Question Do you ever practice dropping weights and handling the unexpected ascent?

[tursiops]

BSAC also covers uncontrolled ascents

What do you mean, "covers?" If you mean talks about, OK, that's what PADI does. If you mean practices in open water, that's crazy.

 

[Blackcrusader]

What do you mean, "covers?" If you mean talks about, OK, that's what PADI does. If you mean practices in open water, that's crazy.

No not practiced. Covered in the manual. Manual specifically states not to practice this.

 

[rx7diver]

@LightBrownPillow,

No, never practiced this per se.

However, during my open water checkout (YMCA/NAUI, in 1987), we had to perform a "lost weight belt at depth, weight belt recovery" drill: On the surface, wearing full gear (full 0.25" two-piece farmer John wetsuit with hood and gloves) with a full cylinder and completely empty BC and weighted correctly, but with snorkel (rather than 2nd stage reg) in our mouth, we would take a breath and do a competent surface dive down (kick down) to our instructor who was waiting on the bottom, 20-25 ft below. Then we would signal "okay", drop our weight belt, immediately retrieve it and don it, signal "okay", and return to the surface using our best skindiving technique (i.e., "look up, reach up, rotate 360 degrees as you come up").

The drill was meant to emphasize that even at a relatively shallow depth, a wetsuit will have compressed enough, and therefore lost enough positive buoyancy, that losing your weight belt at depth will not put you immediately into an uncontrolled ascent.

rx7diver

 

[34109411]

not really

 

[rjack321]

Since this isn't even practiced in open water or any other class because it's too risky liability wise... Practicing on your own seems equally unwise.

 

[Miyaru]

I was on a dive recently with a rental BCD which had all my weight in the two drop pockets.
....
So I'm curious fellow divers:, do you ever take time to go to a pool or maybe 20ft deep open water area and just practice dropping your weights and handling the quick decisions required to keep the situation safe?

How about preventing such a situation?

• The idea of dropping weights is to make yourself positively buoyant at depth in order to be able to ascend.
• Non-droppable weight (that is properly secured to your set) should be added to make your set balanced.

If you dive between 3m/10ft and 6m/20ft, you should only have to add a tiny amount of air to your BC to offset the weight of a full cylinder. At the end of your dive, with about 50bar remaining tank pressure, you should be neutral without any air in your BC at the safety stop.

If a weight-drop results in an uncontrolled ascent to the surface, you simply have too much lead in your weight-belt or in your drop-pockets. A weightbelt with more than 6kg/13lb of lead is a suicide-belt.

 

[johndiver999]

A weightbelt with more than 6kg/13lb of lead is a suicide-belt.


LOL,, that is so silly. These type of generalizations get repeated and they really don't make much sense.

 

[Ez E]

If you are going to practice it, always make sure to look down first

 

[LightBrownPillow]

Thanks for all the perspectives everyone. My concern was more about knowing how to react to an uncontrolled ascent vs why I would drop the weights in the first place, since this situation I went through was an accidental drop. The true ideal is to never have one but I just want to get the smart response into my brain. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail" and all that.

Maybe I'll just take a moment on future dives to assume the inverted skydiving pose and think about the breath control at least, rather than actively dropping my weights in a pool repeatedly.

 

[MB NZ]

Just for fun...

I remember coming across a wide-eyed diver holding on to the hand rail of a wreck, feet up. He'd lost his weight belt which was on the deck of the wreck. Not sure what his plan was if I hadn't have come along!