How to adjust the weight with B/W to keep body horizontal

[colin.wen]

Hi all,
I am a student of marine biology.
I used to use the jacket BCD (Sea Quest pro QD+) in my first 6 diving yrs and happy with adjust any position.
Recently I bought a 2nd hand Zeagle Ranger B/W in order to have more stuff to carry and more modification for my coral reef fish research.
However, after 7 days, 18 dives ( approx. 30 hrs), I feel its a bit difficult to keep my body horizontal, because I need to close to the bottom to survey the benthic cryptic fish without kick the coral.
I use the fog-kick way of course, but when I try to stay neutral buoyancy to write down my record, I feel my B/W will bring me to vertical position again.
Then every time I have to kick some certain way to keep myself horizontal.
Its not so difficult to kick to keep horizontal but just feel pain in the xx I can not just stay the position I want.

After study the weight central of my whole body and B/W, I assume that because the inflated air (even a little) will be stay in top of my wing.
And the weight either in belt or pocket will stay in lower part of my body.
That whole lift and gravity force just turn my body from horizontal to vertical.

Maybe my 5 mm wetsuit also contribute some turning force as well.

Any people can suggest how to do to keep my body horizontal?
Cheers

Colin

 

[TSandM]

Well, horizontal trim starts with a nice, flat body position. But if you have that, and you're still tilting feet down, you have to move some weight up on your body. You can start by moving the tank up as far as you can, without having the first stage hit you in the back of the head. If that doesn't do it, you can get some weight pouches to put on your cambands, and move some of the weight off your belt to those.

You can also look at the fins you're using -- if they are negative, as Jets are, changing to a less negative fin can make quite a difference, given that fins are out on the end of a long lever arm.

There are a couple of good articles about balance and levers HERE, as well as other good essays.

 

[fnfalman]

Or trade the BC out for a BPW with an SS backplate.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I had a ranger, overall a good BC, but it never trimmed out as well as a BP/W, but I did get close.

The back pockets of the ranger are on the bottom tank band, not ideal. The main weight pockets are low, maybe OK for some, but low for me. I have an Italian build, long body, short legs. I ended up buying 2 XS pockets and putting 2x3lbs on the top tank band. Then 2x3lbs on the bottom and the balance on the main pockets. It worked much better than using only the original pockets.

FWIW: On my BP/W, I use a harness. This allows me to slide the weight up my body until they hit my center of gravity. Once this happened (it did take 3-4 dives to get there), it was really nice. I was actually shocked at how I felt being perfectly balanced.

 

[Blackwood]

Deep-Sea Sherpa Horizontal Trim 101 – Uses

 

[colin.wen]

Thanks everyone,
I will read the website first then to adjust what I can do.
The fin I use is atomic one, I believe its negative buoyancy.

Or maybe trade in the BC is another consideration tho...

 

[TSandM]

I seriously doubt that you need to trade in the BC. It usually doesn't require moving a great deal of weight to balance a rig, and any rig can be balanced (in my experience, anyway) although some offer easier opportunities to do so than others. Weight can always be attached to the cambands in some fashion, or wrapped around the tank neck.