Weight question

[poomero]

A friend of mine is a TEK diver and he uses no weight on a belt or in pockets. He has his BPW set up to have a 10 LBS weight mounted to it so he doesn't need any weight on his body. My question is why would someone do this? I asked him what about if he needs to ditch the weight in an emergence and he said he can not think of any situation where he would need to do that. Can anyone on here let me know if they have had to ditch weight in an emergency or if this is a normal set up for TEK diving? I feel like its not safe but I have only been diving for a year now.

Thanks Josh

 

[milbournosphere]

I have heard an argument that putting all of one's weight on the plate/harness simply leads to needing a bigger wing to float the rig when you're not in it, and that it's better to wear the weight on a separate weight belt. That said, I know plenty of folks who dive with a BP/Wing and almost all of them wear at least a few pounds ditchable, in pockets on the harness waist strap. I have yet to meet somebody who dives with all of their weight mounted onto their plate. This is for single tank diving...I would imagine their setups would be different for diving doubles.

 

[PsyWulf]

Crazy crazy

 

[poomero]

Its a double set up.

 

[Ken T]

I am not a tec diver.
But, my understanding is that if a tec diver exceeds the no decompression limits, as they train for and regularly do, they cannot just shoot to the surface without incurring a decompression injury.

As such, they plan for and train for solving emergencies in water. They will also take into account their weighting at all phases of descent, bottom and ascent to anticipate loss of weight due to gas use, stage bottle drops and pick ups and hovering for decompression.



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[nimoh]

it is more important to ensure that your weight stays on you than to make it easy to ditch. If diving with correct weighting (i.e. minimum weight required to do a safety stop with an empty wing and an empty tank), you should be able to swim your gear up with an empty wing, or ditch your canister light if necessary.

Personally, I would hope that I have enough time to attach my canister light to my smb and send it to the surface instead of ditching it

 

[Instructor_Tom]

you have 2 configurations "open water" where an ascent to the surface can be achieved by a free swimming ascent and then you have "tech configuration" where the surface is 500 yards back down a tunnel or your in open water at a depth where a swimming ascent will kill you. in technical diving you dive "thirds". 1/3 of the gas in, 1/3 of the gas out, 1/3 of the gas for emergency. in a tech configuration your partner or team member is you safety valve. if something goes wrong you share gas back to your deco bottles and begin your ascent.

you do not go to the surface. so dropping weight achieves nothing.


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[beanojones]

you do not go to the surface. so dropping weight achieves nothing.

Dropping weight (underwater) is not considered a reasonable option in recreational diving either because uncontrolled ascents are foolish.

The distinction you made is not the one to make about ditching weight.

---------- Post added June 11th, 2013 at 11:54 AM ----------

A friend of mine is a TEK diver and he uses no weight on a belt or in pockets. He has his BPW set up to have a 10 LBS weight mounted to it so he doesn't need any weight on his body.
....
I feel like its not safe.

The question is what seems unsafe to you about this setup?

 

[Superlyte27]

I have heard an argument that putting all of one's weight on the plate/harness simply leads to needing a bigger wing to float the rig when you're not in it, and that it's better to wear the weight on a separate weight belt. That said, I know plenty of folks who dive with a BP/Wing and almost all of them wear at least a few pounds ditchable, in pockets on the harness waist strap. I have yet to meet somebody who dives with all of their weight mounted onto their plate. This is for single tank diving...I would imagine their setups would be different for diving doubles.

Most tech divers wear no weight. If I'm diving rebreather, single tank, double tanks, sidemount tanks, I wear no ditchable weight. Usually the only weight I'm carrying is the weight of the tanks on me.

I'll finish reading the thread before I tell you WHY we do this.

---------- Post added June 11th, 2013 at 12:31 PM ----------

What's the only emergency underwater? There's only one. Can you guess it? It should be pretty easy... Running Out of Air

Everything else is just a problem waiting for a solution. No matter what happens, as long as you can breathe, you can figure out a solution (provided you have the training to be conducting the dive you are on).

So, let's say I'm making an OW dive with an Worthington LP104 tank, which weighs a metric butt ton under water (not an imperial butt ton). I don't require any weight at all, even with my drysuit on. Do I have anything to ditch should the crap hit the fan? Nope!

So, lets go over things that might suck...

Can I breathe? Yes.

Did my wing tear a big hole in it? Yes.
Can I breathe? Yes.
Can I swim a single tank to the surface wearing a wetsuit, drysuit, or no suit? Yes!
Do I need to ditch my weight in order to do so? Nope!
Do I have the added benefit of just inflating the drysuit or deploying my SMB? Yup!
Would ditching my weight change, "Can I breathe?" NOPE!

How about a free flowing regulator...
Can I breathe? Yup!
Can I shut off the valve to that regulator and switch to an alternate 2nd stage? Yup! (I only dive with at least two independent regs, either via doubles or H-Valve)
Could, if I were not diving independent regs, feather the valve (on and off) on free flowing regulator in the event that I had a deco obligation to sustain my stops? Yup.
Can I do the above without ditching lead? Yup!
Can I breathe from a buddy's reg? Yup!

I can't think of a single reason why I would need to be emergently and positively buoyant to a point that I would ditch weight.

 

[poomero]

I asked because I was told if I need to make an emergency surface to ditch the weight and go up. I also thought if I felt like I was going to pass out I would be able to drop some weight and go up with being unconscious. I have just not been told this before and was curious about it. What you guys are saying makes sense though.