PADI OW and BPW

[Eric Sedletzky]

Proper weighting is supposed to be a part of the OW course for all agencies in the WRSTC--it is in the standards. As one instructor who ignored those standards explained it to me (although not in these exact words), a student kneeling on the bottom of the pool or OW cannot be comfortably anchored when properly weighted.

A couple years after we published our article in the PADI professional journal on the advantages of teaching OW students while they are properly weighted, neutrally buoyant, and in horizontal trim, PADI rewrote the OW standards, and they included teaching trim. Students now see a video in which an instructor helps a student achieve horizontal trim by putting weight in shoulder BCD pockets. After they published those standards, they gave shops time to implement them.

During that interim, I certified two old friends. I did their pool work in Colorado, and then we vacationed together in Akumal, Mexico, where a local dive shop allowed me to complete their OW instruction on their boat. We had to rent jacket BCDs from them, and I used bungee cords to attach weights to the cam bands so my students would be in trim. (I had my BP/W.) The shop's instructors were intrigued. Why was I putting weights there? I explained the concept of trim to them, and I told them that according to the new standards, they were going to have to start doing that soon themselves.

About 1.5 years ago, I returned to Akumal as a base for cave diving. I was with children and grandchildren, and we snorkeled in the bay. On one such snorkeling experience, we passed over the top of an OW scuba class being taught by the shop I had used when I instructed my friends several years before. The students were kneeling on the bottom, comfortably anchored by overweighting, with no sign of trim weights anywhere.

When I did my OW check out dives we were in Gerstle Cove State Park in Sonoma County, CA.
The vis was about 10’, green, there was surge, and the water was about 50 degrees. We were using rental jacket BC’s non integrated- we all had weightbelts to be able to do the weightbelt remove and recovery and learned to ‘roll it on’ on the surface. They gave me a 38 lb WB to “make sure I stayed down”. The instructor didn’t wan’t to deal with OW divers floating away, etc.
So we were all pinned on the sea floor trying to hang on to a yellow rope the DM set. All the divers lined up waiting for the instructor to come by and get them to do their skills. There was all sorts of floating debris from everyone scrubbing and kicking up the bottom. Several people got urchin spines stuck in their knees and through their fins. I overheard the instructor chewing out the DM during a surface interval that he placed the line where there were too many urchins and made him go move it to a better place.
All the gear that shop used for rentals had gobs of aquaseal on everything because “OW students are hard on gear” lol!
If overweighting students and putting them on the sea floor was the way they did it back then, fine. But all the instructor had to do, and it would have only taken 30 seconds to tell us this, but he should have said that we were purposely overweighted for the class for teaching reasons, and we would need to lighten ourselves up to the point where we would have just enough weight on to hold a stop at 15’ with an empty BC. Something as simple as that would have set everyone forward in quantum leaps.
I was luck though because I was already freediving for a few years as an ab diver so I had a heads up on how conditions could be. I was one of the more relaxed ones. There were a few people that had never been in the ocean and I’m still amazed that they made it through.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Proper weighting is supposed to be a part of the OW course for all agencies in the WRSTC--it is in the standards. As one instructor who ignored those standards explained it to me (although not in these exact words), a student kneeling on the bottom of the pool or OW cannot be comfortably anchored when properly weighted.

What exactly is the definition of “proper weighting” in the WRSTC standards?
How are they defining it?

 

[FishWatcher747]

Did you perchance *ask* about it in those classes? I know, you can't ask about something you don't even know about....but even so, did you ask?

No I didn't ask because I was not aware that it was an issue. After I did OW, AOW and rescue last summer I did 2 trips to Key Largo and just started diving instead of taking more classes. The guides there helped me reduce weight and my SAC rate got way better the more I dove. I was talking to one of the guides I had dove with several times. She was getting me to reduce weight. I was focused on that but she also said "you are foot heavy". At the time I didn't realize what she was saying.

I got home from the last trip from Key Largo in January and kept thinking about what she said, "you are foot heavy". Then the light bulb went on in my brain. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but I'm not stupid either.

So I started a thread about it, got some great feedback and now understand the issue.

But it really shouldn't take someone 6 months and 69 dives to come to this understanding if it was taught properly.

 

[tursiops]

But it really shouldn't take someone 6 months and 69 dives to come to this understanding if it was taught properly.

I agree, except that if you can't even get new divers to remember to do the things that directly affect their safety, then how do you get their attention on the things that are less critical, like trim?

