Not ditching for fear of losing. Black or NTSB neon inserts?

[Bennno]

Ok, but were those recreational? Edit: Was the market failure within the rec lines? Also, Zeagle still does, I listed it above, as does SeaSoft!!

All gear is for the rec market, the term 'tec' is a marketing gimmick. Military diving and commercial have their own type of gear, everybody else uses normal rec gear... calling it 'tec-wing', 'tec fin', 'tec course' just sounds cooler.

For deco and cave diving you can't use detachable weights... if you lost weights while on deco, you'd be screwed big time.

 

[CuzzA]

Was the market failure within the rec lines?

What market failure?

If you're accidentally losing ballast you need to reconsider the system you are using. It's unacceptable, IMO. My ballast is not coming off me unless I decide it is.

Regarding the example in your OP about...

In a potential emergency wondering if maybe I should ditch some weight, a small part of my brain would worry about the weight color.

Well, I'm pretty sure that falls under the "Darwin Awards". If a few dollars of lead or the color of the pocket is worth more than someones life then they really need to reevaluate what's important in life.

In terms of training, I'm not aware of this being an issue. Ditching ballast is a basic open water drill, typically performed first in a pool, then maybe on an open water platform or at a benign site with great viz in shallow water, ~20 ft. After that, what other class requires you to ditch ballast?

In the real world, here's the deal...

If you lose or run out of breathing gas at depth you get to the surface as quickly as possible. Ditch your ballast, hell ditch your whole rig if you have to (Don't forget to keep your airway open). I don't care how much it cost or what color the pocket is. It ain't worth your life.

If you're on the surface, but are unable to remain buoyant, ditch your ballast. Again, I don't care how much it cost or what color the pocket is.

If after this emergency, you gain your composure and decide you're going to go back down (unlikely) then the practicality of you actually finding your pocket is going to have a lot more to do with the dive than the color of the pocket. Were you drift diving? How far did you travel from the point you dropped the pocket until the time the boat picked you up? How far did the boat drift after they picked you up? Are you making mental notes of this during the emergency? Did you mark a GPS location? Now does the color even matter?

If you want to make your pockets a bright color, do it. Seems like a good idea for your concerns, but to call it a market failure seems like a stretch. My 2 year old, once bright red 5 pound soft led weights are now basically brown. Do I replace them because they're not bright anymore? And if I did, would I want to pay a premium price for a bright color? Nope. Although I am surprised someone in the scuba manufacturing business hasn't jumped on this idea. It's like taking an identical mask and throwing a brand name on it and selling it for double the price. All to common in this industry.

 

[Diving Dubai]

What market failure?

In terms of training, I'm not aware of this being an issue. Ditching ballast is a basic open water drill, typically performed first in a pool, then maybe on an open water platform or at a benign site with great viz in shallow water, ~20 ft. After that, what other class requires you to ditch ballast?

In the real world, here's the deal...

If you lose or run out of breathing gas at depth you get to the surface as quickly as possible. Ditch your ballast, hell ditch your whole rig if you have to (Don't forget to keep your airway open).

The real world isn't as simple as you make it out to be.

I dive a balance rig, so no weight to ditch (in the summer I have zero extra ballast) I've had two incidents I'll use to demonstrate a point.

1. Early in a dive when I was a newer diver (less than 100 dives) I have my inflator hose go into free flow. No issue I disconnected it and swam teh rig up from 70' with close to a full tank. While I wasnt' calm, I wasn't panicked either.

2. A couple of years back at near 300 dives, I inhaled water (again at around 70') my epiglottis shut (although I didn't realise that was the cause at the time) What I did see was 2 SPG's my back gas and my pony with a total of 350 bar (5000 psi) between them. I had to head to the surface, again no panic (strangely a clarity of thought), my airway opened at 10m just as I hit 1 ATA

In both of these incidents I was focused on what was going on. Your focus narrows. There were things I could have done, only apparent in hindsight, which I didn't.

I will say, it's easier to analysis a problem when you are breathing, rather than tryign to figure it out when you can't

I wasn't panicked in either case.

Just getting people to remember to ditch weights, is one thing. A real life incident is a mile away from carrying out a training exercise.

If you recall, we lost a SB staff member, an instructor with over 5000 dives because she went OOA in 12' of water and didn't ditch her weights.....


@MichaelMc The colour of weights or pockets doesn't matter a great deal. People do not ditch weights because they're afraid of losing them, they don't ditch because there brain is focused on other things and they forget.. Often with fatal consequences

 

[MichaelMc]

I’m not advocating dangerous ditching at depth. Swimming up is far better, if you can.

It sounds like neon, or reflective tape, might be more visible. Neon to black is polling 5 to 1. With any-color at 9, and something-else at 0. Though for the 'any' voters, I forgot to distinguish reasons like 'all are equally visible', 'visibility is not a factor', or 'I have none, they're too risky for cave/wreck/deco'. The sample size was 15. I did not vote.

But, *if* neon is better, reasons for the black offerings might be:
* Cost, though maybe fabric is cheap so reusing black scraps is not a concern.
* Colors fade with time anyway, though might work for clumsy OW students, while new.
* Black looks cool, neon not so much, for the guys.
* Doing otherwise would require a constant battle against the cool black factor.
* It’s not a big factor, in accidents, or helpful enough with early or normal klutziness, to fight the cool, for most companies or however the market gets educated.

A bit sad, but thanks. I need to get some of the reflective tape, as much for my fins and lights as my pouches.

 

[CuzzA]

I need to get some of the reflective tape, as much for my fins and lights as my pouches.

Just remember, fish scales are reflective too.

Barracuda Attack

 

[Diving Dubai]

@MichaelMc

Colour is good, I'm a huge advocate of it. Anything to assist your buddy or those you're guiding to see you underwater is a boon. having some individuality is great too

As for colour depicting items to ditch - not so much. If you're having pockets to ditch a little bit of weight, trust me you won't be looking for them. It's all by feel. So far I've failed to find a product that is secure enough for 99.99% of the diving not to fall off, but easy enough to rip off in an emergency.

If you do find reflective tape that has good enough adhesive to hold up in sea water for more than a few dive, please let me know. I've bee so far unsucessful

 

[ljpm]

I probably wouldn't be thinking about the cost in an emergency but if I could recover the weight why not.

Why not put a small spring loaded flag on the weight pocket, perhaps with a small flashing light. If it is inexpensive enough it might be worth it. I'm not sure how much replacement weight pockets are but I know I would be looking at $50 for lead alone. What $200 to $250.

 

[Octopusprime]

Drives me nuts that weight pockets are black. You do not see them. I often spray my pockets with reflective safety yellow spray paint.