who is still acquiring her own kit). I have gotten students in trim in a pool session in a standard jacket. I proudly fly the GUE flag, but to say getting into trim in a jacket is impossible is a load of wank.

 

[HantsDiver]

Ok let me rephrase..."equipment SETUP". Of course you can make everything work if you play around with all equipment, weights, weight location, etc. But you need to know very well what you are doing and you need to be aware what impacts what. Most don't.

I mean horizontal trim as in: hover without moving anything (hands or feet or body) and staying horizontal. That takes a finetuned equipment setup and is frankly much more easy to realise with a BP/Wing setup (because the main weight is under your point of gravity) than with a classic bcd.

Since some above are discussing fins... Let me give you a fins example... I'm using turtles. They combine very well with my drysuit (heavier fins and loftier legs), but if I would use those same turtles in tropical water with a 3mm wetsuit I wouldn't be able to hold horizontal trim without moving because my feet would be slightly heavy.

In short equipment SETUP is a big deal for trim and buoancy. Of course I can manage horizontal trim with all equipment, but unless it's setup right I would need to use position of hands, head, feet and slight movement of feet to keep horizontal. Not an issue but I prefer to be able to hold 100% horizontal trim without moving.

Why does anyone need to be able to hover in perfect fins with zero movement of their fins?

I'm not asking this to be difficult - I have done gue courses and have passed. So I don't think my diving skills are severely lacking. Can I couldn't care lass if I'm out of trim whilst doing my deco. And frankly if I'm doing a shut down in an overhead environment my fins moving matter not at all to me.

I'm sure you are a first rate diver and better than me. But I don't think we should turn scuba diving into Olympic diving looking at how synchronised we are and how pretty we look etc. Make it functional, safe and fun. the founders of dir were not able to dive in the way which is held as the a standard for open water divers now - its gotten ridiculous,

 

[beester]

Why does anyone need to be able to hover in perfect fins with zero movement of their fins?

I'm not asking this to be difficult - I have done gue courses and have passed. So I don't think my diving skills are severely lacking. Can I couldn't care lass if I'm out of trim whilst doing my deco. And frankly if I'm doing a shut down in an overhead environment my fins moving matter not at all to me.

I'm sure you are a first rate diver and better than me. But I don't think we should turn scuba diving into Olympic diving looking at how synchronised we are and how pretty we look etc. Make it functional, safe and fun. the founders of dir were not able to dive in the way which is held as the a standard for open water divers now - its gotten ridiculous,

Please reread my previous post. This is what I'm saying "Finally horizontal trim is not the end all... Many times I'm not in perfect 100% horizontal trim, because the situation does not require it, but I'm always in perfect controlled trim."

So yes I'm not disagreeing with you. We don't need to be horizontal trim gestapo... but if you can't keep trim (no matter in what plane... could be 45° in a cave) and if you stop moving and are slowly turning away from the trim you were in (head or tail heavy) then you should address that.

 

[beester]

Bollocks, I can stay in trim, motionless in a jacket BCD (although it is rare, generally if I am in the pool DMing and my single tank wing is on loan to a mate who is still acquiring her own kit). I have gotten students in trim in a pool session in a standard jacket. I proudly fly the GUE flag, but to say getting into trim in a jacket is impossible is a load of wank.

Well sir then we have to agree to disagree. I never said it's impossible but it's a lot of very hard work, while with a wing setup it's much easier. I'm involved in stability/trim workshops for a recreational CMAS federation. About 50 divers follow this workshop every year in a 2/3 students to instructor level, doing 2 hours of theory and out of water practice and then 2/3 hours of workshop in a deep (15m) pool using their own gear. So I think I know a thing or too about working with recreational divers who want to improve their trim/buyoancy/kicks. And it's not easy... specially when they are all using different setups, different bcd's, different weight systems and weight positions, drysuit, wetsuit, heavy or light fins, splitfins, whatever.

Below short movie clip of one of these sessions.


So if you think it's easy... post a clip of you and some students.

PS: The instructors in this clip are not GUE instructors... just recreational instructors and assistant instructors with a GUE background (min = T1).

 

[Ayisha]

Below short movie clip of one of these sessions.


PS: The instructors in this clip are not GUE instructors... just recreational instructors and assistant instructors with a GUE background (min = T1).

Nice. Great work!
But the statues are creepy...

 

[Ayisha]

When I stared it was constantly pointed at my fins... so I'll call that improvement!

Haha, I thought you were referring to your Instructor's GoPro. They always film the evidence...

 

[sea_otter]

Haha, I thought you were referring to your Instructor's GoPro. They always film the evidence...

Yes... I was... but I've since learned to keep my fins still when doing skills. Most of the time.

 

[Chavodel8en]

How hard is it to get in horizontal trim with a stab jacket, v. a BP/W?

In the end, to get the trim fine-tuned, you need to adjust some of the weight up or down. That 2 hours in a pool should be enough to get a newbie trimmed out in either a stab jacket or a BP/W.

I think the main difference is that, just by its nature, a BP/W is already very close to horizontal trim right from initial setup. And there are some folks who dont need to fiddle with weights at all - they are already there.

Whereas a stab jacket will need to add much more weight, so weight distribution is a much bigger factor.

I too tend to find criticisms of the horizontal trim of stab jackets overblown. I think part of the reason is bc most of the obviously overweighted & poorly trimmed divers, constantly swimming up, are probably in stab jackets. But their heinous trim is not due to their stab jacket, its due to their very bad weight distribution.

Its not that hard to achieve trim in any BC, you just need to be intentional about it and not be overweighted.

And Im not a stab jacket user, its not my preference. But when I used it in the past, and when I have to use one now, I don't find horizontal trim that much of a challenge.

 

[MichaelMc]

An issue with jacket BC trim may be that there are few places high on it to place much lead. Several have trim pockets on the back, but they may be small and not very high. There is also the cam band (singular) but again that is limited in capacity, with out adding issues of turtling them. A PB/W puts a lot of weight high to start, so there is less that then needs to be moved up. I've worked a little at adjusting our students jackets, and those are challenges I see.

I don't understand the confusion about how static weight setup affects trim ability. It's just physics. You have a natural or best resting position for your legs based on your kick, and a natural or best position of your arms and head based on your light use, computer, and vision desires. Say you adjust your gear so you can float horizontal in that position with zero finning. That means you are not task loaded by kicking to keep your legs up or down.

If you then change gear, your balance will very likely shift. Meaning you have to either: a) hold arm and legs in different positions from your most natural for your kick or task, or b) add task loading to keep finning your legs up or down, or c) accept angled trim. And moving air bubbles in suits or wings means changing body position. That is the physics.

If people say it is no problem, they have to be doing a, b, or c. Or setting up the weighs for them in that different gear. "I'm still in trim as a statue in the same most optimal relaxed ready to respond position" is different from "I'm still in trim with my legs held out further, my arms in, my head up, and finning down a bit, which I don't even notice having to do and it does not affect me at all, it still leaves the full range of those adjustments available for when I need to pick up and move around stages or pretty rocks from the bottom, or when my gear shifts a bit on my body."

Edit: And how horizontal is needed (item c above) is a judgement, but it is separate from gear changes, particularly radical ones, making no difference and not needing changes to the weight setup.