Damn! I'm a balanced rig diver!
Who'da thunk?
Who'da thunk?
Question about “balanced rigs” and having all ballast unditchable
- Thread starter Eric Sedletzky
- Start date
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PfcAJ
Contributor
I’m less concerned with that. On the surface you have options. Fiddle with a lift device, get help from a buddy, grab the ladder or tag line, even ditching your gear is an option.
Staying there under your own power would be nice, but it’s not an absolute requirement like A and B are.
CT-Rich
Contributor
After reading the annual DAN and BSAC reports it only confirm my belief in a significant amount of ditchable weight. Both report that post dive on the surface were where the second most likely (after mid-dive) for fatalities to occur. Divers lost on the surface may take hours to locate and they may be exhausted by ocean conditions. Anything that reduces their stress and let’s them sit higher in the water improves their survivability.
PfcAJ
Contributor
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
Instead of arguing to change the definition of balanced...
What about asking when the statement: 'I have no ditchable, I'm fine, my rig is balanced...' is just fine:
A) New diver not wanting a weight belt as it is inconvenient. ? I can swim this up, and deal with it on the surface, really...
B) Tech diver carrying lots of gas, which is why no ditchable, it would just make them negative ? And that is outside the scope of this basic forum...
...
What about asking when the statement: 'I have no ditchable, I'm fine, my rig is balanced...' is just fine:
A) New diver not wanting a weight belt as it is inconvenient. ? I can swim this up, and deal with it on the surface, really...
B) Tech diver carrying lots of gas, which is why no ditchable, it would just make them negative ? And that is outside the scope of this basic forum...
...
PfcAJ
Contributor
“Inconvenient” isn’t a good reason for anything. If you adopt a trash equipment config because it’s “inconvenient” to do something better then I think you should take a step back and reevaluate your choice to scuba dive.
You can still dive a balanced rig as a tech diver.
A few years ago we had a thread about a video that was circulating on the Internet in which a diver who was expecting to be on the surface for hours videotaped himself talking about it. Some people pointed out that he appeared to be sitting high in the water and suspected it was a fake. No, the guy just had the good sense to take the rig off, dump whatever excess weight he felt like, and sit on it as if it were a bean bag chair. If I am going to be stuck for hours, I am going to come up with something along those lines. At that point, no matter how you intended to carry it during a dive, ALL your weight is ditchable.
It is outside of basic, but if you are already negative because of the amount of gas and gear you are carrying, what is the benefit of adding additional weight that can be ditched?
Dan_P
Contributor
Terminology
I agree that we've probably been speaking past oneanother here. I'll just touch quickly on the terminology that I use (this is not to be confused with a claim to novelty or a representation of anyone's doctrine), so at least we're sure to avoid any further confusion on that;
Proper Weighting - the amount of weight required to offset positive bouyancy of the gear that is brought on a dive, including exposure protection. At dive's end, on the last stop or safety stop with little or no gas and empty wing, the balance of positive and negative bouyancy should be nil.
Balanced Rig - ensuring that there is no dependency on any single piece of equipment in order to do a controlled ascend, including stops.
Of course, this means if I don't have a drysuit for redundancy, I may well encounter plenty scenarios where it makes perfect sense to keep the equivalent of the gas weight ditchable - in case of BCD failure at the beginning of the dive.
Statistics
I mentioned previously DANs 2016 report because it's got a small armada of various incidents relating to weight belts, not because it reports on a dive year that had a particularly high prevalence of AGE specifically - for one of those, please look to the 2010-report where AGE accounted for about a third of reported fatalities (if memory serves).
However it should conversely be said that, in fairness, diving statistics are largely subjected to the rule of small numbers and this is no exception.
History
I grant that drysuits weren't always available as they are today, and thus, sports diving (including, as relevant here, to depths beyond the OWD-range) was of course normally done in wetsuits.
However, that shouldn't impact an appraisal of today's options.
Once, 2.-stages were in short supply, and buddy breathing was the solution - in a contemporary setting, though, it makes no sense to aim for that procedure as the solution to the OOG-diver scenario.
Scenarios
As the scenarios go, I don't agree at all that it's a problem to be neutral on the surface even in case of compounding separation + BCD failure + OOG + lost at sea as it looks like we're working with here;
By the time I'm on the surface neutral, my situation is stabilized - we can argue that it would be nice to sit higher, or increase my visual profile, or be more comfortable, and that's all true. But "nice to have" - and, in this case, we're sporting a useless rig (no bouyancy, no gas) - how many hours would pass by before we'd decide to maybe just ditch that rig? Insurance usually even covers that anyway.
