Trim in Doubles

[sunnyboy]

I had the same problems starting out. At first, an 18lb (-9 in water) canister light kept things "balanced", but when I switched to an HID I was way too top-heavy.

I switched to an Alum backplate, and a 6lb "tail weight" (sits on the lower tank bolt and drops to the bottom of the tanks) did the trick.

The other problem with the SS backplate - and with being too heavy in general - is that you have to put more gas in the wing to stay in place. However, when you move in the water column, the excess gas is just a PITA to manage.

Cheers,

-s

 

[lamont]

The kicker is that my tech1 is in a month!

I just went through a rec triox class where everyone in the class was at around dive# 15-30 or so in doubles and everyone had trim issues and it hurt quite a lot.

Make sure that you have your head up and resting against the manifold. Also, arch the back and do the thing where you try to act like you're holding a pencil in your butt.... If that fails, try to loosen the shoulder straps and tighten the crotch strap to pull the tanks down. I just did that and it seems like it works a bit better. I got down to 1500 psi on my last dive and was still not doing head-stands. Hopefully, I can get down to 500 psi and hover without going on my head. If not, I think I'll have to switch to an Al backplate.

I don't like weightbelts, though, since they can fall off, and if you're doing planned decompression, ditching a weightbelt is not really a good option. Tail mounted v-weights or some bullet weights on the waist belt held in by a weight keeper seem like better solutions...