Surprise Surprise . . Newbie has a mishap . . .

[Web Monkey]

Congratulations on not panicing! I'll only add two things:

Weightbelts are only secure if your waist is smaller than your hips. Otherwise the chances of keeping the weight where it belongs become smaller as the weight increases, so if you're "round in the middle" with a 7 mil suit and 25 pounds of weight (just guessing, I don't dive wet), keeping the belt in place is going to be difficult, and you might want to consider using integrated weights or a weight harness like this: DUI - Weight & Trim Systems

You might want to go back to the pool and practice putting your weightbelt back on. It's not too hard if you use your buoyancy and it's weight to your advantage. If you just wrestle with it, you'll lose (as you fouind out). If you can get your body horizontal, you can just roll yourself around the weightbelt like rolling a piece of paper around a pencil. With about 5 minutes of practice you can make it look easy.

Anyway, good job and have fun diving!

Terry

 

[Thalassamania]

Betty, a few thoughts (if I may):

1. Good job keeping your head, thinking your way through the problem, and bringing it to a successful (and healthy) conclusion.

2. Even in a 7 mil suit you can, with drop your belt and with a good flare you can keep your ascent rate under 60 FPM. We used to call that a "blow and go," and it is worth practicing in skin diving mode. The exercise we use to prepare our people for this sort of problem is to execute a "blow and go" and then surface dive back down (against their suit buoyancy) and roll into and buckle their belt. One of the things that you'll find is that a dolphin kick will give you a much better "low gear" and will help you make progress while a flutter kick will exhaust you quickly and a frog kick ... well ... forget it.

3. "Thread the tongue through" style buckles are notoriously unreliable, They depend on a friction fit to stay on and in an application as critical as a weight belt I think that is completely inadequate. Many cave divers , and some saturation divers I've worked with, who do not know about other buckle designs, double up on the Tongue Buckles for safety. We recommend either a wire buckle on a rubber belt or a SeaQuest style buckle, both of which are positive closure devices. An additional benefit to those two designs is that they are much easier to buckle, especially when wearing gloves or mitts.

4. Webmonkey's right about practice. If I may add: When you approach your belt reach across your body as though you were shaking hands with your belt. Continue to roll in that direction and bring the hand that is holding the belt into the center of your body. Once you have completed a single roll your belt should be around you and just below your tank. A big twitch with a little pull and all you have to do is fasten the buckle.

 

[BettyRubble]

Congratulations on not panicing! I'll only add two things:

Weightbelts are only secure if your waist is smaller than your hips. Otherwise the chances of keeping the weight where it belongs become smaller as the weight increases, so if you're "round in the middle" with a 7 mil suit and 25 pounds of weight (just guessing, I don't dive wet), keeping the belt in place is going to be difficult, and you might want to consider using integrated weights or a weight harness like this: DUI - Weight & Trim Systems

You might want to go back to the pool and practice putting your weightbelt back on. It's not too hard if you use your buoyancy and it's weight to your advantage. If you just wrestle with it, you'll lose (as you fouind out). If you can get your body horizontal, you can just roll yourself around the weightbelt like rolling a piece of paper around a pencil. With about 5 minutes of practice you can make it look easy.

Anyway, good job and have fun diving!

Terry

Thanks Terry! I have a waste (41/34/39) but a small torso. About 6 inches from my chest to my waist. I think my issue is more with the fact the jacket hangs down past my waist and therefore over the weight belt. A friend just lent me her Zena and so far I really like it. I need to use it in the water, but it falls perfectly on my torso. It has weight integration too.

Ironically, in the pool, getting the belt back on has been a breeze for me. I actually like the roll into the belt method. Of course that wasn't an option in this incident. We had no problem getting the belt back around my waste and postioned (with my head crammed into the wing! LOL), but could not get the strap to feed into the buckle. I'm convinced it is a buckle issue. Also trimming the end of the strap should help.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

[BettyRubble]

Betty, a few thoughts (if I may):

1. Good job keeping your head, thinking your way through the problem, and bringing it to a successful (and healthy) conclusion.

