Ok, so I have good neutral buoyancy and excellent trim just "hanging in the water" with fins down. When I invert myself, I get extreme positive buoyancy. (of course its worse in shallower water)
My guess is that it is the design of the Genesis Recon BCD. When I hang, the air is at the top the bladder. The top of the bladder is wound tightly with several shock cords, so the bladder can only displace a certain amount of water.
When I invert, the air goes to the bottom of the bladder. There are no shock cords there. The air can expand much more at the same depth because there are no shock cords compressing the air. So now more water is displaced, and I get (huge) positive buoyancy.
Good to have a dump on the bottom...but why not design the bcd so you get the same buoyancy at all attitudes? Inverting is an extreme example..even tilting a bit lets some air into the floppy part of the bladder and I find myself compensating.
Is there a BCD Make/Model that gives you the same buoyancy at all attitudes? Now that the Recon is 11 years old, I am looking around....
My guess is that it is the design of the Genesis Recon BCD. When I hang, the air is at the top the bladder. The top of the bladder is wound tightly with several shock cords, so the bladder can only displace a certain amount of water.
When I invert, the air goes to the bottom of the bladder. There are no shock cords there. The air can expand much more at the same depth because there are no shock cords compressing the air. So now more water is displaced, and I get (huge) positive buoyancy.
Good to have a dump on the bottom...but why not design the bcd so you get the same buoyancy at all attitudes? Inverting is an extreme example..even tilting a bit lets some air into the floppy part of the bladder and I find myself compensating.
Is there a BCD Make/Model that gives you the same buoyancy at all attitudes? Now that the Recon is 11 years old, I am looking around....