How much additional weight?

[Mike Veitch]

Finally, a good response on the "you're overweighted" bigots, when they see 20+ #'s. There are too many factors in play to make generalizations about specific body types, equipment and weighting needs.

In a 7mil, and a steel 100, I am perfectly neutral, with 500 #'s gas and an empty BC, at 10 feet. By controlling breathing, I can hover at 3 a foot depth. I carry 26#'s with this configuration.

Now, if I can only say the same about my bouyancy control when diving dry!!!!

Bigot? I take offense to that ya Jacka**.
I wasn't making a generalization, i was trying to help someone to not drastically overweight themselves by doubling their weight in one swift go.
If you continued to read the rest of the thread, instead of going off on a little tantrum, you will find we discussed things further.

Hate to tell you this Ricky but it's not from lack of observation, in five years as a full time dive guide i have seen literally thousands of people ranging from somewhat to drastically overweighted who absolutely insist they are not overweighted whilst swimming in a lovely vertical position. Luckily most will listen to an experienced person, take 2 pounds off for a few dives, then 2 more later etc. Not only do they become more comfortable, they become better on air.
Thankfully i suggest these things in a professional manner with these people.
Obviously you could learn from this as well as you have self proclaimed buoyancy problems.
What I don't do is call someone a bigot!

 

[rickyd]

Bigot? I take offense to that ya Jacka**.
I wasn't making a generalization, i was trying to help someone to not drastically overweight themselves by doubling their weight in one swift go.
If you continued to read the rest of the thread, instead of going off on a little tantrum, you will find we discussed things further.

Hate to tell you this Ricky but it's not from lack of observation, in five years as a full time dive guide i have seen literally thousands of people ranging from somewhat to drastically overweighted who absolutely insist they are not overweighted whilst swimming in a lovely vertical position. Luckily most will listen to an experienced person, take 2 pounds off for a few dives, then 2 more later etc. Not only do they become more comfortable, they become better on air.
Thankfully i suggest these things in a professional manner with these people.
Obviously you could learn from this as well as you have self proclaimed buoyancy problems.
What I don't do is call someone a bigot!

Bigot may be a little too strong, but then again, jacka$$ is definietly overdoing it!

There are way too many posts in this forum where folks think that anything over 15-20#'s is too much lead, and where they assume the their body/gear characteristics apply to everyone. I agree that doubling up ( or halving ) weight immediately is bad bad bad. But, the point made was that the right amount of weight is the right amount. Whether it's 5#'s or 35#'s.

 

[Grajan]

Back from Oz and here is the scoop.

We fiddled around for a bit (mainly trim - see below) but the end result was we could (JUST) stay down for a safety stop with 21lb of lead so the 24lb estimate was not far off. This was with Al 80's. We did one dive with Steels and dropped that to 15lb. We did very careful trim checks and this was just right.

The most interesting phenomena of thicker wetsuits was 'floaty leg syndrome'. We normally have weight evenly distributed between the back pockets (Balance WI BC) and the waist pockets but this sure did not work for the 7mm's. We ended up moving all but 3lb in the waist pockets.

We had a great time by the way. It was definitely worth carrying all that gear round the world when we saw others aborting second dives due to being too cold in rental wetsuits.

Let us know how much extra weight you needed.

 

[donacheson]

Back from Oz and here is the scoop.

We fiddled around for a bit (mainly trim - see below) but the end result was we could (JUST) stay down for a safety stop with 21lb of lead so the 24lb estimate was not far off. This was with Al 80's. We did one dive with Steels and dropped that to 15lb. We did very careful trim checks and this was just right.

The most interesting phenomena of thicker wetsuits was 'floaty leg syndrome'. We normally have weight evenly distributed between the back pockets (Balance WI BC) and the waist pockets but this sure did not work for the 7mm's. We ended up moving all but 3lb in the waist pockets.

We had a great time by the way. It was definitely worth carrying all that gear round the world when we saw others aborting second dives due to being too cold in rental wetsuits.

Thanks. Do you know which steels tanks? 21 pounds with an Al80 and 15 pounds with a small steel tank is a bigger difference than I'd have expected, but certainly within reason.

Sounds as if you weighted yourself carefully - and properly. Glad you enjoyed yourselves.