Ditchable Weight Option for BP/W

[NAUI Wowie]

I have 2 of these on the waist belt of my harness:
XS Scuba Weight Pocket Quick Release

They are intended for precisely the application you have in mind. No need to mount anything upside down. I also have two (non-quick release) pockets on my cam bands.

lmao theres never a need to mount them upside down. its just an excess of caution and to stop the naysayers that say you need dropable weights always. We mount them upside down but we do know we dont need to. Does it hurt anything to mount them upside down? serious question.

you counter four previous posters post your opinion. We know we dont NEED to.

 

[almostDIR]

I don't have any droppable weight in my bp/w setup at the moment. Just a 5kg p-weight and some small weight pockets on tank bands which can host some kg's of additional weight.
but I use it with a drysuit so don't have the "heavy wetsuit compressing at depth making one excessively negative" problem which could necessitate dropping the weights deep down to be able to swim to surface if the only buoyancy device available would fail.

If going very deep with the current setup there would be a small added risk of not getting to the surface quickly enough if running totally out of gas but that does not matter much to me. If running out of air on surface it would be easy to just orally inflate the wing and if the wing would be severed AND I would be OOA then would just ditch the rig and swim to safety OR would inflate a smb on surface to get enough buoyancy to stay there.

Usually I have a stage mounted pony bottle with me so if there's no chainsaw lunatics down there severing both the suit AND wing at the same time it should be no problem to get to the surface anytime, even ditching the rig at depth and swimming to the surface with only the pony even if the suit is full of water. OR keeping the rig and riding a dsmb up. Or any other combination. I actually installed a inflator hose to the pony regulator so it would be possible to inflate the wing or drysuit directly with it if needed.

Droppable weights are more of a wetsuit thing I think.... especially if there is a risk of breaking the bcd bladder or corrugated hose so that it is not possible to manually inflate it on surface and you don't want the whole rig to sink to the abyss. I understand the benefits of drop weights of course but they are very small in the type of diving I personally do at the moment. for others they may be very beneficial.

btw I tested a while ago using normal weight pockets hosting droppable normal belt weights. It MAY somewhat work if you have slippery plastic covered or otherwise rounded weights (bullet style weights worked ok for example) and you attach some kind of handles to them (fabric or velcro loops, etc). factory made pockets are much easier to use though and are less hassle for your buddies if they need to drop your weights for you

 

[AJ]

Please, let's not get into "the droppable weight is needed or not" discussion (again) A dead horse comes in mind Everybody can decide for him/herself is he/she want's droppable weight or not.

The question asked is: how it fits in BP/W configuration? Personally I use fixed large weight pockets on the waist belt from xDeep with my wetsuit config. Don't know if I could drop the weight, never tried it and never needed to.

 

[almostDIR]

Please, let's not get into "the droppable weight is needed or not" discussion (again) A dead horse comes in mind Everybody can decide for him/herself is he/she want's droppable weight or not.

The question asked is: how it fits in BP/W configuration? Personally I use fixed large weight pockets on the waist belt from xDeep with my wetsuit config. Don't know if I could drop the weight, never tried it and never needed to.

droppable weights CAN be very handy and they can enhance safety for sure so everyone will decide by him/herself after analyzing the dives they are going to do in the future
I personally think that for me they are not CURRENTLY needed but the situation changes if I do a different type of dive and I may attach the drop weight then if needed.

... I personally think that if you use droppable weights you should definitely practice with them every now and then to know that they work correctly and you get it to your muscle memory. Ideally practicing in shallow water so that it is easy to recover the weights afterwards...


btw, I saw somewhere a tutorial how to attach standard belt weights to the belt with a bungee cord loops so that one could drop them individually if needed but they would be otherwise secured to the belt. just one idea worth mentioning for me it is difficult to handle them with heavy gloves but for warm water diving should be useful

 

[certainmisuse]

Thanks everyone for the responses, extremely helpful!

 

[NorCalDM]

I use the Apeks surelock system on my SST plate for cold water diving they bolt right to the plate nice but not the cheapest. I use an aluminum plate for warm water diving and use a couple trim pockets on the waste band if I need any weight they are cheap ones from Dive Gear Express

 

[dberry]

lmao theres never a need to mount them upside down. its just an excess of caution and to stop the naysayers that say you need dropable weights always. We mount them upside down but we do know we dont need to. Does it hurt anything to mount them upside down? serious question.

you counter four previous posters post your opinion. We know we dont NEED to.

You may have misinterpreted my comment. I was trying to say that the weight pouches I linked are designed to open at the bottom when you pull the velcro-ed tab. Thus you wouldn't want to mount them upside down.

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

If you are looking for an easily ditched option that is comfortable, stable and inexpensive, perhaps a freedive type belt will work for you.

https://www.makospearguns.com/Freedive-Weight-Belt-p/mfdwb.htm

This belt provides several advantages over a traditional nylon belt.

Thanks
Dano

 

[JohnnyC]

If you need ditch-able weight (insert dead horse comment here), just use a loop of bungee threaded through the weight and around your harness waist belt. Put a knot in the middle of the loop (like you would use on a spool) so that you've got a little tab to pull. A quick pop of the bungee and it's loose.

 

[Billy Northrup]

I dislike weight pockets and I find crates of them on the ocean floor, so it seems other may not like them either. I've never had a problem with trim pockets when needed. My preferred method is redundant buoyancy, dual bladder. Issues at the surface I'll ditch gear in a jiffy.