However, I think there's a cardinal question to be shaped by way of inverting the discussion:
Why is imbalanced a superior solution to balanced?
I don't agree it's price.
A low-end drysuit isn't that much dearer than a good "thick" wetsuit, they're also available second-hand, and, diving isn't really that expensive compared to many other hobbies. For a small amount of money, one can get some equipment to do some diving.
But I think it's unreasonable to set a course that diving should be a low-budget activity and let that impact the pursuit for, well, best practice across the board.
I can get a thick wetsuit, and do entry-level diving. That's fine. But when we identify a best practice, and dismiss it due to cost, yet still transcend the line in the sand where it matters, I think that's an issue.
I don't agree it's learning.
Personally, I work at a centre that offers two agencies' certifications. On course A lasting 4 days, students are off on the path to imbalanced, and on course B lasting 4 days, they're off on the path to balanced.
Same time spent. Same intensity level. Same taxonomy level.
So, I'd like to ask that question;
Why is imbalanced a superior solution to balanced?
I agree that we've probably been speaking past oneanother here. I'll just touch quickly on the terminology that I use (this is not to be confused with a claim to novelty or a representation of anyone's doctrine), so at least we're sure to avoid any further confusion on that;
Proper Weighting - the amount of weight required to offset positive bouyancy of the gear that is brought on a dive, including exposure protection. At dive's end, on the last stop or safety stop with little or no gas and empty wing, the balance of positive and negative bouyancy should be nil.
Balanced Rig - ensuring that there is no dependency on any single piece of equipment in order to do a controlled ascend, including stops.
Of course, this means if I don't have a drysuit for redundancy, I may well encounter plenty scenarios where it makes perfect sense to keep the equivalent of the gas weight ditchable - in case of BCD failure at the beginning of the dive.
Statistics
I mentioned previously DANs 2016 report because it's got a small armada of various incidents relating to weight belts, not because it reports on a dive year that had a particularly high prevalence of AGE specifically - for one of those, please look to the 2010-report where AGE accounted for about a third of reported fatalities (if memory serves).
However it should conversely be said that, in fairness, diving statistics are largely subjected to the rule of small numbers and this is no exception.
History
I grant that drysuits weren't always available as they are today, and thus, sports diving (including, as relevant here, to depths beyond the OWD-range) was of course normally done in wetsuits.
However, that shouldn't impact an appraisal of today's options.
Once, 2.-stages were in short supply, and buddy breathing was the solution - in a contemporary setting, though, it makes no sense to aim for that procedure as the solution to the OOG-diver scenario.
Scenarios
As the scenarios go, I don't agree at all that it's a problem to be neutral on the surface even in case of compounding separation + BCD failure + OOG + lost at sea as it looks like we're working with here;
By the time I'm on the surface neutral, my situation is stabilized - we can argue that it would be nice to sit higher, or increase my visual profile, or be more comfortable, and that's all true. But "nice to have" - and, in this case, we're sporting a useless rig (no bouyancy, no gas) - how many hours would pass by before we'd decide to maybe just ditch that rig? Insurance usually even covers that anyway.
However, I think there's a cardinal question to be shaped by way of inverting the discussion:
Why is imbalanced a superior solution to balanced?
I don't agree it's price.
A low-end drysuit isn't that much dearer than a good "thick" wetsuit, they're also available second-hand, and, diving isn't really that expensive compared to many other hobbies. For a small amount of money, one can get some equipment to do some diving.
But I think it's unreasonable to set a course that diving should be a low-budget activity and let that impact the pursuit for, well, best practice across the board.
I can get a thick wetsuit, and do entry-level diving. That's fine. But when we identify a best practice, and dismiss it due to cost, yet still transcend the line in the sand where it matters, I think that's an issue.
I don't agree it's learning.
Personally, I work at a centre that offers two agencies' certifications. On course A lasting 4 days, students are off on the path to imbalanced, and on course B lasting 4 days, they're off on the path to balanced.
Same time spent. Same intensity level. Same taxonomy level.
So, I'd like to ask that question;
Why is imbalanced a superior solution to balanced?
Last edited:
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
There is no benefit to adding weight. The point was the heavy tech diver has a presumably legit reason for say 'I get by with a balanced rig, my dive gives me no choice.' The 'I don't like a weight belt or integrated' new diver claiming balanced covers them, is claiming a less stringent safety margin without the same justification, or training, as the tech diver where it was a necessity.
Do we always feel comfortable with a new diver having no ditchable if they claim it is balanced?
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