2. Even in a 7 mil suit you can, with drop your belt and with a good flare you can keep your ascent rate under 60 FPM. We used to call that a "blow and go," and it is worth practicing in skin diving mode. The exercise we use to prepare our people for this sort of problem is to execute a "blow and go" and then surface dive back down (against their suit buoyancy) and roll into and buckle their belt. One of the things that you'll find is that a dolphin kick will give you a much better "low gear" and will help you make progress while a flutter kick will exhaust you quickly and a frog kick ... well ... forget it.

3. "Thread the tongue through" style buckles are notoriously unreliable, They depend on a friction fit to stay on and in an application as critical as a weight belt I think that is completely inadequate. Many cave divers , and some saturation divers I've worked with, who do not know about other buckle designs, double up on the Tongue Buckles for safety. We recommend either a wire buckle on a rubber belt or a SeaQuest style buckle, both of which are positive closure devices. An additional benefit to those two designs is that they are much easier to buckle, especially when wearing gloves or mitts.

Thanks Thal. You always may.

I'll have to work on the dolphin kick. Your point about the thread the tongue style buckle is very valid. I'm glad it happened now and not when I was deeper or not near a line. I'm leaning towards weight integration or possibly a blend between a belt (with less weight on it) and weight integration. My thought being that if I lose one or the other, I've not lost it all and may be able to control ascent reasonably. My concern with this setup however is what if I am in a situation where I need to drop all my weight to shoot for the surface and have to fiddle with too many releases to get it all dumped? But I assume that this type of scenario would be far less likely.

Your thoughts?

 

[Thalassamania]

We've discussed the weight integration BC thing in a lot of other threads so I'd rather no belabor it here. Suffice it to say that while some people love them,, I think they are a bad idea for a full suited diver and that they create more hazard than then they ameliorate. If you wear too much lead for a waist belt, get a harness system like Webmonkey recommends.

 

[H2Andy]

as far as i can tell, the only thing you did "wrong" was "letting" the weight belt come off, and that's not really your fault. i've had my belt come off before (twice as far as i can remember ... once on the surface, once at depth)

after that, you basically did everything right and prevented yourself from zooming up like a rocket to the surface. so, well done!

as to the weight belt, there have been a lot of good suggestions made ... let me just say that for years, people dove with weigh belts because there was nothing else available. they can be used safely, just make sure you have a quality buckle and that you properly buckle up

 

[shark_tamer]

I have a good solution for divers who either don't want or cannot get an integrated weight BC.

Split your weight in two: One half you wear on the weight belt around you hips, the second half is mounted on your tank with a second belt.

This way, if you by any chance loose your belt or have to ditch your weights in an emergency, you won't be " super boyant " and go balistic !!!

Much easier to control the situation.

 

[ScubaSam]

Pam - Many great responses here already. You are a thinking diver. I am impressed that you did not panic, are you sure you're a newbie???

KUDOS to you!!!

 

[Graeme Tolton]

I keep some of my weight non-ditchable. I dive with a dry suit. I need between 15-20lb, depending on what I wear under my suit. Losing that amount of weight at once is not an option. There are many options on how to divide your weight up. There should never be any reason to need to dump all of your weight. Simply keeping a few pounds in each bcd pocket will certainly make buoyancy more manageable if you lose the belt. The fact that your tank was nearly empty at this point certainly didn't help the situation as tanks are most buoyant when empty. AL tanks are the worst. If you have not yet purchased tanks, steel cylinders are a great option, as you need less lead!

 

[BettyRubble]

Pam - Many great responses here already. You are a thinking diver. I am impressed that you did not panic, are you sure you're a newbie???

KUDOS to you!!!

Thanks! Your help and that of the many folks who post on SB really has helped me. Seeing how you think through scenarios gets me thinking what would I do.

Hopefully this will be the last of my 'incidents' . . I know, I know, wishful thinking! LOL