Has anyone ever had to ditch their weight?

[livewire]

While I myself have never ditched weights, my buddy ditched his while we were together. We were diving the back side of this shallow reef at Crystal Cove (fka Treasure Island, aka Pelican Point) in relatively shallow water, 20 fsw or so. The reef is actually exposed and clears the surface. I watched Mark get higher and higher on this back wall, and then next thing I knew this big set rolls through, and I saw this wave come in and in a flash he was gone. I swam away from the reef, got caught up in the set myself, and then surfaced to see him standing a top this reef, wetsuit mangled, holding one fin in his hand, BC hanging funny. I just had to laugh. He was fine, humbled, but fine, with the worst part being his BC wasn't holding air and strap seemed broken. Fin strap was broken, too. We naturally ended the dive at that point, but he had to ditch his weights in order to stay buoyant and able to make the swim back with one fin.

Separately, in Rescue you're taught that panicked divers will consider their rescuer an island and first thing you want them to do is get buoyant. The rescue diver is taught to release weights for the panicked diver if they don't do it themselves.

 

[captndale]

I have been diving for 35 years. I have been an instructor for 30 years and have operated a dive charter boat for 15 years. In all that time, I have only witnessed one incident of a diver voluntarily dropping his own weights. I have seen a very few cases of a rescuer or buddy removing the weights of a diver in trouble or exhausted. I have, however, witnessed literally hundreds of cases of divers accidentally loosing their weights.

 

[Peter_C]

I have never known anyone that had to dump weight nor had to dump weights myself.

Sadly most deceased divers are found with their weight belts on. Especially abalone divers. If on the surface and in trouble, get rid of the weight belt as fast as possible. Objects can be replaced lives can not.

On that note I would only ditch at the surface, and keep my weight belt safe under my crotch strap. No way do I want to go rocketing to the surface. Still easy enough to ditch the weight belt, by first releasing the BP/W strap, then undoing the weight belt buckle...good bye.

Now I have known a couple of people who lost their integrated weights. Scary stuff if in deeper water.

 

[drbill]

In nearly 50 years of diving I have never HAD to ditch my weights although there were a few situations where ditching them would have made things easier. I just didn't want to dive back down to 200 ft to retrieve them.

The only weight I've had to ditch is the buoyant stuff around my belly. Time to do it again. Sigh.

 

[driftwood]

I have never known anyone that had to dump weight nor had to dump weights myself.

Sadly most deceased divers are found with their weight belts on. Especially abalone divers. If on the surface and in trouble, get rid of the weight belt as fast as possible. Objects can be replaced lives can not.

On that note I would only ditch at the surface, and keep my weight belt safe under my crotch strap. No way do I want to go rocketing to the surface. Still easy enough to ditch the weight belt, by first releasing the BP/W strap, then undoing the weight belt buckle...good bye.

Now I have known a couple of people who lost their integrated weights. Scary stuff if in deeper water.

The figure I heard on the percentage of deceased divers was 90% still had weights. Seems to me that a lot of those folks would still be around if they had dumped weights. We are all taught that it is better to handle problems underwater. I think there are a lot of exceptions to that rule. At 200psi, the chamber is a better option than the coffin.

 

[diver35]

I have never had to ditch weights myself, but I have had my weights ditch me when entering the water off a boat. Luckily we were in about 40' of water and we were able to retrieve the pouches. So make sure if you are integrated the the pouches are in and secure.

 

[katdiver]

I've seen it done once. At the end of a dive, this guy, a Sports Diver by his agency came up to me and showed his SPG with 20 bar. I offered him my octopus, but he wouldn't take it. Within a minute he had dropped his belt and shot to the surface. By the way, his agency doen't teach CESA, although buoyant ascent seems to be a preferred option to an octopus connected to a tank with usable air in it!

 

[Gary D.]

Being in my fifth decade of diving I have HAD to drop my weights a lot. But never outside of training. I have also done a lot of dives with a second belt after finding one on the bottom. Not bad by today's standards but it was a real bear before the BC or dry suit days.


Gary D.

 

[MichiganScott]

I think people should take any weights they find, if for no other reason than helping prevent littering the sea floor with toxic metals. Just as I collect trash while hiking, I'll take anything I find during a dive that doesn't belong there. If someone claims it later on the boat, all the better. If nobody claims it, I have done my little share to keep the ocean a little cleaner. By the same rationale, I will always try NOT to dump my weight. I can't really see a lot of situations where one really has to. IMO, ditching weights is advocated way too liberally in dive training. If we put the same emphasis on proper weighting, weight ditching would be a non-issue in all but the most severe cases.

Outstanding response! I wish everyone had that philosophy.

 

[Road Guy]

if you find a weight pocket at the Benwood in Key Largo let me know, I didnt have to ascend but at some point between getting off the boat and getting back in I lost one

the boat crew said they find them all the time on the bottom, they said they generally (after abusy weekend) will go back to the shallow reefs and find knifes, watches, compass, weights, etc.
I guess those guys are pirates after all