Weights or No Weights

[El Cid]

I've heard of divers before saying that they dive with no weights on, and am wondering if that is a great idea or not. I just switched to Steel 100's (still diving a single though) and could probably get by with no weight, but am wearing 4 pounds to offset my wetsuit. I have to inflate the 4377 out of my wing to get neutral but if I have an occasion where I have to remove my gear underwater (entanglement or any other reason), I want to be sure my wetsuit doesn't have me hightailing to the surface while my gear is planted on the bottom. I'm putting it in this forum since I'm hoping to go tech soon and my current setup is closer to a tech than pure rec setup. Whaddya say? Got 2 cents?

 

[grazie42]

Speaking only for myself, I prefer to dive only with the weight I need. For doubles that means that I dive without weights.

If I did have to remove my gear uw, I´d make sure to hold onto my harness to keep from floating away, likely this would be inside a wreck or somewhere like that where, if I did lose my grip, I´d only stick to the ceiling anyway...

ymmv

 

[Chernish]

I guess the question is not how much weight to put, but where to put it: on the diver or on the tank?

You will always be able to invent horror stories, wherever you put the weights (for example: "if you put the weights on yourself your tank will shoot to the surface while you will be drowning to a miserable death"). In any case, removing the gear underwater is an exceptional measure and whatever the cirumstances one rule applies: overweighted, underweighted or perfectly weighted it hardly matters: hold onto your gear as if your life depended on it, because, well... your life DOES depend on it!

 

[gypsyjim]

I like to have some weight on my body to compensate for the extra bouyancy of the suit. First time I removed my bcd at depth, after going to intigrated weight was a surprise. Mostly my wieght is for trim, but I am partial to some weight on a belt, always. Personal choice.

 

[TSandM]

What size wing are you using? If you assume that the 4 lbs you are wearing is simply offsetting the lift from your suit, then your negative buoyancy is a full steel hundred, which is at most 15 lbs negative (assuming you have the Fabers), and your backplate, which if it's SS, is five or six pounds negative. Add a couple of pounds for regulator and D-rings, and you might get it up to 25 lbs negative. If that's the case, a 17 or 20 lb wing would be inadequate, but a 30 lb ought to be all right.

To solve the problem, you could go to a less negative tank, or a less negative backplate. Of course, if you don't have Faber tanks and a steel plate, this whole thing just doesn't add up at all.

 

[El Cid]

I've got a transpac and rec wing (strapped at the smaller size) with XS HP100's so I have ample lift, but before switching to the steel tank, I had 7 or 8 pounds which was just enough to get below the surface and would need hardly any air at all in the wing to get neutral at depth. I tend to carry a bunch of junk with me because I'm of the mindset that I'd rather have it and not need it as opposed to need it and not have it, so I carry a reel and lift bag, backup light, tables, finger reel, surface signals (whistle, mirror, etc). All of this adds up for sure, and if I have to remove gear under water I know to hold onto the gear but it can be a challenge sometimes if your gear goes one way and you go the other. I also like weights so if inside a wreck, I won't get pinned to the ceiling where I can see my gear just a few feet away (stand on the ceiling I guess?).

I guess from what I'm seeing it comes down to personal preference. I might try a couple of reef dives at 60' with no weight and see what difference that makes. If its only marginal, then I'll keep em on just for that safety factor, but if its a gross difference it might be something to think about.

 

[TechBlack]

I dive doubles without any weight, but only in a drysuit. losing the belt/ditchable weight is fine, most tech guys dive without some form of ditchable weight, but keep the safety aspect in mind. removing gear and being positive is one thing, but if you have no ditchable weight in a wetsuit and you suddenly have a loss of buoyancy, ie: torn inflator hose, you'll find yourself on a trip to the bottom quickly... think of alternate lift devices if you're going to dive wet without ditchable weight... just a thought...

