Weight belt question...

[mikeguerrero]

I dive a single HP steel 100 with drysuit. I dive the Halcyon Eclipse BP/W, 30 lb wing with 6 lb steel plate.

My weight belt is 12 lbs and my question is this?

Is that too much weight around my waist? Should I purchase the coated 6 lb weight for my single tank adapter? Is it better to take uncessary weight off your waist and shift it to the back? That would allow me to have just 6 lbs on my weight belt instead of 12, seems better?

How much weight are divers carrying on their belts?

Does that really improve horizontal trim?

What are your thoughts?

Also does DIR recommend the ACB integrated weights that Halcyon makes for the Eclipse? They have a 12 lb set that would remove me from weight belt. Most are saying that the weight belt can get entagled on your crotch strap when you try to ditch, is this true?

I first place my weight belt on then I strap on the crotch strap, what am I missing?

What goes on first or how do you make sure the belt doesn't catch on the crotch strap?

Thanks,

MG

 

[TSandM]

Mike, how much weight you need and where you need it is very individually dependent. With a single tank, I use a 20 lb weight belt and six pounds on my cambands with a SS plate, and that balances me perfectly with a steel 95. The way to figure out what you need is to get in the water and assume a position of good trim -- back flat, knees up and bent, fins flat. Then stop moving and see what happens. If you slowly tilt feet down, you need to move weight up on your back. It's pretty easy to do that with weight pockets on the cambands, and you may be surprised at how little weight you actually have to move.

It is true that, if you put your weight belt on under your harness, it is difficult to ditch quickly. If you are diving dry, the likelihood of having to ditch your weights at depth is EXTREMELY low (you'd have to tear your wing and your drysuit at the same time). At the surface, it's not difficult to pop the waistbelt and drop your weights, should it be required. Some people who dive wet prefer to put the weight belt on over the harness, and I think it's Tobin who has described what seemed like a pretty easy way to do that.

The problem with the ACB pockets is that they use up a substantial amount of your waist belt, making it more difficult to locate your d-rings and can light canister. Another option, if you can't support a weight belt, is the DUI Weight & Trim weight harness. This does give you ditchable weight that is not dependent on releasing the harness.

If you think about it, when are you going to need to ditch weight? You would need to do it if you had a total buoyancy failure at depth, and were carrying so much gas you couldn't swim your rig up, but that's not a balanced rig and that's not DIR. (This is the reason for the recommendation against deep diving in thick wetsuits, where you can lose substantial buoyancy at depth.) And ditching substantial weight at depth guarantees significant difficulty controlling an ascent in the shallows, which is a real hazard. Really, the most likely reason to ditch weight is at the surface, if you have a wing leak or a panicked or ill diver, and it's not that difficult to do that, even with the crotch strap.

 

[PerroneFord]

If your trim is fine, it's not too much around your waist.

I don't wear a weight belt. But my conditions are not the same as yours. So you need to evaluate for yourself.

If you are diving dry, then you WANT the weightbelt to be caputred by the crotch strap. When dry, you have redundant lift unlike a wetsuit diver. So a loss o buoyancy from losing the BC is not an emergency that should force you to ditch the belt. The greater danger is losing the weighbelt when you don't want to, making you very positively buoyant. So put the belt on first, and let it get trapped by the crotch strap.

It's nice to see you asking good questions, but you really need to take a Fundies course now. All these questions you're asking are answered in that class. You'll learn a ton, improve your diving, and get your answers.

 

[AndyNZ]

Before fiddling around, you need to ask yourself what your trim is like and what/why you are trying to improve by moving weight around?

Have to convert things into metric, sorry... but 12lb/6kg seems reasonable for a single tank set up (depending on what suit you are wearing - if it's a 3mm shorty, maybe not!). It's about what I use in my drysuit, and I have no problem maintaining trim and it's about as close as I can get to having a balanced rig.

My better half has the smaller ACB pockets on her BP - nice idea, but they are a bit of a PITA in some regards, e.g. mounting a can light.

Weight belt under the harness is fine for diving in a drysuit, where IMHO there is no need to ever ditch weights. If you are diving wet, you may wish to think about what circumstances you may need to ditch weights and think whether it is a better option to have over your harness.

With regards trim, always look for a technique approach to improving trim before looking for an equipment answer - out of pure peverseness, I got hold of an old style horse collar BCD recently, and it's quite possible to get perfect trim whilst diving in it. It just takes practice.

If it turns out that the shifting of weight is your only option, then putting weight over, or nearer, your lungs is a good idea - in essence it eliminates some of the leverage that happens as your buoyancy changes as you breathe in an out (if you imagine all of your weight was on your ankles then as you breath in you'd pivot much more than if it was closer to your lungs). You might want to think about a weighted single tank adaptor as well as/instead of the ACB pockets. Oxycheq actually do quite a nice softweight pocket for STAs that works well and is not too expensive.

Disclaimer: general opinion, not necessarily a "formal" DIR answer!

 

[masterof0]

Mike, I have read some of your recent posts and find myself in a similar position as you trying to find the ideal equipment configuration. Like you, I recently went from wearing a weight-integrated bcd to a bpw and this was one of the same questions I had. Luckily for me, the previous posters answered it very well so I don't have to repeat what was said. The other thing that made a huge difference for me was actually taking the weight out of by bc and moving it to the weight belt. When diving off of a charter, the impact wasnt as great, but when diving from an inflatable or beach, there was a huge difference. Pulling up a 30+ lb rig into an inflatable with no lead was much easier that a 60 lb rig full of lead. It also made handling and donning the rig much easier both in and out of the water.

Lastly, distributing the weight around my hips was just generally more comfortable than having the weight hanging from my shoulders (took a lot of pressure off of my back)....And it trimmed out perfect for me which is hte most important component of hte move to the belt.

As far as where to wear the belt, since you are wearing a redundant inflation device (dry suit) there is no need, generally speaking, to view the weights with the same concern as you did diving wet. because of this, you will find that a majority of the divers place the weight belt under the crotch strap. (Somehting that was pointed out to me that I never gave thought to, as you progress and get deeper..no pun intended...into diving, ditching weights no longer becomes an option. In the case of technical divers, you do not have the ability to shoot directly to the surface without extreme risk. So, ditching your weights is not an option)

Just my two cents as a diver who is in similar shoes as yourself.

Chris

 

[mikeguerrero]

Wow,

You guys are really great. I will not purchase the 6 lb coated weight for my single tank adapter and I will not purchase the ACB pockets.

I actually love my weight belt and at 12 lbs it's not that bad. I really like the feeling of having nothing around my waist except my D-rings and my knife, I never was a fan of the integrated weights because they take up more room.

In going BP/W my main concern was trying to go as streamline as possible and now I'm seeing that becomming a reality.

After reading your post I went into the garage and tried on the weight belt over and under my crotch strap harness and I now understand the logic of both arguments.

I've been diving the weight belt under my harness strap so I will not make any changes in that configuration.

Once again thanks to all that helped me make an informed decision about my rig setup.

MG

P.S
I can agree with masterof0 about carrying such a heavy rig. I have dove on a Zodiak and much prefer to carry my weight belt over my shoulders as I walk over to the boat and with the other hand I easly can carry my BP/W. On the dock when I load up my steel 100hp to my rig it's a lot more lighter than a rig with integrated weights or the coated tank weight or even trim pockets.

Less is sometimes better and certainly more streamline. JM2cents...