How do you wear your weight?

[RoadRacer1978]

10 lbs in ditchable weight pockets in my bcd. Works well in the fresh water enviroments I have been diving in and haven't need to move the weight around as it puts my perfectly horizontal in the water. Only problem I have had is that no matter how hard I try I cannot ascend/descend in the feet down position. As I start to descend my body position automatically becomes horizontal and stays that way throughout the dive. I like it, but some people may not prefer that.

 

[MSilvia]

So does anyone think there is a disadvantage to doing this?

Yes, there is one that I can think of. If you have to remove your BC for any reason while under water, it's going to become significantly negative without the buoyancy of your exposure protection, and you are going to become significantly positive without any weights. It would be safer in that (somewhat unlikely) situation if some of your weight was not attached to the BC.

 

[nereas]

Don't you mean to get yourself positively bouyant on the surface?

I agree with of what you said othe than this, this just seems wrong to say ditchable weight and getting neutrally bouyant in the same sentence.

I really do mean neutrally buoyant. This way I can then control my ascent with a CESA by kicking up easily.

If I were to be positively buoyant, as you suggest, then I would start to skyrocket up, and could not stop, and might bump into the bottom of a boat, and might also come up so quickly that it would trigger DCS, and also I would then have no option to perform a safety stop, if that were still feasible.

If I ever needed to get quickly positively buoyant at the surface, I would simply just ditch my gear. I wear my shoulder straps loosely, precisely so that I can quickly get out of the scuba gear, and back into my natural element, which is as a freediver. The drysuit would then make me quite positively buoyant at the surface, with a full tank, near the beginning of my dive.

Near the end of my dive, simply ditching my belt will in fact make me positively buoyant at the surface, since my tank by then will be about empty, and therefore without my belt at the end of my dive I would be about 6 lbs positively buoyant. That is the whole purpose of my weight belt, to keep me neutrally buoyant at the end of my dive, when my tank is empty and lite.

 

[DeepBound]

I have it strapped to the top of my shoulders. Equal amount on each side to keep it balanced. (for sidemount)

 

[nereas]

Weightbelts always made my back hurt - so ever since I've had a weight-integrated BC, I don't see any reason for a weightbelt. Tech and DIR are different of course.

For tech, your weight belt would likely only be around 12 lbs, and this does not hurt. In fact, you don't even feel it there.

The extra reg, the manifold, the bands, the extra steel tank, etc., all add enough weight to chop down your weight belt requirements significantly.

 

[Rockhound76]

Yes, there is one that I can think of. If you have to remove your BC for any reason while under water, it's going to become significantly negative without the buoyancy of your exposure protection, and you are going to become significantly positive without any weights. It would be safer in that (somewhat unlikely) situation if some of your weight was not attached to the BC.

This is a very good point. I have, on at least two occasions, been forced to remove my rig while diving. The first time, I was wearing a weightbelt and wetsuit with only a trim weight on the band (neutral w/ an empty AL80). It was very easy to manage the rig. The second time, I was warm-water diving and the weights (about 8lbs.) were in my Ranger.

It was not so easy and I would have been unable to do this in a wetsuit (another reason I wear a weightbelt or harness for cold, er COOL water diving...this IS Texas yaknow, and my coldwater is not YOUR coldwater.).

 

[Homunculus]

2 weight pockets on my harness. i don't like wearing a separate weight belt. i can easily ditch soft weights from my weight pockets in i have to.

 

[Charlie99]

I find putting all of the lead in my weight integrated pockets is best with a thin wetsuit, but with thicker wetsuits, it is best to spread the weight around between belt and BCD.

I find that removing and replacing my weight integrated BCD mid-water is reasonably easy when wearing a 3/2 mm full wetsuit. With a 5mm full wetsuit and all of the lead in the BCD pockets, it gets a bit tricky. The BCD + lead wants to sink, me and my wetsuit want to pop up. With 7mm wetsuit, I put part of the lead on a weightbelt, even though with my skinny hips and no butt the belt wants to slip off when I'm vertical. Not only does a weightbelt with the 7mm keep my buoyancy in a reasonable range, trying to put all of the lead into the pockets of my BCD is pushing the limits of what it can hold, making inadvertant ditching of the pockets more likely.


My advice to the original poster is to take off his BCD, adjust the tank camband, and then put the BCD back on, all while at about 15' depth. If you can easily do it, then go ahead and leave all the lead in the BCD. If you have problems, then look at putting some of the lead onto a belt or harness.

Obviously, my comments about lead in a WI BCD also apply to steel backplates, negatively buoyant steel tanks, STAs, and keel weights in BP/W rig.

 

[ChainSaw0069]

I use a weight harness, not enough butt to hold up a belt.

 

[fweber]

I have to reinforce what has been said by a couple of others. Having all your weight in your BC is not a great idea if you need to remove your bc for any reason and I think you should be able to do this. I used to carry all my weight in integrated pockets, until I had a cam band come loose and my partner was unable to get it secured. Upon doffing my bc, I was now very positively bouyant, while m bc was nearly 20 pounds negative and trying to head back for the bottom. I was extremely uncomfortable to say the least, as I grabbed my second stage as the rig pulled it from my mouth. I managed to get things back together with my leg wrapped in the anchor rode and holding tight to my bc. I'm immediatelyafterward went back to carrying the majority of my weight on a belt and using the ditchable and nonditchable on the bc to mearly make it neutral when the tank is empty and to help trim. I've since become one of those softpack converts for single tank diving, and a bp/w user when diving doubles.

YMMV