possible reason for weight belt?

[svracing]

Hello All, Thanks for feeding information here. I enjoy reading opinions and experiences.

I am in the middle of open water cert. Just finished the pool dives, Monterey and ocean check out dives next weekend.

After demonstrating the skills to the instructor, he gave us the rest of our tanks to self practice and explore the pool. The gear that was rented included an integrated BCD. Very comfortable and easy to use. The suit is a farmer john with a top that they said put about 14 mm around my torso. Very warm, very buoyant. I am a slightly built guy 5'7 120lbs. With the suit on, I float above the water level.... So, as I am playing with the gear, I want to practice taking off and putting on the BCD on the bottom. Of course, I take off the ballast and rocket up. I was prepared, and held on to the BCD in a bear hug. Now upside down, I begin the difficult task of drawing my body around and straddling it for the sake of sinking. Next comes the hilarious skinny guy spin. Where I struggle and get the arms in the straps, untwist them, find the weight pouch trapped, continue spinning over to dislodge it, settle on the bottom, and buckle the waist. Now back to where I started, I look and the instructor is sitting off 20' or so laughing.

My thinking, as my heart rate comes back to normal, is that a separate weight belt would have made that process much less strenuous and possibly safer. The balance to that thought is: How often does the BCD ever need to come off? Has anyone here ever needed to remove their BCD at depth? if so, what depth?

I have read through numerous weight belt vs Integrated. I haven't seen many arguments for separating the weight. Can't wait for Monterey!

James

 

[muddiver]

I dive with a weight system. Which is a belt that has suspenders and pouches that drop away if I need to drop the weights. It is closed to using a belt than an integrated BC.

Two reasons to remove ones BC are 1. the cylinder has slipped out of the cam band, or 2. you have become entangled in some thing and removing the BC to untangle it is necessary.

If you are a cave movie star there is also taking you rig off to squeeze through a small, dark hole.

 

[fnfalman]

Hello All, Thanks for feeding information here. I enjoy reading opinions and experiences.

I am in the middle of open water cert. Just finished the pool dives, Monterey and ocean check out dives next weekend.

After demonstrating the skills to the instructor, he gave us the rest of our tanks to self practice and explore the pool. The gear that was rented included an integrated BCD. Very comfortable and easy to use. The suit is a farmer john with a top that they said put about 14 mm around my torso. Very warm, very buoyant. I am a slightly built guy 5'7 120lbs. With the suit on, I float above the water level.... So, as I am playing with the gear, I want to practice taking off and putting on the BCD on the bottom. Of course, I take off the ballast and rocket up. I was prepared, and held on to the BCD in a bear hug. Now upside down, I begin the difficult task of drawing my body around and straddling it for the sake of sinking. Next comes the hilarious skinny guy spin. Where I struggle and get the arms in the straps, untwist them, find the weight pouch trapped, continue spinning over to dislodge it, settle on the bottom, and buckle the waist. Now back to where I started, I look and the instructor is sitting off 20' or so laughing.

My thinking, as my heart rate comes back to normal, is that a separate weight belt would have made that process much less strenuous and possibly safer. The balance to that thought is: How often does the BCD ever need to come off? Has anyone here ever needed to remove their BCD at depth? if so, what depth?

I have read through numerous weight belt vs Integrated. I haven't seen many arguments for separating the weight. Can't wait for Monterey!

James

Yes, the weight belt could have helped in your situation.

As far as how often a BC has to come off underwater, who knows? Maybe if you were diving in an area that has high risk of entanglement (leftover commercial fish netting, abandoned fishing lines, caves, wreck penetrations, etc.), then you'd probably have a higher chance of doffing your BC underwater.

 

[tstormdiver]

Sounds like the underwater BC removal I had to demonstrate for my Dive Con class, so the instructor could see where I was at. I had not done it since my OW class 2 yrs earlier. Essentially the BC with all the weights was sitting at the bottom of the pool with me hanging on to the reg by my teeth, half way to the surface. I used the reg hose to climb back down to my BC, get everything situated & clumisly & sheepishly get back into it with my tail tucked between my leg. How humiliating, but it sure was entertainment to the Dive Con Instructor & Dive Con Instructor candidates. I found a weightbelt with just a couple of pound helps a lot & also by keeping the BC as close to me & my center of gravity helps a bunch too.

 

[Damselfish]

actually, I've often seen the suggestion to split the weight between integrated and a belt, when carrying a fair amount of weight. It can make sense for the weight belt to weight you and the suit, and the integrated weights to weight the rig, more or less. Most WI BCs aren't designed to carry the total amount of weight many people need with a heavy suit anyway, not to mention what the rig will weigh.

 

[Teamcasa]

Have no fear, with a farmer John, everybody is pretty buoyant sans their ballast, be it weight belt or integrated. Add to that, being a new diver you are probably a tad overweighted and you have not had time to really get to know your (rental) gear.

Experience fixes most of these issues and spending some money on your own gear will go a long way to fix the other issues.

That said, for your open water dive, I see no reason you could not to slip on a weight belt and divide up some of that ballast. (Keep in mind your slight build.) Weight belts tend to slid down unless you have hips or a sufficient sized butt (like me) to keep it in place.

 

[eponym]

I second MudDiver. On a dive where my kit might become entangled (while my buddy swims away) it would be nice to be able to spin out of it and correct the problem. So a weight belt would be nice.

With practice it is possible to spin out of and back into a weight-integrated BC while still allowing it to keep you at depth. But work on this in the pool first. Do it while horizontal, keep it centered above you, and move slow.

-Bryan

 

[tkdgodess]

When I got an all intergrated bc I put all my weight into it, yay intergrated, no more belt!...but it occured to me that if a silly flap of velcro decided to give, I would be on a one way non stop ride to the surface by losing half my lead (I wear a drysuit), so now I wear 1/3 of my weight on a belt with two buckles. GL. I can still ditch easy, but I'm left with secured lead.

 

[fisheater]

Two reasons for us cold water divers to use a weight belt.

Using all integrated weights, your scuba unit becomes heavy, unwieldy and hard to float at the surface.

Also, should you attempt to do an underwater ditch & don (e.g. to deal with a kelp or fishing line entanglement), your exposure protection will try very hard to rocket you to the surface and your scuba unit will do its best to drip to the sea floor, taking all your air with it.

Best to split your weight between a belt and your scuba unit. (Using a steel backplate with or with weight plates is best.)

 

[svracing]

Thanks for all the feedback and stories! When I go to the dive shop to pick up my tanks, I will ask for some belt weights.

In the pool, my setup was the back inflating BCD with 20 lbs - 5lb each waist pocket and 5 lbs each in small pockets behind me. Midway through the pool, the instructor have me a 3lb weight that I simply put inside the wetsuit. Total 23lb plus AL80 cylinder. This is where I felt the most neutral.

What would a good starting point be? 10-13 lbs in the BCD and 10lb on a belt?

As a side note: There are 3 students in the class. We all started with 3000-3100 psi in 80cf tanks. As the biggest guy was getting to 500 psi, I was just breaking 2000 psi. Pretty crazy the difference in consumption.