How to weight a BP/W

[Nwcid]

I tried doing a search on this topic but came up with every post with "weight" in it which is a lot.

Me and the GF have gone with BP/W and they are on their way. Next thing we have to do is work on weighting them. Nice thing will be we can ditch some weight due to the steel plates. Currently she is running 28lbs and I am running 34lbs with the rented BC's and tanks. Of course this is with 7mm full suits with 7mm outers and AL80's. When doing this we were using vests with integrated weights and seemed to work well.

In our OW class we had used weight belts and for my GF that caused here a lot of low back/hip pain. With the integrated weights there was no problem.

So for BP/W do pockets like this work well, SCUBA Diving Equipment for Technical, Sidemount, Rebreather, Wreck and Cave Diving: Dive Rite, Inc - Product Catalog - 32LB QB Weight Pocket I understand that is what they are made for, but that does not mean they work well. Are there other better options?


A second question having to deal with weights is travel. I assume when you fly somewhere you just rent weights from the local place you get your tank/air, is that correct? Is that pretty standard stuff or are they limited on what they have?

 

[TSandM]

You may well find that you don't want all your weights around your waist. What I do is use a weight belt, and put weight pockets (XS Scuba) on my cambands. Set up that way, I don't have enough weight in the belt to make my back hurt.

Another option is something like the DUI Weight & Trim.

The one time I've helped somebody who was using the ditchable weight pockets that slide onto the harness, we had a heck of a time with the real estate -- there was no place that worked well to put a light, and the weight pocket interfered with the left hip d-ring. The diver in question tried several different things, and eventually went to a weight harness. The cost of a couple of those pockets is similar to the cost of a harness, too.

 

[fisheater]

You should start off with about 10 pounds less weight than with a traditional BC. (5 pounds for the plate, 5 pounds for all that padding you no longer have to sink.)

There are many options for carrying your weights. Don't be so quick to reject weight belts. You'd be surprised to see how much easier it is to use a weight belt when it's 10 pounds lighter!

And, yes, you'll get tanks and weights at all the traditional vacation destinations. If you fly to California, you'll have to rent both tanks and weights, but that won't be problem. Just let them know in advance what you need.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Another possible consideration is that you may want to have some weight on you and some on your BC. A few reasons I could think of:

1) If for any reason you have to doff your rig underwater, you don't want it heavy and you light (this is probably a very rare occurrence though).

2) If you have any reason to put your rig in the water without you (say you are diving off a small boat and want to lower it in first), you want to make sure it will float without you in it (may not be an issue... you can calculate it).

3) If you are ever going to hand your rig up to someone on the boat at the end of a dive, it's nice if it's not super heavy.

I have experienced #2 and #3 regularly in my diving. I'm a warm-water diver though and so your figures might not be the same (and/or, I may be off base... still a beginner). Also, I have much less weight to deal with!

But, for example, I will wear 2-6# on my rig (in my case strapped to heel of tank as I am head-heavy), and then 2-6# on "me" on a weight belt. I, too, had a painful lower back when I had a lot of weight on a belt (an amount I won't even post when I was a super-overweighted student :blush, but less weight doesn't bother it.

Blue Sparkle

 

[Nwcid]

TSandM that is what I was worried/wondering was space for those.

I was also thinking of putting more weight on the BP (say 10lbs total in 2-5lb pockets on the tank straps) then a 10lb belt for her should not be too out of line for her. Is that a reasonable idea?

BS those are some good points. We are in the right weight range based on the charts I have looked at. We were a few lbs less each using steel tanks in our dive classes. With the AL80's she was not able to sink with the same amount of weight from class. I was able to sink but hardly and by the time we were under half a tank I was pretty light.

Fish I guess I should have phrased my question better. I am sure in the US things are pretty standard but I was more thinking if we traveled out of the country.

Sorry I have a ton of questions but we really only have 2 LDS (and that is a relative term) and they are not like some of the places I have been reading about here. This means most of my info for now has to come from the net.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Sorry I have a ton of questions but we really only have 2 LDS (and that is a relative term) and they are not like some of the places I have been reading about here. This means most of my info for now has to come from the net.

I don't think there's any reason to be sorry. And I can relate: You have two more LDS than I do! I've gleaned a ton of information from Scubaboard - from reading current threads, searching in the archives, and also starting threads. In fact, it was an SB thread (in which I was trying to find a BC that would fit and make me feel happy underwater) that got me back* into diving after having been certified years prior but "hating" diving because the gear didn't fit me properly.

Blue Sparkle

*If you can actually say "back" after only having made four dives the first time around

 

[TSandM]

I dive with 31 lbs total ballast -- five pound plate, two three pound weights on the cambands, and a 20 lb weight belt (single, steel tank).

Al tanks need about five to six pounds more than steels do, which is why aluminum isn't popular in the PNW.

I found that weight belts were quite tolerable, if they were situated correctly. If 20 lbs rides low on my hips, it's EXTREMELY uncomfortable to walk in. Putting the belt right around my waist has never caused me any back pain since I went to a backplate system. I did have backaches when I dove in my weight-integrated BC, though; I'm not sure if they were because I was a new diver, or because the gear didn't work well for me.

 

[Rascally Rabbit]

Having all your needed weight on a weight belt can indeed cause back problems. That said with the BP&W a SS backplate takes some of that weight off the belt. You can remove more by adding a channel weight or tank pockets. The consideration of if and how much dumpable weight is the final part of the equation and the worst case should be cold water requirements. I consider my exposure protection and how much weight it requires at the surface to be neutral. With a full 7mm wetsuit I put 10 lbs on my belt. You could alternately use a weight harness. In using this approach it considers the posibility of having to remove the BCD at depth. Since both you and the BCD are weighted you no longer need to grip the BCD for your weight. It becomes easier to manuver if you should need to push it through a small opening and if you are caught up on something you can more easily release yourself from the BCD and then free it from whatever and re-don it continuing the dive. Although dumpable pockets redistribute some of the weight to the shoulders as an integrated BCD does adding the extra pockets dulls some of it's finer characteristics. A Belt (with less weight in it) or harness which redistributes the weigh to the shoulders is a better choice that allow you to fully realize the BP&W benefits. Althought I personally still add pockets to the waist strap I use them for storage of accessories instead of weighting.