Weight Question

[HybridDiver]

Hello, You guys may laugh at me but eh im going to give it out anyways. In my open water, Aow water my instructors never really taught us how to weight our selfs and get all the numbers. I never learned about that, just how to dive. We told them our weight and they had our weight belts ready next day. So laugh away people but how do you get perfect weight numbers?
Chris

 

[H2Andy]

well, it's real easy

next dive you do, get your tank to just over 500 psi and keep only enough weight to stay slighlty negative or neutral at about 10 feet

this will allow you to ascend the last 10 feet under control, or stay at 10 feet indefenitely (well, not really ... but for quite a while)

depending on the dive, you can either put the weight you remove on the bottom while you test it out, or hand the weight to a buddy.

your goal should be to be just about neutral at 10 feet with 500 psi or so in your tank

you can use the 10% body weight formula and then divide than by 2 to get a ballpark figure

for example, at 180 lbs, my 10% weight is 18 lbs. i divided that by 2 (9 lbs) and started experimenting.

i now use 4 lbs plus an aluminum backplate (3 lbs) for a total of 7 lbs, with a 3 mm farmer john and AL tank

So laugh away people

that's not how it goes down on ScubaBoard

 

[meekal]

there are a bunch of threads ready for you with a quick search on PROPER WEIGHT etc. etc

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=181441&highlight=proper+weighting

is an especially good one.

it's worth the hassel to get yourself properly weighted.... once you find it... you'll LOVE IT.... but remember, ANY CONFIGURATION change - ie: different tank, different wetsuit, etc. will change your weighting, but soon you'll be able to make a real good guess....

 

[parrothead600]

In our OW class, I was taught to experement with weight until I floated at eye level, holding a normal breath,with an empty BC, then add a few pounds to make up for the air used. My question has been, What is a normal breath?
The way that I have been using is when I surface at the end of a dive, w/ approx 500-600psi and an empty BC, I will exhale and see if I decend. Then, without inflating the BC, inhale and make sure that can stop & return to the surface. I will do this a few times at the end of every dive to double check my weighting after the dive & adjust the weight for future dives if needed.

 

[herman]

A couple of things to add to Andys post.
Make sure your BC is fully deflated when you finish your weight check. If you are overweighted (and most likely are) totally deflating it at first may make you too negative. Deflate, check, remove weight, deflate and check again until your BC if fully deflated and your weight is correct.
There is an on going debate on where to get neutral, at 10-15 ft or at the surface. I personally prefer the surface for a couple of reasons. For me, its just easier to adjust weights there and I want a slight amount of negative buoyancy at my stop depth. The reason being, with a thick wet suit I am going to have some negative buoyancy due to wetsuit compression at my stop depth. If I am dead on neutral at that depth, rising above that depth and the resulting wetsuit expansion is going to put me positive with no way to compensate for it.

 

[String]

Hello, You guys may laugh at me but eh im going to give it out anyways. In my open water, Aow water my instructors never really taught us how to weight our selfs and get all the numbers. I never learned about that, just how to dive. We told them our weight and they had our weight belts ready next day. So laugh away people but how do you get perfect weight numbers?
Chris

Experience and guesswork.

There is no magic formula. After a while though you look at the size and shape of a diver and get to remember what a diver that looks like that needs.

Its a starting point, it wont be perfect for anyone but you can adjust from there.

There is no magic table to get perfect weighting. Not until the day all humans are identical clones anyway.

 

[PePaw]

You went through OW and AOW without learning weighting ?
It is in the manual and on the DVD !:huh:

 

[tropical]

If I'm slightly buoyant at 15 ft during my safety stop, and I have around 1000-900 psi in my AL tank, should I increase my weight, and by how much?

I have no problem with my bouyancy during the rest of the dive.

 

[parrothead600]

If I'm slightly buoyant at 15 ft during my safety stop, and I have around 1000-900 psi in my AL tank, should I increase my weight, and by how much?

I have no problem with my bouyancy during the rest of the dive.

You don't want to be bouyant at your safety stop because you may not always have something to hold onto. If you run your air down to 400-500 psi, you will loose more weight. I would start by adding 3-4 pounds & check your bouyancy at the end of your next dive. Better to be slightly overweighted.

 

[String]

You want in theory to be able to stay neutral with a totally empty tank at 3m or so. Even assuming you have no gas left you still need to be heavy enough to hold a stop and controlled ascent to the surface from it.

Being slightly buoyant is not good. Add more weight. 2lb a starting figure and try again.

Overweighting is bad but people seem too keen to shed lead. Under weighting is just as bad as overweight, if not more so!