SmokinReefer
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Didn't someone famous say never let'em find you dead on the bottom with your weight belt still on.....maybe DandyDon?
Is quick release important?
- Thread starter taliesin58
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A lot of people are telling you that you don't need to have ditchable weight on your rig for warmwater open ocean diving. This is complete and utter BS. The issue is not when you ditch your weight underwater. You should not be wearing so much weight that you can't safely swim yourself to the surface.
The issue comes into play at the surface. At the surface, if you have in an emergency, THE VERY FIRST thing that you should do is inflate your BC and ditch the weight. If you have a leak in your BC (and it does happen quite frequently) that six pounds of nonditchable weight your wearing is going to make your life a whole lot harder.
If you have a long swim ahead of you and a BC that does not hold air you better hope you can ditch whatever weight you are wearing.
In a perfect world if you are properly weighted the amount of weight you wear will make you neutral at 15 feet with no air in your BC. So at the surface it should not be enough weight to force you under. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. There is a reason that the very first question of the SSI Openwater exam asks what to do in an emergency at the surface. You inflate your BC and ditch your weight!
The issue comes into play at the surface. At the surface, if you have in an emergency, THE VERY FIRST thing that you should do is inflate your BC and ditch the weight. If you have a leak in your BC (and it does happen quite frequently) that six pounds of nonditchable weight your wearing is going to make your life a whole lot harder.
If you have a long swim ahead of you and a BC that does not hold air you better hope you can ditch whatever weight you are wearing.
In a perfect world if you are properly weighted the amount of weight you wear will make you neutral at 15 feet with no air in your BC. So at the surface it should not be enough weight to force you under. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. There is a reason that the very first question of the SSI Openwater exam asks what to do in an emergency at the surface. You inflate your BC and ditch your weight!
halocline
Contributor
I would like to see actual statistics that demonstrate ditchable weights saving someone's life vs accidental dropping of ditchable weights causing uncontrolled ascents. Until someone can prove that one of those scenarios is much more common than the other, the relative safety or danger of ditchable weights is a matter of opinion. The fictional "what if" arguments are just that, arguments.
And BTW, the best response to an underwater emergency is NOT an immediate buoyant ascent. Its dealing with the emergency (lets say for argument it's OOA) at depth and then proceeding to the surface in a controlled manner.
PADI does cite statistics that claim that a high percentage of diving accidents ocurr at the surface, but I don't know how they arrived at those statistics.
And BTW, the best response to an underwater emergency is NOT an immediate buoyant ascent. Its dealing with the emergency (lets say for argument it's OOA) at depth and then proceeding to the surface in a controlled manner.
PADI does cite statistics that claim that a high percentage of diving accidents ocurr at the surface, but I don't know how they arrived at those statistics.
alwaingold
Guest
This is a good overview of weighting/balanced rig:
http://dir-diver.com/en/knowledge/how_much_lead.html
Whether you need ditchable weight depends on many things, including your exposure protection and how much weight YOU (not me) can swim up. If you have a thick wetsuit, then when it compresses at depth that adds to how negative you are at the beginning of a dive. You need to be able to swim your rig up with a BC failure at the beginning of the dive AT DEPTH. On that page, they give a little example of 7mm XL wetsuit having a buoyancy change of 12lbs at 100 ft. So if you just descended to 100 ft, and you have a buoyancy failure, and you have 5lbs of gas in your tank, you have 17lbs to swim up. That's a lot, too much for me anyway. So if you feel comfortable swimming up 10lbs, you need at least 7 lbs of ditchable weight. Hopefully I didn't screw up any of the math
In a shell drysuit you actually need less ditchable weight, not more, because you don't have this buoyancy change to deal with.
Personally I would prefer to have just a little weight on the belt (if that is your only ditchable weight -- you could count a can light as ditchable weight too), so that you can drop just as much weight as you need if you have to swim up, and not fly to the surface. Unfortunately my head-heaviness does not allow me to put "just a little" weight on my belt
http://dir-diver.com/en/knowledge/how_much_lead.html
Whether you need ditchable weight depends on many things, including your exposure protection and how much weight YOU (not me) can swim up. If you have a thick wetsuit, then when it compresses at depth that adds to how negative you are at the beginning of a dive. You need to be able to swim your rig up with a BC failure at the beginning of the dive AT DEPTH. On that page, they give a little example of 7mm XL wetsuit having a buoyancy change of 12lbs at 100 ft. So if you just descended to 100 ft, and you have a buoyancy failure, and you have 5lbs of gas in your tank, you have 17lbs to swim up. That's a lot, too much for me anyway. So if you feel comfortable swimming up 10lbs, you need at least 7 lbs of ditchable weight. Hopefully I didn't screw up any of the math
In a shell drysuit you actually need less ditchable weight, not more, because you don't have this buoyancy change to deal with.
Personally I would prefer to have just a little weight on the belt (if that is your only ditchable weight -- you could count a can light as ditchable weight too), so that you can drop just as much weight as you need if you have to swim up, and not fly to the surface. Unfortunately my head-heaviness does not allow me to put "just a little" weight on my belt
prthd9
Contributor
Sounds like two schools of thought. Personally, I don't believe ditchable weight is necessary. I dive a BP/W with fully integrated weight in SOCAL. Now unless you are diving with no exposure protection you are going to be positive. Even a 1mm suit offers additional lift. Second, the talk of an emergency on the surface. If it is the type of emergency where you need swim someone in fast then you remove the BC or BP, so again you do not necessiarily need the ditchable weight in my opinion.
prthd9:
The last thing you do at the surface is remove your own equipment except for the weight belt. What is your logic for taking off the BC in a surface rescue?The LAST thing you do is remove a divers BC. Once you at are a safe exit point THEN you can start removing them from their BC if it makes it easier to get them out of the water.
This is basic openwater stuff here guys. There should not even be debates or schools of thought on weighting. You need to be properly weighted for neutral buoyancy with enough ditchable weight to be positive at the surface without any air in your BC.
SkullDeformity
Contributor
A quick release weight belt is also a danger because if it were to accidentally come undone, and you were decompressing or deep your live saving quick release would end up killing you.
SkullDeformity:
How many documented instances of fatalities due to a weight belt failure have you ever come across? I can show you quite a few that were due to a person not ditching a weightbelt at the surface when they should have. I have had to rescue two complete strangers on two seperate occassions because they did not ditch their weightbelts.
I have looked at a BP/Wing setup for warm water diving but I worry about using a steel tank in this configuration as I would be negative without any lead.
It is, or so I have been told, easy to get someone out of a hog harness when you know how, but would a strugling rescuer be able to do it.
No I will make sure my rig is a few pounds positive at all times.
I will wear a weight belt with a matching few pounds lead so it can be ditched whenever I or someone else needs to.
It is, or so I have been told, easy to get someone out of a hog harness when you know how, but would a strugling rescuer be able to do it.
No I will make sure my rig is a few pounds positive at all times.
I will wear a weight belt with a matching few pounds lead so it can be ditched whenever I or someone else needs to.
prthd9:
Talking about BC's and Weight systems is a bit different than Technical Diving. Diving under a ceiling (hard or longer deco-oblication) makes the difference. A sudden ascend within NDL won't kill you. Drowning does. About 1/4 of drowned divers had air in their tank and weightbelt on.SkullDeformity:
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