Trim floats

[wKkaY]

I'm head-heavy when wearing steel doubles, which I compensate with tail weights.

I'm pretty sure in freshwater I'm overweighted. So instead of trimming with lead, I wonder if anyone uses floats on the upper part of the doubles? Something like what underwater photographers use.

 

[northernone]

I've seen it. It works, in the case mentioned it was capped plumbing pipe.

 

[Bert van den Berg]

Hi WkKay,

Where/what weights do you use? Are you able to move any of them lower down?

I have the opposite problem, my feet sink - even with the steel tank up as high as possible. No fat in my bottom or legs. The Aqua Lung fins with steel springs make the situation a bit worse but I love those fins. When using a dry suit I am able to compensate by carefully adding some air to my feet. With a wet suit I don't like my trim and have not been able to figure out what to do.

Any ideas?

 

[Bierstadt]

I have the foot heavy problem too, and I have to add more weight than I need at my shoulders to try and address it. I wish there were ankle floats I could buy. Is that a thing?

 

[DogDiver]

 

[Bierstadt]

I would try a pair of those, but I am afraid of causing injury to other divers... from the laughing. ;-)

 

[AJ]

If only they were black, then it would be DIR

OT: what fins do you use? I use very heavy Hollis F1 fins with drysuit. Lighter fins get me in trouble easy. But I notice after quite some dives I become more stable through experience. Maybe you have to give it some more time?

 

[northernone]

Having legs neutrally balenced is significant.

Every fin stroke you are lifting up the negative buoyant foot or pulling down the positively buoyant foot... That extra effort is as exhausting as doing weighted exercises at a gym.

If your body type is truly making your legs.negative, I have recently come to value switching fins to positive buoyant ones.

If it is a body hardware/equipment weight distribution issue trim weights or floats will fix it.... Just like a donut style wing fixes the trim better than a horseshoe style wing by distributing the bcd gas equally. (debatable)

For a while a few manufacturers sold a trim pillow as well. It could be worn on the lumber and acted as a tiny bcd.

There's what I've collected that might be helpful.

Cameron

 

[Bierstadt]

I am going to order a pair of Deep6 fins and see if cutting a pound of negative buoyancy off my feet does the trick. Can't hurt.

 

[Bert van den Berg]

Before I ditch the heavy Aqua Lung fins with steel springs (which I love), I'm going to try using some thicker booties to increase the floatation around my heavy feet.