Is overweighting of OW students a violation of standards?

[NAM001]

Eric you comment "With any sort of wetsuit on shouldn't a diver be able to float on the surface at the beginning of a dive with no air in the BC and a full tank?" Wont work. as yo loose air you get lighter and have nothing to hold you down. I would say that on the surface, no matter what you have on, you should be min. the weight of your air negative. If you have 6 lbs of air in a full tank then you should be 6 neg. When you get to 500# the you are 1 neg. That is why the 20 ft 500 psi and neut is correct, just as you are experiencing.

The only problem with the pool and the the real ocean around here is that the pool is in the 80's and the ocean is about 50. Students would croak in the pool with a 7mm on like what they'll be using in the ocean. So to try and figure out what they need in the pool doesn't match. However, in the pool they could work on what proper buoyancy should be and then transfer that knowledge to the ocean. Any good instructor that teaches a lot of classes and does the checkout dives locally should know within a few Lbs what a student should need, especially if it's rental gear. They should be familiar with what the shop rents.

I read reports time and time again of people diving that get into trouble but make it to the surface, only to sink back down and drown.
If people were weighted at least to what I read in my 1990 nPADI OW book then there should be no way this could happen. They should be able to float on the surface no matter what.
My thinking is they never lose the initial teaching of using 35 or 40 lbs of lead from their first OW experience and realize they only should be using something like 18 to 24 lbs (example).
With any sort of wetsuit on shouldn't a diver be able to float on the surface at the beginning of a dive with no air in the BC and a full tank?
I think so, which may be a little lighter than what PADI suggests, but for the 15'/500psi in tank/no air in BC/ method that I use that's the way it works out for me.
BTW, NAUI now uses what they call "the new 15' method", which isn't new at all but apparently they stumbled upon it and use it as their standard now. This is from the NAUI course director at the Sonoma State University diving program. This method weights you a little lighter than PADI's method. As a result they spend more time on pike and kick down methods to get down instead of feet first descents.

 

[boulderjohn]

I read reports time and time again of people diving that get into trouble but make it to the surface, only to sink back down and drown.
If people were weighted at least to what I read in my 1990 nPADI OW book then there should be no way this could happen. They should be able to float on the surface no matter what.

That is correct, and I have made this argument many times in the past. A diver who is properly weighted at the beginning of a dive and who now has a completely empty tank at the end of the dive should have no trouble staying on the surface and should, in fact, have trouble sinking if that was for some reason desired. Nothing about this has changed since 1990.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Students should not be overweighted. Being properly weighted and off their knees is the beginning of good training in my opinion.
Overweighting students is doing them a disservice.

 

[Nemrod]

That is correct, and I have made this argument many times in the past. A diver who is properly weighted at the beginning of a dive and who now has a completely empty tank at the end of the dive should have no trouble staying on the surface and should, in fact, have trouble sinking if that was for some reason desired. Nothing about this has changed since 1990.

It is a peeve of mine for sure. Physics has not changed, I am glad to learn that instructors are trying to better the product. I have seen in recent years, some very well trained new divers.

Roto-tilling the bottom and damaging reef or sensitive environment. Again, I do admit I have an agenda, I am sure I will continue to dive for many years, I am as healthy a a horse, but I really would like to have future generations enjoy the things that I have so enjoyed. I think it incumbent upon us divers (and outdoors people) to leave things in decent order for those who follow after us and for all the creatures that live there following God's Plan.

Staying up off the bottom is a good start, I am so sick of seeing otherwise healthy fans and corals knocked over. And there has not been a storm, but for a storm of divers who largely do not know better.

N

 

[boulderjohn]

A number of years ago I did a week of diving on Ste. Maarten, all with the same operator, and I got to know their staff pretty well. On one dive, I saw an instructor working with an AOW student, but she was doing really, really basic buoyancy stuff. When I had a chance later, I asked he what was up. She said that the student, a young woman, had first requested a huge amount of weight for the dive and had to be talked down to something reasonable. Once in the water, the student displayed such very poor buoyancy control that she knew there was no point trying to do the actual intent of whatever AOW dive they were supposed to be doing.

