dry suit hover need instructor help

[s7595]

thanks freefloat , on sunday and last wed evening ,dropped to 32lbs weight.I am useing a tri-lam shell suit and underware.the reason I got neutral at end of dive is I kept putting air in.I will explain when we droped down on bouy I hit enflator to reduce squeeze,then a couple of more taps .I tend to swim with my legs down and torso up ,have trie to correct this many times ,as the dive went along I would add some air and try and lift my legs.felt realy bad a sI was sturing up silt on dam site while buddy is floating llike butterfly.on surface my buddy and I discussed my swiming and leg postion.on second dive we worked on all my faults.I do belive maybe a couple of more lbs off .when I had the runaway ascents at surface had to realy vent suit to get back down again and start all over.so my ?is if I have to much weight why then when I vent air going up and continue to vent did I not drop like stone ?. thanks again this board is a real help

 

[FreeFloat]

thanks freefloat , on sunday and last wed evening ,dropped to 32lbs weight.I am useing a tri-lam shell suit and underware.the reason I got neutral at end of dive is I kept putting air in.I will explain when we droped down on bouy I hit enflator to reduce squeeze,then a couple of more taps .I tend to swim with my legs down and torso up ,have trie to correct this many times ,as the dive went along I would add some air and try and lift my legs.felt realy bad a sI was sturing up silt on dam site while buddy is floating llike butterfly.on surface my buddy and I discussed my swiming and leg postion.on second dive we worked on all my faults.I do belive maybe a couple of more lbs off .when I had the runaway ascents at surface had to realy vent suit to get back down again and start all over.so my ?is if I have to much weight why then when I vent air going up and continue to vent did I not drop like stone ?. thanks again this board is a real help

IMO - and I'm certainly no expert - if you have too much weight to start with, you have little choice but to compensate by adding too much air to either your suit or BC - the problem with this is, any time you ascend even a little bit (even a tiny bit in shallower water!) this extra air expands and makes it so you ascend double or triple as fast as you can correct. The solution of course is not to put in as much air - which you can only do if you're not wearing so much weight that you need that much air. Kind of a vicious circle.

As to why you don't do the cannonball when you dump air - I would venture a guess that like everything else underwater it takes time to see an effect - like when you take an big breath or let one out - there's always that pause before you see movement in the water column. Besides even the most efficient dump valves may not be capable of dumping air fast enough to turn you into a downward missile.

As for swimming with legs down and torso up - you should be swimming pretty well horizontally for maximum efficiency. I found for myself that I only 'sit up' in the water, and it's only very very slightly off horizontal, when I'm actually tapping air into my drysuit - and this is very rare. When my arms get a little stiff due to squeeze is the only time I'll add air, and usually just a tap or two. As a result on a dive to 80' I may tough my inflator only 3 or 4 times at most. Besdies that gives me less air to have to vent on the way up.

YMMV. I'm a newbie at this and still learning, but I just thought I'd share some of my little "ah-ha!" moments with you.

 

[Rick Inman]

This stement alone tends to suggest that perhaps you had a few too many pounds on to begin with, as a tank becomes "lighter" at the end of the dive - so, if you found buoyancy easier at the end of the dive this would make sense.

A little over a year ago, I started asking questions about dry suit diving and everyone kept saying I had too much weight. But I couldn't seem to get down with less, or stay neutral at the end of the dive. Now it is a year later and in fresh water I wear NO weight (with BP and steel95). It took time. But what I really needed to improve on was really getting ALL the air out of both BC and dry suit.
I might suggest that you take all this great input you're getting and not try to make it all happen in one dive, but work on it as you continue to become more proficient with time. Before you know it you'll have dropped half your weight and being neutral diving dry will be second nature.
I know when I'm correctly weighted when, on the surface - at the beginning of the dive - I let ALL the air out of my BC and ALL the air out of my dry suit and then still need to exhale all the way to begin to descend. I do use my BC (wing) for buoyancy control, but not much. If I'm weighted correctly, as I add air to my dry suit on decent to remove squeeze, I'll end up pretty close to neutral anyway, with just maybe a tiny burst in my wing.
There are LOTS of posts on all this, and, like me, I'm sure you'll learn a lot from, and enjoy reading them.
Have fun!

