Minimizing total weight

[bober99]

I do a bunch of shore diving and it involves me walking fairly far with all my gear on various trails, etc. I'm trying to minimize the total amount of weight I wear. I'm at 20#s with a TLS 350 Drysuit and DUI undergarment and a PST E7-80. The e7-80 is almost the ideal tank. Weighs only 28#s empty and 3#s negative. The e7-100s weigh more and are less bouyant at the end.

I think I can probably drop down to 14-16#s with the drysuit. I'll do the bouyancy check the next time to get it down to as little as possible. I don't like the inability to sink without kicking down. I'm about 160#s.

I also have:
Seaquest Balance BCD
Atomic B2 Reg/SS1
3mm gloves
Rockboots
Original Force Fins (10% negative)

Any other ideas to shaving weight?

 

[donacheson]

I do a bunch of shore diving and it involves me walking fairly far with all my gear on various trails, etc. I'm trying to minimize the total amount of weight I wear. I'm at 20#s with a TLS 350 Drysuit and DUI undergarment and a PST E7-80. The e7-80 is almost the ideal tank. Weighs only 28#s empty and 3#s negative. The e7-100s weigh more and are less bouyant at the end.

I think I can probably drop down to 14-16#s with the drysuit. I'll do the bouyancy check the next time to get it down to as little as possible. I don't like the inability to sink without kicking down. I'm about 160#s.

I also have:
Seaquest Balance BCD
Atomic B2 Reg/SS1
3mm gloves
Rockboots
Original Force Fins (10% negative)

Any other ideas to shaving weight?

Not many. I'd take you and your drysuit as givens, but be sure your BC and drysuit are really empty when you weight yourself properly. The only thing of choice left is your tank; that depends primarily upon your air consumption and secondarily upon the tank itself.

If you're a light breather and can easily do your dives with a small (low capacity) tank, you can save weight. There's always a trade-off in tanks which minimizes dry weight empty + "Salt Water Buoyancy - empty" (in Luxfer's terminology), remembering that a tank which is negative empty in the water subtracts from the dry weight. You'll have to work that one out for yourself.

 

[cool_hardware52]

I do a bunch of shore diving and it involves me walking fairly far with all my gear on various trails, etc. I'm trying to minimize the total amount of weight I wear. I'm at 20#s with a TLS 350 Drysuit and DUI undergarment and a PST E7-80. The e7-80 is almost the ideal tank. Weighs only 28#s empty and 3#s negative. The e7-100s weigh more and are less bouyant at the end.

I think I can probably drop down to 14-16#s with the drysuit. I'll do the bouyancy check the next time to get it down to as little as possible. I don't like the inability to sink without kicking down. I'm about 160#s.

I also have:
Seaquest Balance BCD
Atomic B2 Reg/SS1
3mm gloves
Rockboots
Original Force Fins (10% negative)

Any other ideas to shaving weight?

Is your bc positive even when all the air is out? This quite common. Try it in a pool. One of the reasons people often "loose" weight when switching to a BP & W is that BP's don't trap any air, have no foam etc. Quite common for people that switch to a 6lb BP to loose more than 6 lbs from their belt, ~8-10 lbs is not rare.


Regards,



Tobin

 

[jonnythan]

Tobin has a good point.. many BC's are positively buoyant. Toss it in a pool, empty, and see how many weights you have to toss on top of it to make it sink.

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

Just to give you an idea of what to shoot for, I use double E-7 120s, a TLS350 with 200 gram thinsulate thermals, and I only need six pounds to be neutral in salt water. It sounds like you could likely drop a few more pounds pretty easily (perhaps as much as five pounds or so).