jrtonkin
Contributor
Reading through the thread about how many diver's do and don't suck, a frequent comment was made about being vertical in the water as a bad thing.
Before I get completely defensive, and start claiming that for some people a horizontal hover is impossible, I'd like to hear people's suggestions on how I might be able to achieve this...
The problem basically comes down to I've got "cyclist's physique"... I.e. big legs, big lungs, and very low overall body fat. So my legs sink and my torso floats, though not enough to overcome my legs; wearing only a bathing-suit I'm still between neutral and a pound or so negative on a very full breath of air.
Unfortunately, this body-shape also puts my center-of-gravity down around the top of my pelvis... Quite a ways below where my center-of-buoyancy is, and also below where a BC's waist-belt would wrap around my body.
Thinking about the physics of it, it should be possible to use a high-mounted tank-weight to control this, but that has two issues. First, I'm still at the rental-phase of things, so I'm not sure how I'd go about rigging a removeable tank-weight.
Second, since the entire BC and any tank-weights are going to be above my CoG, it looks like I'd essentially have to end up hanging from the waist-belt, while the tank-weight forced my shoulders down enough to balance the torque of my legs... Which just doesn't sound comfortable. (Now this is just a guess, based on thinking about the forces involved, I havn't tried it, and if someone with a similar default-vertical-orientation has and it's not as bad as it sounds, I'd like to hear about it)
So, anybody marketing ankle-floats? That or butt-mounted bouyancy...
Jamie
Before I get completely defensive, and start claiming that for some people a horizontal hover is impossible, I'd like to hear people's suggestions on how I might be able to achieve this...
The problem basically comes down to I've got "cyclist's physique"... I.e. big legs, big lungs, and very low overall body fat. So my legs sink and my torso floats, though not enough to overcome my legs; wearing only a bathing-suit I'm still between neutral and a pound or so negative on a very full breath of air.
Unfortunately, this body-shape also puts my center-of-gravity down around the top of my pelvis... Quite a ways below where my center-of-buoyancy is, and also below where a BC's waist-belt would wrap around my body.
Thinking about the physics of it, it should be possible to use a high-mounted tank-weight to control this, but that has two issues. First, I'm still at the rental-phase of things, so I'm not sure how I'd go about rigging a removeable tank-weight.
Second, since the entire BC and any tank-weights are going to be above my CoG, it looks like I'd essentially have to end up hanging from the waist-belt, while the tank-weight forced my shoulders down enough to balance the torque of my legs... Which just doesn't sound comfortable. (Now this is just a guess, based on thinking about the forces involved, I havn't tried it, and if someone with a similar default-vertical-orientation has and it's not as bad as it sounds, I'd like to hear about it)
So, anybody marketing ankle-floats? That or butt-mounted bouyancy...
Jamie