ooops. Almost lost gear

[Dapper Dan]

My buddy is a little chunky and out of shape.
So I suggested he take his BCD off and hand it to me to get up the ladder.

"You got it?" he asked.
"Yeah I got it" I replied.

Well, I didn't have it. Slipped right out of my gloved hand. I was too buoyant to go down after it before it disappeared out of sight. "Damn! I just spent a G or more buying my boy new dive gear" I thought as I watched it fade out of sight.

About a minute later my other buddy popped up with it in his hand and said, "Look what passed me as I was coming up". Whew! That was close.

 

[Searcaigh]

Why was the BCD not inflated?

 

[Dapper Dan]

Why was the BCD not inflated?

It was partially. He's a big boy and needed about 40 lbs lead to stay down. He's one of the "shaped like a pumpkin" divers. That and a steel cylinder and reg...
It wasn't an emergency, it was just a getting out of the water, so I guess we just didn't think to inflate it to the max. I didn't even realize how heavy the danged thing was until he handed it to me.

 

[Edward3c]

I’ve demonstrated to a number of students their BDC wasn’t capable of supporting itself and integrated weights on the surface. People often have no idea what the lift capacity of their BCD is.