Short people problems/hacks

[Damselfish]

As a petite woman smaller tanks are your answer. Good chance with being smaller and some more diving, any reduction in the amount of air won't be a problem for you. The upside of this is, eventually big guys will be jealous of your low air consumption.

Custom suits are probably your other answer if you can't find something off the rack. A custom wetsuit, or possibly getting something altered, may not be as expensive as you think. Just do it.

If you're diving at home, buy the tanks that work for you. Maybe a short tank alone will solve the carry problem. Have a cart if it's useful sometimes. Try the carriers and see if they help. Carry the other gear if you've got a taller buddy to slog the tanks. (I find it easier to carry 2 tanks, one in each hand, rather than a single on one side.)

If you plan to dive tropical destinations, AL80s are the most common tanks, but AL63s are sometimes available. Some places just have a few around, and other places it's helpful to arrange ahead to try and put dibs on them (especially for a liveaboard where you will generally use the same tank all week. Depending where they are, sometimes if they don't have them on board they can get their hands on some if they know in advance.) There are also tropical destinations that are all about playing dive sherpa (often referred to as valet diving) where you'll never lift a tank.

I'm pretty average height, but an 80 will still hit me in the head or butt. My reg hitting me in the head and preventing me from looking up drives me especially crazy, so I drop my tank low enough to avoid that. (I make sure I have a BC that allows me to do this, some don't.) Tank hitting me in the butt/legs doesn't seem so annoying, at least in the water. You'll figure out the weighting if you need to avoid the plow effect, there are ways.

 

[Bubblesong]

Tank used to hit me in head AND butt, however the rails on my Freedom Contour back plate and wing setup moved tank up to trim, so i can wear tank lower without getting spanked.
I would not carry tank on my sloping shoulders and minimum upper body strength, perilous. At home i have wheeled folding cart am trying to design a DIY lightweight, micro travel version for trips to florida. Ideas welcome.
I am more dwarf that sprite, so i buy regular wetsuit, gloves, fins and cut to shorten. The knee pads become shin pads, but still. I cut my fins in a thread called flipper nipping, to fit in suitcase and also avoid over straining short legs.

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

With respect to wetsuits, we stock Women's suits in 3, 5 and 7 mm thickness. Our womens suits are much warmer than typical wetsuits that have zippers that can leak and necks that leak because of the use of detachable hoods.

Our suits eliminate all these entry points for water and we use smooth rubber on the inside of the suits which greatly reduces the leakage of water at the ankle, wrists and face seal.

Our Women's size small is designed for 5 -1 to 5' 3" so you are well within the range of a stock suit- assuming that your weight is within the range of 105 to 125 lbs. If you are heavier, you may find the medium works quite well. Please see our size chart at the bottom of this link.

Womens 3D Reef Camo Wetsuit 2-Piece Open Cell | MAKO Spearguns

 

[Storker]

FWIW, that is not as easy as Storker makes it out to be.

It is to me. Lifting my left hand to support the tank makes a nice indentation on top of my shoulder - between the deltiod and the trapezius where the tank rests nicely. And I'm past 50, short, chubby and not particularly athletic.

But then I've only used euro type steels (10Lx300bar, 12Lx200 bar, 15Lx200bar and 15Lx300bar), never an Al80. Maybe Al80s are more difficult to carry on your shoulder than steels are?

 

[Altamira]

@uncfnp As you know, slinging a tank is mostly a matter of upper body strength, whether the diver is male or female. I am very familiar with slinging an AL80 over the shoulder, and have no problem doing it, even with two replaced shoulder joints (but I don't do it for safety reasons). However, my petite wife would never be able to "sling a tank", nor would I want her to try.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

OP, FWIW: I'm 5'8", 5'9" if you round, and I STILL can't let my arms dangle free while holding an AL80 or it drags. However, I'm all torso, not much leg length, so tank position isn't an issue at all.

 

[Bubblesong]

assuming that your weight is within the range of 105 to 125 lbs

Arrrrggghhh!

 

[johnohuk]

Get yourself a fold-up hand truck (trolley to us Brits) for the cylinder and save you back at the same time....

 

[JamesBon92007]

My girlfriend is 5'2" and found a Pinnacle suit that fits her extremely well. I looked at lot of size charts before I found one that sounded like it would accommodate her large "chest" area and lack of height. She tried it and their size chart was correct. Cressi has a model called the "Maya" and the first time I saw one was on a Maya man on Cozumel but they don't seem to be marketing them toward people with a shorter, stockier physique but it looked like it was made for him. His suit was fairly new and his zipper broke and it must have been serious because he and the captain did a field repair of my wetsuit zipper which has dozens of dives on it since they repaired it. So, good fit for shorter people but bad zippers.

I know a woman who dives with a small aluminum tank (I thought it was a 50 but perhaps it's a 63). She is rather petite but one small tank filled with Nitrox will last her as long as everyone else who is using two AL80s filled with air, and she would be the last one to surface. Perhaps the Nitrox will extend your time so you can use a shorter tank? I've never used it but perhaps those with more gas experiences will chime in. This particular woman has been diving since before there was such a thing as a C-Card so she has had plenty of time to work on her air consumption.

I have a set of steel double 50s (or 45s?) which are short and wide and the bands have a built-in handle that actually works. The downside is that you are adding a lot more weight for not a whole lot more breathing gas. Many of the old-fashioned tank backpacks had a built-in handle and were easy to carry horizontally (for a longer tank too) but handles do not seem to be very common any more. I liked it because it was always there and did not require adding a carrying strap.

 

[rhwestfall]

As said somewhere above, you petite gals seem to have gills.... we other folks hate that.... Early on, as a complete athlete (college basketball player), I'd crush a tank (AL80), while my wife sipped through her AL63.....

Without that insane performance oriented body (well, the years have gone by....), we now have switched (we get long dives), and my RMV is 0.5 (unless in a DS and full tek kit).

YMMV