First BCD, want integrated weights, mostly for travel

[purbeast]

Yeah I was overweighted for sure. In the pool I had 10lbs if i remember correctly.

When I started my checkout dives with a 3mm full wetsuit, I had 14lbs of weight.

After my OW dives and we started the AOW dives, I was running out of air before everyone and my instructor noticed I had too much air in my BCD, so we tried 8lbs.

Even that was too much so we went to 6lbs and it was perfect. I hardly used my BCD at all.

Then on my first "real" dives after being certified, I used 6lbs (3lb each side) and it was perfect again.

FWIW, I'm 200lbs with athletic/body builder build. I definitely have more muscle mass than fat so that explains my density. I remember feeling like I was going to drown doing my 10 minute tread as other people were just hanging out having conversations. I can't float on my back either with my face out of water.

 

[bvbellomo]

This has nothing to do with BCD's, but for those curious, fat has an average density of 0.9094 g/cm3 and Muscle 1.0599 g/cm3. So almost 2lbs of muscle + 1lbs of fat is neutrally buoyant in fresh water. Fat is going to vary very little, and muscle doesn't vary much between individuals at the same hydration level. So everyone thinks someone with a high muscle/fat ratio sinks and someone with a high fat/muscle ratio floats, but pure fat is still over 90% the density of water and pure muscle is under 106% - so this is true, but any combination of the 2 is close to neutrally buoyant.

The interesting variation is probably in bone. 1 lbs of bone offsets more fat than 12lbs of muscle using the average values, but bone is going to vary a lot more than muscle or fat. Pure calcium carbonate is almost 3 times as dense as water. So someone with high bone density (which refers to calcium content - not weight, but probably correlates to weight) and thicker bones may need less weight than someone shredded with average bones and lots of muscle. This is probably why I can't float on my back or at eye level, even though no one is going to mistake me for a body builder.

Densities of Different Body Matter
Calcium carbonate - Wikipedia

 

[bvbellomo]

I went with the Covert. I think it fits, but wanted other people's opinion.

 

[bvbellomo]

I want to clarify, I didn't adjust the straps yet and have plenty of play with the width in both directions. I am wondering if a few inches more length would be better.