Question Diving with steel tank questions.

[pauldw]

Excellent choice!

 

[Brent Bowman]

Hey guys, thanks for all the great info. I didn't expect so many good responses, I really appreciate it. I'm looking forwards to playing with the steel tanks, we are retiring and moving to Kona full time at the end of the month so I will have lots of time to dive and it is actually pretty low cost entertainment to dive in Kona if you own your own gear and like to shore dive. It will be interesting to see if I can lighten my overall load by a few pounds at least with the steel tanks? Carrying less weight will make walking around on the lava rocks safer for shore diving.

Thanks again,
Brent Bowman

 

[lowwall]

Hey guys, thanks for all the great info. I didn't expect so many good responses, I really appreciate it. I'm looking forwards to playing with the steel tanks, we are retiring and moving to Kona full time at the end of the month so I will have lots of time to dive and it is actually pretty low cost entertainment to dive in Kona if you own your own gear and like to shore dive. It will be interesting to see if I can lighten my overall load by a few pounds at least with the steel tanks? Carrying less weight will make walking around on the lava rocks safer for shore diving.

Thanks again,
Brent Bowman

You'll be 4 pounds lighter over the lava. The tank is 1 lb heavier, but you get to take off 5 pounds of weights.

If you have a conventional BCD, the next step is swapping it for a backplate and wing. That will save you another several pounds for your walk. For example my steel backplate with wing and harness weigh just one pound more than my old XL Zeagle Ranger, yet let me drop 6 pounds of lead.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The backplate will also hold the tank stable while you wobble over the ʻaʻā.

 

[lowwall]

And let us know when you are ready for visitors

 

[Boarderguy]

I'm 5'11" and any 185. With an AL80 I use 8lbs with no wetsuit and a jacket BCD. With my BP/W vs the jacket I'm down to about 4 lbs. Steel tank and I'm at zero. Def take some time to reevaluate your weighting needs as it seems you're very heavy.

My HP steels get filled to between 3700 and 3800 here. I use yoke and haven't had any issues at all. Don't worry one bit. Like others said, you'll be hard pressed to find a shop filling your tanks to their true potential of 3442 in the island. They jam AL80s all day and likely wouldn't even bother to adjust for the higher pressure.

 

[Catito]

Hey guys, thanks for all the great info. I didn't expect so many good responses, I really appreciate it. I'm looking forwards to playing with the steel tanks, we are retiring and moving to Kona full time at the end of the month so I will have lots of time to dive and it is actually pretty low cost entertainment to dive in Kona if you own your own gear and like to shore dive. It will be interesting to see if I can lighten my overall load by a few pounds at least with the steel tanks? Carrying less weight will make walking around on the lava rocks safer for shore diving.

Thanks again,
Brent Bowman

By the way, here in SoFla, I fill at two shops that always fill to 3800 using my steel 80s. Last weekend my tanks were being filled so I used their 100 steels. For both dives I had tanks filled to 4000.

 

[Brent Bowman]

You guys can show me the backplates, wings, and all your cool gear when you come dive in Hawaii. The new steel tanks and getting in lots of dives should keep me busy for a little while. I will have to figure out where to get my new HP tanks filled, we usually do everything with Jacks Diving Locker where we got certified, but there are several other dive shops around so I have quite a few choices if Jacks doesn't work out. I have a friend in Kona that does alot of diving and uses steel tanks so I will have a good source of info there once I get a chance to dive with him again, if I remember correctly he told me one time that he was diving with no lead when he was telling me about his cool steel tanks, so I should have a good source of live instruction there. The other thing I am looking forwards to is having a little more air, I frequently dive with a very experienced petite female from our condo complex that can stay down for 10 or 15 minutes longer than I can, she is going to be surprised when I don't have to go in early.

Thanks again, I really appreciate all the info,
Brent Bowman