STA for warm water diving.

[Grajan]

Might be worth a try. I was going to get a bit 'pouchy'.

What about the "on the surface - no dive boat in sight - ripped wing" scenario - toss the lot?

In my experience it doesn't matter as much as you think it will. Drop a 6 pound plate right on your back vs a regular BC and the difference in stability is just insane.

My suggestion is to get the steel plate, wear a weight belt for the time being, and go diving. You can adjust your trim very effectively by moving your tank slightly and fine tune it perfectly by just holding your feet a little differently. You should be able to dial it in without tossing weight pouches everywhere.

 

[jonnythan]

Might be worth a try. I was going to get a bit 'pouchy'.

What about the "on the surface - no dive boat in sight - ripped wing" scenario - toss the lot?

Eh, I dunno... if I were diving in the ocean in a wetsuit, I'd sure as heck have some form of redundant buoyancy. Lift bag most likely. Worst case, you're stranded at sea, no scuba unit is going to do a lot for you anyway..

 

[Grajan]

Good point - I need a better SMB anyway.

Eh, I dunno... if I were diving in the ocean in a wetsuit, I'd sure as heck have some form of redundant buoyancy. Lift bag most likely. Worst case, you're stranded at sea, no scuba unit is going to do a lot for you anyway..

 

[srbsep]

There's really not often a lot of reason to have ditchable weight unless you're wearing a thick wetsuit.. at that point I'm kinda fuzzy on what's DIR for weight dumping or what's not, but I don't dive in a thick wetsuit so I'm not too worried about it...

IMO, if your rig *requires* ditchable weight in order to have a chance of surviving, you should take a good long look at your rig and figure out why and how to correct that. Often this will mean getting a drysuit.

Good point. I should have pointed out that my original question was in regards to diving wet. With a dry suit you have an alternate source of buoyancy so a wing failure is not that big an emergency. I usually wear a two piece 3mm plus a 5/3mm vest+hood and had originally wanted to get rid of my al plate and get a ss plate and thus get four pounds off my weightbelt. This would have left me with 2 lbs on my weight belt, but some instructors I talked to said this would be too little ditchable...I did try to swim up my rig with the SS plate and I could but I was in a cavern...it might be a bit different out in the open ocean with a ripped wing and you are waiting for the boat etc etc...but I see you already adressed that in your post to Grajan.

 

[mer]

Another thing to not forget in all of this:
With DIR diving we are always diving in a team. If something catestrophic happens to my wing, yes I can swim it up, but I also have teammates to help me, and help me maintain buoyancy on the surface. They then could help me ditch the rig or establish additional buoyancy with liftbag.

 

[JWU42]

Mer,

A very good point that was hammered home in Fundies. The team's resources are your resources - be that gas, inflation, compass, SMB, etc...