mahjong:
Just want to get some educated estimates on how much weight you might recommend that I should be using. Here are my stats and configuration, for cold, salt water diving:
I weigh 140#.
Drysuit: DUI CF200
Undergarment: DUI Polartec Powerstretch jumpsuit
SS backplate: ~5#
Travel STA: ~1#
Tank: Faber LP95
Pony (rear mount): Luxfer 19
Jetfins (no need for ankle weights)
Many thanks for your help.
If you're reasonably fit, you'll be close enough to neutral.
The DUI CF200 ... IIRC is a Crushed Neoprene suit. I'd probably budget 5lbs for it.
For estimating the underware, here's a good estimation tip I picked up:
1) stuff it into an empty 5 gallon spackle bucket to see how much volume it occupies.
2) for each gallon's worth of the bucket it fills, multiply by 8lbs.
For example, if it fills the bucket halfway, half of 5 gallons is 2.5 gallons. Times 8lbs/gallon equals 20lbs total. This will be a bit heavy because we didn't back out the weight of the garmet, but there's always an air bubble under a drysuit anyway and we've not bothered to account for that.
The tank IIRC is going to be fairly close enough to neutral when empty that we don't need to add anything to sink it when empty - without looking it up, I'd call it -1lb.
Ditto the pony.
The jetfins are probably -1.5lbs each. The other negative stuff (BP, etc) would sum to around 10lbs in total. Subtract from however your drysuit underware + 5lbs for the CF200 to see where you end up.
-hh