 

[SubMariner]

thanks freefloat , on sunday and last wed evening ,dropped to 32lbs weight.I am useing a tri-lam shell suit and underware.the reason I got neutral at end of dive is I kept putting air in.I will explain when we droped down on bouy I hit enflator to reduce squeeze,then a couple of more taps .I tend to swim with my legs down and torso up ,have trie to correct this many times ,as the dive went along I would add some air and try and lift my legs.felt realy bad a sI was sturing up silt on dam site while buddy is floating llike butterfly.on surface my buddy and I discussed my swiming and leg postion.on second dive we worked on all my faults.I do belive maybe a couple of more lbs off .when I had the runaway ascents at surface had to realy vent suit to get back down again and start all over.so my ?is if I have to much weight why then when I vent air going up and continue to vent did I not drop like stone ?. thanks again this board is a real help

I suggest you take a FULL drysuit course. It will shorten your learning curve and eliminate a fair bit of this trial & error stuff.

No offense to your buddy, but he's your buddy, not an Instructor. Look for someone who is acredited to teach the Specialty; you'll notice a difference.

Bonne chance,

 

[s7595]

sub mariner
as well as taking my aow ,I have added the dry suit specialty.the problem is my instructor .he i sthe type of man that can offer no help what so ever,just keeps telling me my breathing is out of sinc with the riseing and falling.I know instrutors are in it for the money and do not blame him for that,but after 2 times same problem you would at least think he would offer some time to work with me on the hover , not this dude.I would even pay for his time as I love the sport and want to be a better diver

 

[SubMariner]

sub mariner
as well as taking my aow ,I have added the dry suit specialty.the problem is my instructor .he i sthe type of man that can offer no help what so ever,just keeps telling me my breathing is out of sinc with the riseing and falling.I know instrutors are in it for the money and do not blame him for that,but after 2 times same problem you would at least think he would offer some time to work with me on the hover , not this dude.I would even pay for his time as I love the sport and want to be a better diver

Question: How do you make a small fortune in the SCUBA business?
Answer: start with a LARGE one!

Ok, not a great joke, but a truism all the same. I can assure you that very few of us Instructors are "in it for the money".

You probably know this already, but you need a new Instructor. This one is not doing his job.

 

[eponym]

s7595, hi.

I can sympathize. I've been working on drysuit finesse myself this past week, at a lake in Oregon (elevation 2000', temps in the low '50s). I'll describe what I'm doing in case it gives you any ideas.

I put out my dive flag float, attached to a small anchor, in about forty feet of water. So I have a nice stable vertical line for reference. I can hover right next to the line, looking at its braid to see whether I'm going up or down--that's much better feedback than the one-foot increments my dive computer reports.

So first I'll descend, adding air in small increments as needed with the goal of moving down slowly (about ten feet per minute) and never having to hit the brakes nor finding myself starting back up. I try to not touch the line, just stay facing it and use it for reference.

When I'm all the way down, I'll relax with a bit of hovering off the bottom, some finning practice, some compass navigation.

Now it's time for the ascent. Again, I'm aiming for control at every moment, for never having to contort my body or fin back down. I use the line for reference but don't hold on to it (well, actually I did mostly hold on to it the first two dives).

What works for me is leaving my deflate valve turned all the way open throughout the dive, so on the way up it's venting continuously (this won't work so well if you're overweighted). I also need to help the venting along from time to time by flexing in my BC straps to move air up, flexing my vent arm up or down, pushing the manual override, that sort of thing. And this needs to happen all the way up, even in the last five feet. Actually, the amount of attention required to make a really controlled ascent surprised me.

My dive computer is set for a ten-second sampling rate. Today's two dives show ascent profiles from 40 feet as a smooth and constant six feet per minute, plus a safety stop. I'm jazzed. It didn't take that long to get this far, but it did require doing some diving with nothing else on the menu, so I could concentrate on this and note what worked and what didn't. Breath control is a huge factor, and when you're neutral (or slightly negative and finning) all the way up, you can move up or down by inches at will. It's a gas.

Good luck!
Bryan

 

[s7595]

hi eponym
thanks for the tip ,you are so rite the line can help .but the key is the breathing and when I get it in my brain ,the hover will be easy

 

[SubMariner]

hi eponym
thanks for the tip ,you are so rite the line can help .but the key is the breathing and when I get it in my brain ,the hover will be easy

You are putting a lot of pressure on yourself.

Yes, this drysuit thing DOES take practice.
No, it can't all be learned at once.

DSDO,