Weights - one more time

[coldsmoke]

Hi All,

First let me start by saying sorry for starting this again. I have read all of the posts and I have a question that wasn't answered. It might be a stupid question because the extent of my DIR knowledge has been learned from this site and a couple of others over the last week or so.

Anyway - it seems that most DIR pruists say no to removeable weights. I don't dive a DIR rig and don't dive a drysuit and don't need any weights anyway, but later in life when I get a little more trained and a little fatter I might want to know the answer. I agree with most that in all most all cases if you are properly weighted you should really never need to drop weight to make it to the surface - even if you have a broken leg and no fins, but what if you need to be able to stay on the surface for a long period - like a long swim to shore. If your BC failed surly it would be nice to dump any and all extra weight so that you have an easier swim.

Thanks.

Hunter

 

[cool_hardware52]

Hi All,

First let me start by saying sorry for starting this again. I have read all of the posts and I have a question that wasn't answered. It might be a stupid question because the extent of my DIR knowledge has been learned from this site and a couple of others over the last week or so.

Anyway - it seems that most DIR pruists say no to removeable weights.

Really? I'd say it slightly differently. Most DIR types I know don't see the need for ditchable weight, because they are already diving a balanced rig. That's not the same to "saying no to removeable weights" What's a canister light? Is it not removeable weight?

I don't dive a DIR rig and don't dive a drysuit and don't need any weights anyway, but later in life when I get a little more trained and a little fatter I might want to know the answer.

Most likely the answer will become apparent during the training.

I agree with most that in all most all cases if you are properly weighted you should really never need to drop weight to make it to the surface - even if you have a broken leg and no fins, but what if you need to be able to stay on the surface for a long period - like a long swim to shore. If your BC failed surly it would be nice to dump any and all extra weight so that you have an easier swim.

If my BC's failed to the point where it's a burden at the surface I'm ditching the whole rig. I'm always positive in just my exposure suit.


Tobin

 

[coldsmoke]

I though about ditching the whole rig but if you do that you don't have any air should the surf be rough or some other reason where you want/need to swim with your mouth underwater.

 

[TSandM]

DIR teaches a balanced rig -- That means that, in the event of a catastrophic lift failure, you can swim the rig to the surface. If you can't do that, you need ditchable weight.

My GUE instructor dives with a weight belt. I've never heard anything to suggest that that is frowned upon.

 

[*Floater*]

Hi All,

First let me start by saying sorry for starting this again. I have read all of the posts and I have a question that wasn't answered. It might be a stupid question because the extent of my DIR knowledge has been learned from this site and a couple of others over the last week or so.

Anyway - it seems that most DIR pruists say no to removeable weights. I don't dive a DIR rig and don't dive a drysuit and don't need any weights anyway, but later in life when I get a little more trained and a little fatter I might want to know the answer. I agree with most that in all most all cases if you are properly weighted you should really never need to drop weight to make it to the surface - even if you have a broken leg and no fins, but what if you need to be able to stay on the surface for a long period - like a long swim to shore. If your BC failed surly it would be nice to dump any and all extra weight so that you have an easier swim.

Thanks.

Hunter

You just need to have a balanced rig which means having enough ditchable weight that after shedding it you can swim your rig up from depth with full tank/s even with a completely empty BC. (I don't know if drysuits count as backup buoyancy as far as DIR is concerned). Whether you want to include your lights, etc. in your ditchable weight is up to you, but I'd be pretty hard pressed to ditch my Salvo.

I think many of the GUE trained divers I see posting on the internet don't carry much ditachable weight because no one likes weight belts (and maybe they believe they could swim it up anyway or use a drysuit or SMB/liftbag to get up), but I'm not sure how accurately that reflects the DIR philosophy. As far I can recall GI3 has always stressed the importance of ditchable weight in the DIR videos I've seen.

 

[Rick Inman]

...but I'd be pretty hard pressed to ditch my Salvo.

If I'm your buddy, you can just hand it off to me.

I think many of the GUE trained divers I see posting on the internet don't carry much ditachable weight because no one likes weight belts ...

I've seen plenty of DIR'ers with weight belts.

 

[lamont]

I don't think there's any guidance from the DIR basestar on how to rig up weights.

My preference is for no weight belt and no ditchable. I'm more worried about the weight being accidentally ditched (much like a break away breaking away when you don't want it to) and becoming catastrophically positive on deco. I've tested with full double-130s of EAN32 (20# negative) with a crushed drysuit and completely empty wing (interesting experiment involving standing on the bottom and blowing out the viz, something in the back of my brain had the absolute heebie jeebies about doing this) and found that I could swim them up just fine. Holding a stop took about as much effort as treading water in a pool, which would not work over a long time, but would work long enough to work around the buoyancy issue. I also tried the same situation but with using my drysuit for buoyancy and did a perfectly reasonable ascent drill. You probably don't want to go vertical in this situation since it would risk blowing your neck seal, but if you're horizontal and keep the air bubble in your back it works perfectly fine. Beyond that you've also got your team members who can shoot bags for you (one thing we didn't test was blowing a 40+# bag and hanging off it) or you should be able to just hang off them (using a single wing to raise two divers is basically what you do with the unconscious diver drill, so this should be possible).

I don't have a big deal with weightbelts in terms of comfort, they actually help you trim out a little better, but they seem to be a very drastic solution to a problem that would be better addressed some other way.