first dry suit

[RJP]

ift bag as back up buoyancy is no longer a practice and is only given as advice if there is simply no other option. .

If you don't have a drysuit... you simply have no other option.
If my wing and my drysuit both fail... I simply have no other option.

 

[nimoh]

Since you mentioned DIR earlier, you might want to consider that your buddy probably has a perfectly good wing in a case where yours fails, and mostly likely willing to share its lift with you.

 

[Yoyoguy]

Victors point was that if your suit only takes 20lbs to sink, then it is only 20lbs + weight of gas that you have to swim up. You should be able to kick up at least 10lbs without fins. 20lbs with fins is not fun but possible and that assumes total wing failure which is somewhat rare, you can usually get a few pounds in there. The important bit is to make sure that your total ballast doesn't exceed the wetsuit, which is a balanced rig. That also said, you shouldn't need 20lbs to sink that wetsuit, that sounds high...

Tbone...I have done numerous weight checks...I may be able to get another 1lb off but when I dropped 2lbs I was floated at the end of the dive trying to maintain a safety stop. Anyways...what about the 5lbs negative your tank is at depth at the start of the dive? And I don't understand how a balanced rig makes your regulator setup which is 4lbs negtive...float? I did a test this past weekend...took my wing off the backplate and sunk it in about a foot of water...I then place my regulator setup on it and it definitely sank so what...may I ask
...is keeping that floating? If nothing then wouldn't that be added to the total weight you would need to swim up?

 

[tbone1004]

here's how weight checks work. You have 4 factors
Buoyancy of you
Buoyancy of suit
Buoyancy of rig
Buoyancy of gas

Buoyancy of rig is the only one that you can control. So you find out how much lead it takes to sink you without a wetsuit, you find out how much it takes to sink the wetsuit, then you take a luggage scale and weigh the rig in the water. With tank. Subtract the weight of the gas in the tank, and the difference in you+wetsuit-rig is how much lead you have to carry. Weight of gas in tank+weight required to sink the wetsuit is the size wing you need.

Now, you should never dive a rig that you can't kick up with a total wing failure. This is why the DIR crowd does not allow thick wetsuits with steel doubles, or when diving "deep", my limit is usually around 80ft with a thick wetsuit *anything over 5mm*. Thinner wetsuits don't lose enough buoyancy to matter, but when you're losing 20lbs of ballast, you are diving a very unbalanced rig and that's an issue. We require our students to carry a 10lb diving brick up from the bottom and swim with it at the surface to the edge of the pool in just their bathing suit. With fins you should easily be able to generate 20lbs of thrust to get you up to 30-40ft where the suit will start to take over. If you can't kick that rig up, you have no business diving it.

 

[Keith.M]

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cl...l-dui-tls-350-like-new.html?highlight=keith.m

I'm just saying...

 

[Yoyoguy]

here's how weight checks work. You have 4 factors
Buoyancy of you
Buoyancy of suit
Buoyancy of rig
Buoyancy of gas

Buoyancy of rig is the only one that you can control. So you find out how much lead it takes to sink you without a wetsuit, you find out how much it takes to sink the wetsuit, then you take a luggage scale and weigh the rig in the water. With tank. Subtract the weight of the gas in the tank, and the difference in you+wetsuit-rig is how much lead you have to carry. Weight of gas in tank+weight required to sink the wetsuit is the size wing you need.

Now, you should never dive a rig that you can't kick up with a total wing failure. This is why the DIR crowd does not allow thick wetsuits with steel doubles, or when diving "deep", my limit is usually around 80ft with a thick wetsuit *anything over 5mm*. Thinner wetsuits don't lose enough buoyancy to matter, but when you're losing 20lbs of ballast, you are diving a very unbalanced rig and that's an issue. We require our students to carry a 10lb diving brick up from the bottom and swim with it at the surface to the edge of the pool in just their bathing suit. With fins you should easily be able to generate 20lbs of thrust to get you up to 30-40ft where the suit will start to take over. If you can't kick that rig up, you have no business diving it.

I guess I have no business diving it then...because I practiced this exact situation this past weekend and it was very difficult until I started getting past the 60ft mark then it got progressively easier until the surface. I couldn't imagine it 100ft...but I have also been practicing the whole lift bag thing to...but I do not feel confident I could use that in an emergency situation. I guess I'll keep all my dives shallower until I get a dry suit.

 

[PfcAJ]

correct me if im wrong, and I am wrong a lot as I am a new diver, BUT ive been told by many tech divers, DIR divers and others (all on this scubaboard) that lift bag as back up buoyancy is no longer a practice and is only given as advice if there is simply no other option. They basically told me to either buy a dry suit OR limit my deep dives, unless I consistently practice using a lift bag as a buoyancy device on a routine bases to make it second nature in an emergency because we all know that it is one thing to "know" what you need to do in an emergency and quite another to "DO" what you need to do in an emergency.

The issue with a lift bag is that its not practical to use in a hurry, which is likely what you'll be needing to do if you have a sudden loss of buoyancy. Example: you jump in the water and your elbow busts off your wing. Down you go.

With al80 doubles and a wetsuit, you can use your flippers to stop from sinking. With heavy steels and a drysuit, you can use your drysuit to stop from sinking. With heavy steels and a wetsuit, you've gotta dig out your lift bag and inflate it (dont drop that ****!) all while sinking, ears screaming, buddy god-knows-where, etc. When you're on the surface, sure, get out your bag or whatever and hang out. But in the act of sinking? Good luck.

Get a drysuit. Its money well spent and a good one will last you a long time if you take care of it. Plus it makes colder water way more comfortable and goes a long way toward overall enjoyment of the dive. Drysuits are sweet.

 

[tbone1004]

did AJ just say flippers !! GASP!

but no, you are correct, if you can't kick it up off the bottom you shouldn't be diving that configuration, it sucks to say, but it's true. You need a second form of buoyancy, or strong enough legs to get you back to the surface. Sucks, but it is what it is. Options are drysuit, don't dive so deep, or drysuit.... Sorry, but that's really the only safe way of going about this.

 

[Chicken SCUBA]

the issue is neither trim nor is it the BCd/wing being full...its IF the wing or BCD should fail, there would be NO way for you to swim up that amount of weight. I dive 7mm one piece. I need 8lbs lead, plus 12lbs between my backplate and my 6lb weighted STA. That's 20lbs. Now add in 4lbs for your 1st/2nd stage regulator set-up. Now we are at 24lbs extra weight. Then factor in all other objects which may be negatively buoyant and finally if the failure happens at the start of your dive, even an aluminum 80 is about 2lbs negative. So say 26+ pounds which you now need to swim up (aint going to happen unless you are a true athletic swimmer). This is why it is recommended to have a second buoyancy source (one reason why dual bladder wings came out but people are against those as well). so the option remains to either get a dry suit OR use a lift bag (which is far from a best practice and is actually frowned upon but is better than nothing

Ahh! I see now. It was the " unbalanced at 100' " that was throwing me off but I understand what you mean now. (balanced rig)

If your rec diving and you should be from you original post, then as Kwinter said "dump weights". The point of recreational limits is that no matter what you can always make an emergency assent without killing yourself. If you're sinking uncontrollably for any reason, your having an emergency.

But back to the point of the tread, does anyone have an opinion on the light duty dry-suits like Fusion one?

 

[oldschoolto]

Good thing you guys were not diving in the golden age of 7mm wetsuits... Steel doubles with a pony... No SPG's.... NO BCD's... Not even horse collars were out yet.. Swim down and find a rock to stick in the front of your wetsuit if need....

Jim...