 

[Flightlead]

I guess from what I'm seeing it comes down to personal preference. I might try a couple of reef dives at 60' with no weight and see what difference that makes. If its only marginal, then I'll keep em on just for that safety factor, but if its a gross difference it might be something to think about.

well, once you get some tech training and start to understand the philosophy your thinking about taking everything in your dive box with you on every dive will change

First there is a distinction between the weighting philosophies of "tech" and "rec" diving. Rec diving weighting philosophy essentially has you being able to dump weights anytime and be positively buoyant and therefore (hopefully) be able to reach the surface. So, optimally you would want to have the following be true:
1) with zero air in your tank you should be neutrally buoyant in your rig without ditching weight
2) your ditchable weight should be at least equal to the swing weight of your tanks, that is the weight of the breathing gas you are carrying at the beginning of the dive.

For "tech" diving most people I've talked to eschew ditchable weight with the reasoning that the risk of accidentally ditching weight in an overhead environment (whether virtual due to a decompression obligation, or physical such as a cave or wreck) is worse than the risk of not being able to ditch weight. Remember, when tech diving you have redundant buoyancy systems, and you are assumed to be much better at gas management and using team and gas management rules that should prevent you from getting anywhere near zero breathing gas, even in a catastrophic failure such as a tank neck O-ring extrusion. Diver/rig weighting is again as close as possible to neutral with zero gas, but no ditchable weights.

Within the tech world however, there seems to be two schools of thought regarding what "neutral" means. the majority views the diver and rig as one unit, and weights it accordingly. the underlying belief here is that there is no reason to remove the rig, except possibly at the surface. The other school of thought (thassalmania has written extensively about this) views the diver and rigs separately and believes that EACH should be neutral - "neutral diver, neutral rig". This is a minority view AFAICT however you should read up on it. This philosophy believes there may be a requirement to remove the rig at depth and that both the diver and rig should be as close to neutral as practical so that the problems of the diver going one way and the rig going the other are eliminated. NOTE, this philosophy will require a diver attached weight system (belt, harness) and may require attaching fixed flotation devices to the rig.

hth

 

[El Cid]

Great responses here. I do carry "two" alternate lift devices since the safety sausage I carry is rated at 40#, and I have a 50# lift bag as well, so I can get the rig neutral or close enough. I'll have to read up on thassalmania's stuff and see if I can get both opinions and see which makes more sense to me. This could be a classic case of divers preparing for a problem that never happens. I would imagine an equal chance of needing to separate from the rig and stay neutral as of the weights being accidentally ditched. I do wear my weights under the crotch strap and waist strap of the transpac and as such they can't as easily be removed (not quite rec friendly) but if I have to take the rig off, I don't have to take the weights off to do it.

Thanks for the opinions and keep em coming. That's why I love this place. You can gather all the info and see sides of the argument you haven't though of yet then come to your own conclusions.

 

[El Cid]

Wow. Just finished the novel on weighting for doubles. Interesting conversations there but I don't understand the contention about why being neutral in your suit would be bad. At most it should only add I'm guessing 4-8# which might be a bit of an extreme measure if you deflate your dry suit (Like I said, I'm 1)a young pup of a diver 2)in South Florida and so I haven't dove dry yet so forgive ignorance here). As for inadvertantly ditching weight; in my rescue course I even had a hard time ditching my own weight when I was the 'dead' diver, let alone them doing it for me. I have a tight buckle and aside from that it was a couple of good tugs to get it out from under my rig. If the concern is inadvertant ditching then that might be one I'll have to consider separately, but as far as the idea of being neutral aside from my rig, I still want to work with this one.

It sounds like I have a lot of 'test' dives coming up since I want to figure out my SAC rate (I'm sure its sky high), and how much weight at 20' offsets my different exposure protection. Luckily for the weighting, Blue Heron is ocean fed salt water at about 20', controlled circumstances (no deco+buddy+lifeguard), so that sounds like the perfect place to figure the weighting out for me.