At the end of the week I got on the plane to leave and guess who was seated next to me--that student! We of course talked about it. She told me she was a new OW diver, trained by a large chain operation in Los Angeles. (I can't remember the name.) She said her instructor was their head of instruction--I don't know, of course, if that was right. She was very petite, weighing about 100 pounds, and the instructor gave her 20 pounds for her pol work in a 3mm wet suit. Apparently his standard would be to give everyone 20% of their body weight.

This was when the fin pivot was still required. I told her I did not see how she could do the fin pivot or the hover with that much weight. She said she couldn't--not even close. She said no one in the class could do either the fin pivot or the hover, but the instructor passed everyone on those skills. He explained that those skills are really, really advanced, and no OW students can be expected to do them successfully.

That is apparently an operation that turns out hundreds of new OW divers every year. As long as things like that are going on, we will continue to have students struggling to control their buoyancy and having a miserable time on their dives.

 

[high/baric]

A number of years ago I changed my instructional strategy for OW classes. I stopped teaching skills to students kneeling on the bottom and started teaching all skills to students who are neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim. I found that students taught that way learned skills more quickly and looked like real divers by the time they were done with the confined water sessions. After several years of this, I convened a group of like-minded instructors, and we wrote an article about this that PADI accepted for publication in its professional journal.

I have thought about this quite a bit as well. Students tend to be clearly over weighted on my club's courses, although I admit that the stress level in the open water dives is quite high in our dark and cold waters. Would you happen to have a link to that article or reference if it was just in print? PADI is a minority agency up here and I'm not sure if I can find anyone with access to it, but it could be worth a try. Although my club is pretty much bound by a nationwide agenda, I believe I could find a couple of progressively minded instructors to work with me on this. An article like that would be a good place to start.

 

[Nemrod]

What the hell is a fin pivot? And why would I want to do one?

Edit to add:

Well blow me down, what do you know, a fin pivot is where divers lay on the bottom (reef) and then smash it going up and down as if doing push ups. No wonder folks cannot dive and are destroying the bottom. Well, I cannot agree with everything I found on this website courtesy of Google but I kind of like the fact they just say no to the odd and rather weird concept of fin pivots:

Buoyancy Control | NASE Worldwide Diver Training Blog

James

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

A number of years ago I did a week of diving on Ste. Maarten, all with the same operator, and I got to know their staff pretty well. On one dive, I saw an instructor working with an AOW student, but she was doing really, really basic buoyancy stuff. When I had a chance later, I asked he what was up. She said that the student, a young woman, had first requested a huge amount of weight for the dive and had to be talked down to something reasonable. Once in the water, the student displayed such very poor buoyancy control that she knew there was no point trying to do the actual intent of whatever AOW dive they were supposed to be doing.

At the end of the week I got on the plane to leave and guess who was seated next to me--that student! We of course talked about it. She told me she was a new OW diver, trained by a large chain operation in Los Angeles. (I can't remember the name.) She said her instructor was their head of instruction--I don't know, of course, if that was right. She was very petite, weighing about 100 pounds, and the instructor gave her 20 pounds for her pol work in a 3mm wet suit. Apparently his standard would be to give everyone 20% of their body weight.

This was when the fin pivot was still required. I told her I did not see how she could do the fin pivot or the hover with that much weight. She said she couldn't--not even close. She said no one in the class could do either the fin pivot or the hover, but the instructor passed everyone on those skills. He explained that those skills are really, really advanced, and no OW students can be expected to do them successfully.

That is apparently an operation that turns out hundreds of new OW divers every year. As long as things like that are going on, we will continue to have students struggling to control their buoyancy and having a miserable time on their dives.

