Steel vs. Al Tanks?
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Charlie99
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1. What is a "balanced rig"?pants!:Well, the solution is not to be in that situation in the first place, hence dive a balanced rig, which is a very DIR kinda concept...
2. If you have a "balanced rig", does this somehow make it so that your wetsuit doesn't compress?
3. Is there some sort of difference in the character of negative buoyancy of a steel tank vs. a steel backplate or a v-weight?
This thing about being trapped on the bottom in your steel tank and wetsuit is totally specious. With an overpumped 125, steel backplate, and wetsuit, I am 10 pounds heavy at the start off the start and neutrally buoyant at 10' at the completion. It's great diving with no weight belt.
Anyone who couldn't swim up 10 pounds negative from depth with a deflated bc has no business diving to begin with - their water skills and abilities are subpar. Even the most pathetic intro divers I took diving could have managed that, and I had some pretty sorryarsed people on occasion.
Next will come the argument that what if you're unconscious and your buddy has to swim you up. But let's not beat up that dead horse today...
Anyone who couldn't swim up 10 pounds negative from depth with a deflated bc has no business diving to begin with - their water skills and abilities are subpar. Even the most pathetic intro divers I took diving could have managed that, and I had some pretty sorryarsed people on occasion.
Next will come the argument that what if you're unconscious and your buddy has to swim you up. But let's not beat up that dead horse today...
Diving a balanced rig pretty much means that you can get yourself out of the water safely in the event of a buoyancy failure.
Diving thick wetsuits deep often means an unbalanced rig. Due to wetsuit compression you become very negative, and if you have a BC failure you would need to ditch weight in order to ascend.. but by the time you get near the surface and your wetsuit regains all its buoyancy you will be unable to arrest the ascent. Some people get around this by wearing a dual-bladder BC, some wear drysuits, whatever works for you.
Planning to ditch weight in order to effect a self-rescue from a BC failure event indicates an unbalanced rig, because the ascent will become uncontrollable. Unfortunately for the OW masses north of, say, Florida, this concept means that wearing thick wetsuits in deep water is basically a no-no. The recreational world gets around this by teaching to just ditch the weight belt in such an event and shoot to the surface.
As for 3) there is really no difference other than they may trim out differently.
Diving thick wetsuits deep often means an unbalanced rig. Due to wetsuit compression you become very negative, and if you have a BC failure you would need to ditch weight in order to ascend.. but by the time you get near the surface and your wetsuit regains all its buoyancy you will be unable to arrest the ascent. Some people get around this by wearing a dual-bladder BC, some wear drysuits, whatever works for you.
Planning to ditch weight in order to effect a self-rescue from a BC failure event indicates an unbalanced rig, because the ascent will become uncontrollable. Unfortunately for the OW masses north of, say, Florida, this concept means that wearing thick wetsuits in deep water is basically a no-no. The recreational world gets around this by teaching to just ditch the weight belt in such an event and shoot to the surface.
As for 3) there is really no difference other than they may trim out differently.
Charlie99
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Is this the DEFINITION of "balanced rig" -- i.e. balance rig is "a rig that one can swim up off the bottom"?pants!:
Seriously, this is NOT a troll. The term "balanced rig" gets thrown around now and then, usually it seems, by someone with a little bit of DIR training, and very often in the context of wetsuits and steel tanks.
I really don't see where the non-ditchable negative buoyancy of steel tanks is any different than any other non-ditchable negative buoyancy, but repeated posts my many different people makes me wonder if there is something that I'm missing.
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