 

[boulderjohn]

What exactly is the definition of “proper weighting” in the WRSTC standards?
How are they defining it?

I have not looked at the WRSTC standards before replying, but I assume that there is no precise definition, just as there is no precise definition in the PADI standards. PADI does tell instructors that a properly weighted diver will float at eye level with an empty BCD while holding a normal breath. That is not much weight. When I taught, the more fit male students did not need any weight at all in the pool. I had to give them a weight belt to use with the weight belt skills. For other students, it was difficult to teach them to distribute weight for trim, since using the smallest weights we had would overweight them if distributed to 4 places. More obese students needed more.

I myself could meet that weight check requirement with no weight when wearing a 3mm shorty in fresh water. When instructing, I wore 6 pounds so I could descend quickly if I needed to. When I posed for pictures for the PADI article, I wore 6 pounds for the neutral/horizontal pictures, but I had to wear 12 pounds for the kneeling pictures.

When doing advanced classes and sharing a pool with OW classes, I regularly saw students weighted in the 20 pound range. I once met someone who said the standard policy in the place where she learned in California was for all students to use 20% of their body weight in the pool, so this 100 pound woman had 20 pounds. When I told her I did not see how she could do the buoyancy exercises with that much weight, she said no one could do them. The instructor told them they did not have to do them because they were advanced skills.

 

[FishWatcher747]

I agree, except that if you can't even get new divers to remember to do the things that directly affect their safety, then how do you get their attention on the things that are less critical, like trim?

True. It really takes time to absorb all the information thrown at you in diving instruction. I am grateful to the instructors, assistant instructors and DMs who have helped me along this journey. That includes the internet instructors like you who contribute their time to noobies like me.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

But it really shouldn't take someone 6 months and 69 dives to come to this understanding if it was taught properly.

Amen!

What exactly is the definition of “proper weighting” in the WRSTC standards?
How are they defining it?

Only referenced, never defined. The title page of that document includes "Minimum Course Content." Of the agencies I'm familiar, all exceed this minimum, but that minimum is paltry low (my opinion).

I have not looked at the WRSTC standards before replying, but I assume that there is no precise definition, just as there is no precise definition in the PADI standards.

I don't get why agencies (and I'm referring to all) cannot actually say what is the proper amount of weight: whatever is required to keep a diver at their shallowest stop (accounting for technical diving here) with nearly empty cylinder(s) (500 psi/50 bar), and empty BCD, and if worn, a dry suit as empty as possible yet still keeping the diver comfortable.

And of course distributed to allow the diver to be horizontal effortlessly (without sculling)

We all agree that this is the correct definition, right?

PADI does tell instructors that a properly weighted diver will float at eye level with an empty BCD while holding a normal breath. That is not much weight.

All depends on the exposure protection. Not all confined water sessions are performed in indoor pools. Confined water conditions have to meet pool like conditions for clarity, calmness, and depth, but not temperature.

I agree, except that if you can't even get new divers to remember to do the things that directly affect their safety, then how do you get their attention on the things that are less critical, like trim?

In their 2016 report (all reports available here: https://apps.dan.org/publication-library/), DAN did list correct weighting and better buoyancy control as two of the ten changes they'd like to see. Now trim can be inferred from better buoyancy control, as if you have the correct amount of weight, but you are not trim, when you fin you are going to ascend. That's going to be problematic for buoyancy control.

So I'd say weighting AND trim are rather important for safety. Not less critical.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I have not looked at the WRSTC standards before replying, but I assume that there is no precise definition, just as there is no precise definition in the PADI standards. PADI does tell instructors that a properly weighted diver will float at eye level with an empty BCD while holding a normal breath. That is not much weight. When I taught, the more fit male students did not need any weight at all in the pool. I had to give them a weight belt to use with the weight belt skills. For other students, it was difficult to teach them to distribute weight for trim, since using the smallest weights we had would overweight them if distributed to 4 places. More obese students needed more.

I myself could meet that weight check requirement with no weight when wearing a 3mm shorty in fresh water. When instructing, I wore 6 pounds so I could descend quickly if I needed to. When I posed for pictures for the PADI article, I wore 6 pounds for the neutral/horizontal pictures, but I had to wear 12 pounds for the kneeling pictures.

When doing advanced classes and sharing a pool with OW classes, I regularly saw students weighted in the 20 pound range. I once met someone who said the standard policy in the place where she learned in California was for all students to use 20% of their body weight in the pool, so this 100 pound woman had 20 pounds. When I told her I did not see how she could do the buoyancy exercises with that much weight, she said no one could do them. The instructor told them they did not have to do them because they were advanced skills.