Probably Sport Chalet, that's the only large Socal based chain I can think of that has scuba lessons and a dive shop within their sports superstores.
I was on the Spectre out of Ventura a few years ago doing a day dive at Anacapa Isl. On board were a few instructors from different shops with their students. On the way out I sparked up a conversation with one about where they were from etc. He said Sport Chalet out of Fresno area. We actually got into a conversation about weighting since that is a topic I bring up frequently. His philosophy and what he was taught was in fact 20% of body weight. My question to him was with what thickness of wetsuit is that the standard, because obviously a three mil will only require a little weight because it's thin, but lets say a 7 or 9 mil will require a lot more so the percentage will go up. He gave me a blank stare. I mentioned to him if he ever heard of the 15 foot rule, near empty tank, no air in BC, blah blah, again he gave me a blank stare. I thought, you've got to be kidding me!
So after my buddy and I would return to the boat from our very long dives in which we covered an amazing amount of ground, maybe miles, looking for Halibut, those poor students looked exhausted and didn't look like they were having much fun. Then on the last dive the instructor somehow got away/had a break from the students and decided to do a hunt dive. We ran across him several times traversing the wall along the island. He was with a few other friends he brought (not students), and man those guys, talk about rototilling! They were all in a line, here they come, you could almost hear them clattering and clamoring as they trudged along the bottom. So no wonder the students get overweighted I thought, their instructor does the same damn thing to himself!

 

[Ayisha]

So.... If with whatever lead weight they have stuffed in their shorts, will the full inflation of their BC make them float like a dead carp?

Yes? They'll float? Case dismissed, with prejudice.

Not necessarily. I went into my AOW wearing 24 lbs of lead in cold fresh water with a full 7 mm farmer jane wetsuit, hood, gloves, and boots, a petite female, weighing a little over 100 lbs. I did my first weighting check ever during the AOW, and sank 10 feet with an empty bc and holding a normal breath. I went to remove weight at the shore beside us and the DMC said, "It's ok, it'll even out by the end". My buddy and I did the navigation with the DMC, and she didn't like my trim, so she kept asking her husband, a DM, for more weight to hang on me in various places - totalling 33 lbs, which felt awful. My ladies BC had a lift of 25 lbs. The instructor was in the general area, within 50 feet away, with other students.

I then went to do the peak performance buoyancy with the instructor through hula hoops, and it was a nearly impossible constant extreme challenge managing the air in the bc. I finally signalled to the instructor to watch me and I laid on the bottom and fully inflated my bc, obviously burping it many times, and still flat on the bottom. He just looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, apparently not understanding that I looked like a christmas tree with all the hanging weights. I had to kick to initiate an ascent. Afterwards I told him that I am extremely overweighted, and wanted to take all the extra weights off and he said "No, keep them on".

During the night dive, where we were supposed to stop and hover at 30 feet, I could not stop my descent with a fully inflated bc and the 33 lbs of lead and went freefalling to the bottom at nearly 60 feet, with the whole group coming with me. Nobody stopped before the bottom and everyone failed the night dive.

The second day the co-owner was there and saw me about to get into the water and couldn't believe her eyes. She asked me how much weight I was wearing. I told her 33 lbs and told her I sank 10 feet during the weighting check with 24 lbs. She told me to take all those weights off and go down to 20 lbs. I was so relieved. I asked if I could try 22 lbs since I had a hard time descending. She said ok, and took me for my multi-level dive. She said we would not go past 70 feet on the first dive and see where I'm at, although she knew that I was OK before the AOW. She taught me tricks to descend efficiently, hover motionless, use my lungs proactively, and kick efficiently - all in one dive. With the descent techniques she taught me, she asked me to try 20 lbs on the next dive, the deep dive, and I did, and for the first time, I knew what it felt like to be perfectly neutral. She had me hold various stops without a line horizontally and motionless, and I was amazed at how neutral I was.

That evening we all repeated the night dive with some actual instruction and all went well. The third day, I did my 2nd and 3rd deep dives for the deep specialty, all went well, and I passed the AOW and Deep specialty. Thanks to one dedicated and fabulous instructor. Yes, I told her that most of my skills were done with the DMC, not the instructor, and she was appalled.

So, the point of my long story is that some students may be so grossly overweighted that a fully inflated bc cannot lift them off the bottom. And some instructors don't recognize this or don't correct it.

 

[Kharon]

I'm slightly confused. If you are neutrally buoyant at 15 feet with no air in the BC wouldn't you get slightly positively buoyant as you ascend to the surface? I do my weight checks this way but go for neutral while doing shallow exhales and deep inhales. Am I over thinking this?