New diver BP/W and weight distribution questions for cold water

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hey everyone, thanks for all of the feedback!

Closing the loop from my side: I went with the DGX single tank wing package and tried it out this last weekend at Breakwater. It worked really well! I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly. Ended up using 14 lbs of lead with a steel tank. I'm still probably a bit over-weighted, and I'll keep working on dialing in my weighting and trim as I get more experience. Once I get a better understanding of how I want to distribute the weight, I'll work on making some custom weights to attach to the backplate.

Only thing that I still have to figure out is how to adjust the crotch strap to keep the back plate from riding up behind my head.

Adjust the crotch strap so that it pulls the front of the waist belt down slightly to form a “Y”. This will put the waist band well below your belly button.
Also, at the surface there is no need to put a ton of air in the wing, or in some cases no air at all. You should be able to float on the surface with no air in the wing after the dive. You will naturally sit a little lower in the water on the surface when using a BP/W but that’s just something you get used to. Pumping the wing full of air on the surface will just pitch you forward and there’s no reason to do that. Keep pulling weight off your belt until you can achieve the empty wing at 15’ safety stop at the end of your dive routine to establish your bare minimum weighting baseline. After you find that number you can adjust your weighting to suit your needs whether you keep all of it in the belt or move some of it to the plate.

 

[georgk]

Adjust the crotch strap so that it pulls the front of the waist belt down slightly to form a “Y”. This will put the waist band well below your belly button.
Also, at the surface there is no need to put a ton of air in the wing, or in some cases no air at all. You should be able to float on the surface with no air in the wing after the dive. You will naturally sit a little lower in the water on the surface when using a BP/W but that’s just something you get used to. Pumping the wing full of air on the surface will just pitch you forward and there’s no reason to do that. Keep pulling weight off your belt until you can achieve the empty wing at 15’ safety stop at the end of your dive routine to establish your bare minimum weighting baseline. After you find that number you can adjust your weighting to suit your needs whether you keep all of it in the belt or move some of it to the plate.

Thanks for the crotch strap and weighting advice! Definitely need to spend more time at the end of dives dialing in that ideal weighting.

 

[Ulfhedinn]

Something I have been looking at when I up my dry suit undergarment. YMMV

Weight Plates - Set of Two

Weight Plates are a quick and easy way to add blocks of lead to { 2.0 in | 5.1 cm} webbing such as a harness or weight belt.

www.divegearexpress.com

 

[eelnoraa]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the awesome feedback! Based on what I've heard, here is my plan moving forward:

• Pick up the 30 lbs single tank DGX BPW setup with a steel plate with a few trim pockets to give me some flexibility in how I distribute weight (I'll hold off on ditchable pockets for now)
• Get a rubber weight belt (thinking something like this) to try if that works better than my previous weight belt experiences.
• Start renting HP100 tanks instead of the AL80s

Two follow-up questions:

• If I wanted to add weight to the backplate as mentioned above, what are my best options? P-weights?(those seem to be a bit hard to find)
• Is it worth investing in my own weights, or is this just something everyone rents?

Thanks again!
Georg

Get xs scuba wet pockets, thread it onto camband. In Monterey, probably on lower camband, one one each side, push it all the way back again the plate. You can easily out 4lb in each pocket. 5lb is possible depend on the weight shape. Put the rest into weight belt, shouldn’t be more than 10-12lb with ss plate and hp100, which should easily manageable.

 

[MNJoe]

Sorry, did not see thread was so old. Deleted response.

 

[BBSB]

I'm a new diver in California(only Monterey up to this point) and I'm slowly starting to put together my own diving rig(I don't love every rental being a new experience in figuring out my gear). I've got a dive computer and regs ordered from my LDS, and I'm slowly starting to look into wetsuit and BCD options. The BCD and weight system is what I'm the most confused about. Apologies in advance, as I know this subject has been covered extensively in this thread, but I still have a few questions.

First, here is a bit on me for reference:

• Weight: 195 lbs
• Height: 5'11"
• Typical exposure suit: 8/7mm semidry (dry suit may be something I'll investigate in the future, but the semidry suits my needs for now)
• Optimal weight on AL80 tank with jacket BCD: 30 lbs
• I'm interested in a setup that can support single tank dives within recreational limits(130 ft max depth, within NDL, etc)

I'm interested in the BP/W options since those intuitively seem like they would be easier to manage during a dive.(although I haven't been able to dive with one) However, there seem to be more considerations to buying them.

1. Wing lift capacity Based on the fact that I needed 30 lbs of weight for an AL80 tank, if I were to distribute most of that weight onto the BC (more questions on this later) it seems like the DGX single BP/W setup with 30 lbs lift capacity may be marginal.(for the rig being able to float at the surface on its own) As a result, I'm wondering if a 35 or 40 lbs wing is more appropriate (thinking dive rite voyager wing) to give me a bit more margin. Also, other than having sufficient lift capacity at depth and being able to float the BCD at the surface, is there any other consideration for minimum lift capacity?
2. Backplate material Seems like stainless steel is the best option since I'll most likely be carrying a lot of weight on local dives if I'm renting AL80 tanks. Is it worth also getting an aluminum backplate in case I use a steel cylinder?
3. Weight distributionIn my last few dives, I have been able to transfer all of the weight into the jacket BCD in ditchable integrated weight pockets and some trim pockets on the tank strap. This was pretty convenient, I was pretty happy to be free of the weight belt since it kept riding up under the BCD on earlier dives, and I was able to maintain decent trim. The only noticeable downside was the BCD was a bit heavy and cumbersome out of the water. However, after reading a bit more, a decent number of folks advocate for wearing a weight belt to allow a diver to remain relatively neutrally buoyant if they need to get out of their BCD for some reason during a dive and also to give a bit more control of how much weight they ditch in case of an emergency. So here are some questions:
   • Is it inherently bad/unsafe to try and fit all of my weight onto the BCD out of convenience? (I was initially thinking of 20lbs capacity in ditchable dive rite pockets augmented by a few trim pockets)
   • If I were to go back to a weight belt, is there an option which might ride up less? So far I've only tried somewhat worn out webbing belts with with velcro pockets.
   • Aside from trim considerations, what should I be thinking about in how I distribute weights in the various ditchable vs non-ditchable locations? I'm aware of the possibility of a BC failure at depth and needing to possibly drop weights in order to swim up. I've looked at the optimal buoyancy calculator but I'm not sure I'm grasping all of the details in the wetsuit tab. My general understanding is in in a BC failure scenario you would want to drop just enough weight so you can swim up but not so much that you have an uncontrolled ascent, but not sure how you would best plan for this in practice.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!
Georg

God I’m so glad you asked this, I didn’t even know how to ask between belts, trim, integrated pockets and 7mm suits.

 

[formernuke]

Steel bpw, steel 100 tank. A weight for your STA would probably be a good idea.

I used to use a harness for weight but you will need to figure out your body weight distribution and adjust.