Exactly, there is no precise definition. Saying that a diver should be able to let out all their air from the BC and float at eye level is a start, but what about if they are wearing a drysuit, or a thick wetsuit, or a thin wetsuit, or no wetsuit? Does this rule apply to all those scenarios?
This also leaves too much leeway for instructors to stretch these guidelines and make claims as to their weighting practices as being necessary for the conditions at hand.
Still the best way IMO, and one that was taught to me by a very proficient old diver, is to work on your weighting to where you can hold a stop at the end of your FULL LENGTH DIVE at 15’ with a near empty tank and no air in your BC. This rule can be adjusted to any form of exposure protection, to any tank composition, to any weighting combo. The final aggregate weighting number at 15’ is the critical one. After this baseline is established the diver can adjust it according to preferences like for drysuits where you might want a little loft in the suit or perhaps add a few lbs to stay down and out of rock washes like they get into where I dive. But at least with that method a diver can determine the minimal amount of weight needed then go from there.
It’s extremely simple yet seems to elude so many people.
Part of the phenomenon with scuba diving is a large majority of new divers tend to like to descend feet first or at least be able to descend without needing to swim down. Some claim they can’t equalize etc.
But the proper weighting method I describe may not allow for a feet first descent, it may mean tipping forward on the surface and kicking down like a freediver does. It used to be that scuba diving was an extension of freediving and all the same methods applied for both. But over the years scuba has taken on it’s own identity and practices. Unfortunately elevator diving is part of that new scuba culture.

 

[tursiops]

Exactly, there is no precise definition. Saying that a diver should be able to let out all their air from the BC and float at eye level is a start, but what about if they are wearing a drysuit, or a thick wetsuit, or a thin wetsuit, or no wetsuit? Does this rule apply to all those scenarios?
This also leaves too much leeway for instructors to stretch these guidelines and make claims as to their weighting practices as being necessary for the conditions at hand.
Still the best way IMO, and one that was taught to me by a very proficient old diver, is to work on your weighting to where you can hold a stop at the end of your FULL LENGTH DIVE at 15’ with a near empty tank and no air in your BC. This rule can be adjusted to any form of exposure protection, to any tank composition, to any weighting combo. The final aggregate weighting number at 15’ is the critical one. After this baseline is established the diver can adjust it according to preferences like for drysuits where you might want a little loft in the suit or perhaps add a few lbs to stay down and out of rock washes like they get into where I dive. But at least with that method a diver can determine the minimal amount of weight needed then go from there.
It’s extremely simple yet seems to elude so many people.
Part of the phenomenon with scuba diving is a large majority of new divers tend to like to descend feet first or at least be able to descend without needing to swim down. Some claim they can’t equalize etc.
But the proper weighting method I describe may not allow for a feet first descent, it may mean tipping forward on the surface and kicking down like a freediver does. It used to be that scuba diving was an extension of freediving and all the same methods applied for both. But over the years scuba has taken on it’s own identity and practices. Unfortunately elevator diving is part of that new scuba culture.

Kind of self-centered. How your body works does not apply to everyone. This is why there is more than one way to equalize. And some -- like me -- find it very difficult to equalize if upside down.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Still the best way IMO, and one that was taught to me by a very proficient old diver, is to work on your weighting to where you can hold a stop at the end of your FULL LENGTH DIVE at 15’ with a near empty tank and no air in your BC. This rule can be adjusted to any form of exposure protection, to any tank composition, to any weighting combo. The final aggregate weighting number at 15’ is the critical one. After this baseline is established the diver can adjust it according to preferences like for drysuits where you might want a little loft in the suit or perhaps add a few lbs to stay down and out of rock washes like they get into where I dive. But at least with that method a diver can determine the minimal amount of weight needed then go from there.
It’s extremely simple yet seems to elude so many people.
Part of the phenomenon with scuba diving is a large majority of new divers tend to like to descend feet first or at least be able to descend without needing to swim down. Some claim they can’t equalize etc.
But the proper weighting method I describe may not allow for a feet first descent, it may mean tipping forward on the surface and kicking down like a freediver does

Why is that? When starting with a full cylinder, dumping out all the gas from the BCD, and if wearing a dry suit, squatting down to empty of all gas should allow a diver to still descend feet first. At least from my experience (which is not statistically significant).