Weight and Buoyancy

[jlwest63]

I find it interesting that as I have dived longer I have continued to drop weight off my belt. I am down to 6lbs in fresh and 8lbs in salt. I am a male, 6' tall and 250lbs, dive with a 3mil and skin, using AL80 tank.

How much weight do you use?

You have to have something for weight, right?

What would you say should be a minimum weight for anyone?

 

[dave4868]

I find it interesting that as I have dived longer I have continued to drop weight off my belt. I am down to 6lbs in fresh and 8lbs in salt. I am a male, 6' tall and 250lbs, dive with a 3mil and skin, using AL80 tank.

How much weight do you use?

You have to have something for weight, right?

What would you say should be a minimum weight for anyone?

There are too many individual buoyancy variables to generalize about a minimum weight needed "for anyone".

The buoyancy variables of an individual's body and their gear are also why it's fallacious to attribute using small amounts of weight as a sign of a good diver.

Whether a diver determines and uses their individual minimum weight is the real issue and even that's debatable.

There are scenarios where "excess" weight is desirable, such as when trying to pin a big flounder to the bottom with one's spear or when trying to increase the warmth of one's drysuit undergarments or when one needs to be more negative to hug the bottom in surge, etc.

I suggest that your 2-lb difference in your minimum weight for saltwater versus freshwater is erroneous for a guy of your size, if you've actually determined your "minimum" accurately. Check it out with an empty tank and otherwise identical gear.

For a guy your size, I'd expect a difference of about 5 pounds in the minimum weight you require in seawater versus freshwater.

Dave C

 

[jlwest63]

There are too many individual buoyancy variables to generalize about a minimum weight needed "for anyone".

The buoyancy variables of an individual's body and their gear are also why it's fallacious to attribute using small amounts of weight as a sign of a good diver.

Whether a diver determines and uses their individual minimum weight is the real issue and even that's debatable.

There are scenarios where "excess" weight is desirable, such as when trying to pin a big flounder to the bottom with one's spear or when trying to increase the warmth of one's drysuit undergarments or when one needs to be more negative to hug the bottom in surge, etc.

I suggest that your 2-lb difference in your minimum weight for saltwater versus freshwater is erroneous for a guy of your size, if you've actually determined your "minimum" accurately. Check it out with an empty tank and otherwise identical gear.

For a guy your size, I'd expect a difference of about 5 pounds in the minimum weight you require in seawater versus freshwater.

Dave C

Would you rathar have a little more weight and add some air to your BC to keep you off the bottom or less weight and no air at all?

 

[Charlie99]

To repeat what Dave4868 said, but in a slightly different way --- if you use identical setups for fresh and saltwater, and you only use 2 more pounds in saltwater than in fresh, then you are either overweighted in fresh, or underweighted in saltwater.

What would you say should be a minimum weight for anyone?

The minimum weight is what it takes for you to be able to hold a 10 or 15' stop at the end of a dive with a near empty tank. Whether that is zero pounds or 15 pounds makes no difference --- what it takes is what it takes.

 

[MPR]

I agree with the above that skill level has anything to do with how much weight one can use. Although I need very little myself, the only advantage I see is lugging around the extra lead.
A good diver with outstanding bouyancy control is what matters; whether you're wearing 5lbs or 40lbs.

 

[STOGEY]

I've been diving for about 3 or 4 years now,and I've been using the same 30lbs ever since. I probably could cut back on 2 to 5 lbs now, because of my skill level. However I realy don't see the need, because I'm very comfortable with the level I'm at and I don't like to fix things if it aint broke.

 

[Charlie99]

I've been diving for about 3 or 4 years now,and I've been using the same 30lbs ever since. I probably could cut back on 2 to 5 lbs now, because of my skill level. However I realy don't see the need, because I'm very comfortable with the level I'm at and I don't like to fix things if it aint broke.

If you have significant amounts of air in your BCD at a shallow stop with your tanks near empty, then you are overweighted. While one can dive overweighted and with proper use of the BCD stay neutral throughout the dive, by having extra weight you need more air in the BCD. The extra air in the BCD will expand and contract as you ascend and descend, forcing you to readjust the amount of air in the BCD to get back to neutral.

Sure, one can dive overweighted, but you are just making life harder than necessary.

On a practical basis, someone diving in thin wetsuits will notice the effect of overweighting more than someone with thick wetsuits. With a thick wetsuit, you already are having to adjust buoyancy often as you go up and down, the extra weight just adds a bit more need to adjust. OTOH, someone in a thin wetsuit or skin need only adjust for the weight of air as it is consumed, so being overweight and having to fiddle more with the BCD is more noticeable.

Charlie Allen

 

[TSandM]

My weight varies from 2 lb with a Kydex plate, HP 100 and 3 mil wetsuit, to 18 lbs with LP85 doubles and a 2mm compressed neo dry suit (20 with single LP 95 and same suit). Quite a range, and it's all due to exposure protection!

 

[spectrum]

My weight varies from 2.5 pounds positive( foam blocks in a soft weight belt) for a shorty in freshwater with an E7-80 to 44 pounds when diving in my neoprene drysuit with full winter undergarments in the ocean with the same cylinder.

Keep an eye on accessories. I recently realized that since I made it practice to always carry a 4C cell light and DSMB & SS finger spool on every dive that I could drop 2 pounds from my baseline.

That's what works for me, my gear and my abilities.

Pete

 

[ClayJar]

My weighting ranges from "it's all in the backplate and gear" to "dear Bob, that's heavy!" (i.e. 30 pounds or so) depending on what I'm diving and where. (Multiple layers of fleece with buoyant cylinders can really start piling on the lead requirements.)

Incidentally, if your total dry weight with gear and lead is 250 pounds, and you're perfectly weighted in fresh water, you'll have to add just a bit over six pounds to be equivalently buoyant in standard salt water. If you're "perfectly weighted" with less than that (and an *identical* configuration), you were overweighted in the fresh water.