Question about “balanced rigs” and having all ballast unditchable

[MichaelMc]

I think there is another leak route, plates. (edit: , steel, and tech 'I have no ditchable'.)

New diver: What BC?
Tech diver: BP/W gives durable, modular, inexpensive, move some trim weight to plate.
New diver: Great. (Moves entire 6 lb. of lead to steel plate. Smiles at slick rig.)
...
New diver: (Hmm..., wait.) We were told to have ditchable weights?
Tech diver: I wear none and its fine. (in cave with 2x huge, 2x stage, 2x deco, and highly trained team)
New diver: Ok... cool.? (I guess they did not tell us everything, or maybe skipped advanced ideas.)

I love BP/W as a rec. diver. I think they are the best. But I got an AL one so I could pick where my lead goes and retain generous ditchable with proper weighting. And did that with an insanely thick wetsuit in California waters. With 90 dives of focus on buoyancy control. I now also have a steel plate. But an AL plate, trim pockets, integrated, and belt managed to hold lead in trim and ditchable for a specialized *very* thick wetsuit. With an AL tank, which is just noise in terms of extra lift I had.

 

[Storker]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that better than 50% of newly trained divers trained by all basic OW agencies are diving overweighted.

I can only speak about the world I experience, not about all divers around the world.

BUT: There's a world of difference, weighting-wise, between diving temperate waters in a 5 mil WS and diving cold waters in a DS with heavy undergarments. If you jump into 4C water carrying only the bare minimum of weight, you'll be freezing your family jewels off long before your tank approaches empty or you're getting close to your NDL. I like to add a couple of kilos to my belt during winter, and I'm quite certain that some folks would think that I'm a bit overweighted during winter. And those are usually the people I see surfacing shivering while I'm still close to decently warm.

 

[Storker]

Always get positively buoyant at the surface by the fastest means

This.

And being able to ditch is another tool in the toolbox. You might never need it, but it might also be a very nice tool to have available one day.

 

[Akimbo]

And being able to ditch is another tool in the toolbox. You might never need it, but it might also be a very nice tool to have available one day.

I like to ask divers:
Would you rather rely on established laws of physics or a plastic bag (commonly known as a BC) when your life depends on it?

The only time dropping lead fails is when it is bolted to something you need or forget to drop it. To further state the obvious:
Lead doesn't come with bags that can fail, hoses that pull off, inflator and pull-dumps that can leak, or the requirement for gas to fill it.

 

[Solotor]

3. From a logical point of view, why would you ever, ever, ever remove your rig and separate it from you underwater? It’s a cool skill to practice but it’s unnecessary.

River and current diving: If your gear got entangled, the force of the current can easily prevent you from untangling yourself. You doff your gear and go to the surface CESA-style.

I like how someone else in this thread put it: Unless you have dived in all of the 7 seas of the world, so to speak, you cannot foresee all possible scenarios and circumstances in diving.

Schooling in absolutes just never works really well and mostly produces dickheads.

 

[Akimbo]

Let's not forget that dumping lead is just as important on the surface during a crisis as underwater.

 

[Bob DBF]

I haven't read the full report, but on at least two of the fatalities, the divers had attempted to de-kit underwater. So everyone who suggested throwing away your rig is a great idea, you may want to think twice about that.

If the first time you try to ditch your rig is during an emergency, you might run into issues. During the rescue class I attended the instructor asked us to ditch the rig on the surface, I was out of mine in seconds and then he spent a while teaching the rest how to ditch their rig since no one else had done it since OW.

Statisctics won't convince me. And no, I don't object to ditchable weight, just have no use for it. So why not dive and let dive, ditchable weight or not. What's the issue here?

I don't have a problem with it, and since you are a solo diver with a decent dive count, I assume you have a good working plan to stay alive. I don't dive that way, but I've had some criticism of my style as well.

I think ditching a rig as an emergency procedure should still be taught, but that's not likely to happen when proper weighting is glossed over.

I know some people are just born experimenters, but my philosophy is that mixing and matching bits and pieces because each individually seems like a good idea is for clothing, not diving.

The problem is not tinkering, otherwise I would be dead long before now, but using and modifying gear and procedures without first understanding how it works and whether it will benefit your diving. The issue is blind copying.

An old Smothers Brothers song sung to The Streets of Laredo

You can tell by my out fit that I am a cowboy
I can tell by your outfit that you are a cowboy
We can tell by our outfits we are both cowboys
And if you get an outfit you can be a cowboy too.


Bob

 

[EireDiver606]

River and current diving: If your gear got entangled, the force of the current can easily prevent you from untangling yourself. You doff your gear and go to the surface CESA-style.

I like how someone else in this thread put it: Unless you have dived in all of the 7 seas of the world, so to speak, you cannot foresee all possible scenarios and circumstances in diving.

Schooling in absolutes just never works really well and mostly produces dickheads.

How often do you get entangled and how often have you done this?

Where is your team?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I can only speak about the world I experience, not about all divers around the world.

BUT: There's a world of difference, weighting-wise, between diving temperate waters in a 5 mil WS and diving cold waters in a DS with heavy undergarments. If you jump into 4C water carrying only the bare minimum of weight, you'll be freezing your family jewels off long before your tank approaches empty or you're getting close to your NDL. I like to add a couple of kilos to my belt during winter, and I'm quite certain that some folks would think that I'm a bit overweighted during winter. And those are usually the people I see surfacing shivering while I'm still close to decently warm.

This is true, you like more weight so that you can have more gas in your DS to stay warmer, understandable. You also know what you’re doing and have concluded your decisions based on knowledge. You also have ditchable weight.
I’m talking about new divers in 2 pc 7mm wetsuits with 40+ lbs stuffed into every orifice of their BC plus some more hanging off that an instructor has clipped onto them to “make sure they stay down”. They waddle into the water and trudge out to the drop spot. As soon as they dump air they drop feet first like an anvil. When they are done trudging around on the bottom and come up with 500 psi in their tanks they still need to inflate their BC’s almost full to stay floating. These are the ones I’m concerned about who go to a BP/W and want to bolt all that weight onto the rig somewhere in a non ditchable fashion because they read sh!t on the internet.
They need to rewind the learning curve way back and start over. They also need to educate themselves on current fads on some of these internet boards where all the “experts” hang out and see the pros and cons, not just follow the leader uninformed.
I’m sure you can see where I’m coming from.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Where is your team?

Oh so it’s a “team” now? Is this some sort of militarized special ops excercise, or is it just another hip and cool buzz word?