Steels in a wetsuit

[teknitroxdiver]

Is it safe to dive LP95 doubles wet? I'm sure I can swim quite a bit off the bottom. Does anyone dive these wet? How about E7-100s and E8-119s?

thanks

 

[Dryglove]

Is it safe to dive LP95 doubles wet? I'm sure I can swim quite a bit off the bottom. Does anyone dive these wet? How about E7-100s and E8-119s?

thanks

With E-7 100's you are looking at around negative 15lbs in air alone. I never tried mine in a wetsuit but with the weight of the air plus the amount of buoyancy a thick wetsuit loses at depth you can get really negative with full tanks real fast.

Just a little spill from George Irvine concerning diving heavy steel tanks in a wetsuit
http://www.baue.org/library/irvine_baue_talk.html

"So you want to get in a position where you're not relying on anything for a buoyancy bailout. On the other hand you, don't want a whole bunch of gas in the wings so they're jacked up which is going to slow you down, cause more drag and be more unstable in order to stay up. You just want to be fine-tuning your trim. You want to be able to put enough gas in your drysuit to stay warm but you don't want to have to jack it up and jack wings up because you're too heavy. Conversely, when you're up low on gas or whatever and you've got maybe some stage bottles on you don't want to be having trouble staying down and not being able to put enough gas in your drysuit at the end of the dive when you need the warmth the most. That's a big part of this whole system. That's why we don't dive steel tanks with a wetsuit. Body cavities compress, all the materials compress, everything compresses, you get down and you can't get up. I bought a set of Genesis 102s 12 years ago when they first came out. Jumped in with my wings, harness, got to 250ft and completely lost all my buoyancy. Dropped to the sand at 300, luckily there was a floor, and I crawled up this wreck, all the way up the wreck, up the tower of the wreck, until I got back to 260 or 250 and then I could gain equilibrium. Burned off a little gas. It's ridiculous, you don't think it's possible. It's amazing how negative your body and everything gets when you compress. That was a real shocker. So it's generally better to have aluminum tanks with a thin wetsuit and a weight belt so you have droppable weight of some kind. And with salt water and a drysuit and 104s, you don't have the same issue. But anyway, these things have to be thought through for every type of diving. That's a big part of the system. It's also a big part of being slick and being quick and not being over or under weighted. With stage diving using aluminum bottles you can float the bottles up on your lift bag, your deco line, your up-line, whatever you're using. You can fire the bottles up if they become too buoyant at deco. That's what we do. We just let them go, stage bottles or deco bottles, let them ride up the line"

 

[teknitroxdiver]

Hmm. Ok thanks for the link.

 

[fdog]

I dive wet with double E7-100s. It has been a non-issue.

About the only thing "different" is dual bladder wings. This is true redundancy, rather than relying on weight ditch to get off the bottom....which means you won't be able to hold your shallow stops (easily), anyway.

If you're going to dive wet, choose your gear appropriately. It hasn't been that big of a thing for me.

All the best, James

 

[teknitroxdiver]

Would you feel comfortable diving the 100s without a double bladder wing?

thanks

 

[tndiveinstruct1]

I dive a single E7-100 in a wet suit and that's a non-issue for me.

I have a friend that has double E7-100's and I tried it out on my Dive Rite SS backplate with a single bladder Rec Wing. I tried it in a pool first and it wasn't too bad in 10 feet of water.

Took it out to a local quarry and tried it in about 40 feet of water. Once the wet suit ( a 5mm Henderson Hyperstretch ) compressed, my descent rate started to increase. I was using a descent line so I was able to control it, but I could tell that it wasn't a great idea.

Just my 2 ft3 worth....

Randy Cain

 

[teknitroxdiver]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I will stick with Alu as far as doubles go for now.

thanks

 

[Dryglove]

Would you feel comfortable diving the 100s without a double bladder wing?

thanks

That would be the only way i would dive double steel 100's wet is with a double bladder wing. Wing failure in a thick wetsuit and full tanks at depth could get awful messy without some way to get back to the surface. You could also carry a lift bag for extra redundancy although i imagine that could be tricky unless you shoot the bag then reel yourself back to the surface.

I have no reason to dive doubles wet as the water is way to cold and freeze my butt off with a single tank and dont need the extra bottom time of double tanks in a wetsuit anyways due to water temp in Cal waters although the redundancy of having isolated manifolded tanks and 2 sets of regs is nice in case of a failure.

 

[fdog]

Would you feel comfortable diving the 100s without a double bladder wing?

thanks

No.

Even if they were Aluminum.

All the best, James

 

[Curt Bowen]

Is it safe to dive LP95 doubles wet? I'm sure I can swim quite a bit off the bottom. Does anyone dive these wet? How about E7-100s and E8-119s?

thanks

I standardly sidemount LP 95's and LP 112's with my 5mm wet suit. I also sidemount LP125's with my drysuit.

This would all depend on how buoyant you are before the dive and the lift of your wings.