horizontal ascent...

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I prefer not to have one hand tied up. Especially the one holding my cave light. But if that works for you, cool.
 
PerroneFord:
I prefer not to have one hand tied up. Especially the one holding my cave light. But if that works for you, cool.
Likely most useful in open water, but in terms of occupying a hand, what else is there for that hand to do whilst ascending? You can still aim your light if you needed to, no? You're going to have to use that hand to stop your ascent eventually.
 
That hand, during ascent is there to manage buoyancy, and to take care of handling the spool or reel in open water if ascending on a bag. Yes, it is going to be used anyway, but burping the wing takes 3 seconds. Holding the corrugated hose for the entire ascent is a different matter entirely. Aiming a light while trying to move the inflator up and down seems like it would be harder than necessary. When I vent, I move my light to the right hand for a moment, vent, then return it.

Again, different ways to handle a task.
 
Icarusflies:
That makes sense. So the ascend is started by taking large breath and is controlled by venting just enough gas not to be negative....I see how this can take some practice.
What worked for me is to simply first learn how to hold a good solid 15' safety stop while horizontal. You will move a bit upwards as you breathe in, and down a bit as you breathe out. Once you have mastered staying at one depth through breathing, then it is a very natural and easy step to start controlling the ascent.

Baby steps first. :)

Charlie Allen
 
In order for this to work, it looks like your trim would need to be slightly head up and not horizontal. Also, with my evolve wing, with not much gas in the wing it doesn't migrate around inside the wing too easily so once I am in a nice slightly head down trim position , it tends to take a lot of head up trim to move the air from the back of the wing to the front of the wing where it can be vented through the inflator hose. Thoughts?
 
All well and good in warm water....but the venting control on a drysuit is less precise. ;) You also wind up having to incline your body slightly to get the air to the vent. I find that a slightly inclined ascent works best in a drysuit...you can level back out at 15...and then I usually go vertical from there on up (no worry about silting in OW if I'm in more than 20'...:) ).

Cheers,
Austin
 
3-Ring Octopus:
All well and good in warm water....but the venting control on a drysuit is less precise. ;) You also wind up having to incline your body slightly to get the air to the vent. I find that a slightly inclined ascent works best in a drysuit...you can level back out at 15...and then I usually go vertical from there on up (no worry about silting in OW if I'm in more than 20'...:) ).

Cheers,
Austin

In practice, it's not a problem. I can do a primarily horizontal ascent with no problem in my drysuit. You do have to dip your knees down a bit to vent from your feet every so often.
 
I find the slightly inclined ascent (we aren't talking 45 degrees here...but it also isn't "horizontal"...:) ) to work best...YMMV. It also gives me a bit better feel for my "bubble". Especially in the neoprene drysuit, I find that sometimes air can get "lost" in the increasingly bouyant feel of the suit as you ascend.

Cheers,
Austin
 
Bismark:
it tends to take a lot of head up trim to move the air from the back of the wing to the front of the wing where it can be vented through the inflator hose. Thoughts?

Why are you venting with the inflator hose?
 

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