What is a good SAC rate ?

[fjpatrum]

I consider a good SAC to be whatever I used on my last dive that I enjoyed. I only have about 35 dives right now but my SAC jumps all over the place from about .5 to 1.3 or so, depending upon water conditions, temps (air and water), what I ate for breakfast, how lazy I've been the week before the dive, what I'm trying to do on the dive, etc.

I'm just not consistent enough, at this point, to care one bit. An AL80 gets me a reasonable amount of bottom time, for the most part. Anything else is just gravy.

 

[Insta-Gator]

Tracy, I think he's referring to his SAC or RMV, not at depth. ATA would obviously multiply that.

 

[mala]

Curious because mine is SLOWLY getting better (was horrible to start with) but I'm curious what other peoples SAC rates are and how long they have been diving (and of course male or female since that makes a fairly large difference)

a good sac would be about 10ltr / min.

most important factors in my experience would be in the following order.

1 frequency of dives.
2 number of dives.
3 sex
4. weighting/trim/bouyancy
5 finning efficiency.

 

[fjpatrum]

a good sac would be about 10ltr / min.

most important factors in my experience would be in the following order.

1 frequency of dives.
2 number of dives.
3 sex
4. weighting/trim/bouyancy
5 finning efficiency.

Clearly I'm going to have to dive more often and have more sex. I'm telling my wife it was your idea!

 

[mala]

Clearly I'm going to have to dive more often and have more sex. I'm telling my wife it was your idea!

lol......that's the other sac rate.

 

[tursiops]

Don't fight the current. Resistance is futile.

Yes! I want a tee-shirt that says that!

 

[James R]

Man I love sac threads. Seems like a lot of this:

"I don't even have a sac rate that I can calculate! It's like .05! It's like I don't even breathe, yet I never hold my breath!"

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My average is right around .4, my GF on the other hand has a verified and consistent .26. It's sickening sometimes (not). Actually quite proud of her.

 

[nimoh]

Man I love sac threads. Seems like a lot of this:

"I don't even have a sac rate that I can calculate! It's like .05! It's like I don't even breathe, yet I never hold my breath!"

I dove with a guy once that borrowed a stage bottle from me with 2900psi in it, returned it with 2800psi and claims he breathed from it for half of a 40 minute dive to 30'. Although perhaps our definitions of "half" are different

 

[tracydr]

Tracy, I think he's referring to his SAC or RMV, not at depth. ATA would obviously multiply that.

He was talking about using a certain volume of air over a certain period of time. My point I'd, depending on depth, that will vary wildly. If I'm at 20 feet, I can do about 90-120 minutes with my AL63. If I'm at 110 feet, I of course get a lot less time, not even considering NDL's. So, volume/minute is not helpful without a depth.
SAC is surface air consumption, so that is figured into the equation.


[ {(PSI Start - PSI End) x 33} ÷ (Depth + 33)] ÷ Time in Minutes = SAC Rate in PSI/min
I guess he could be talking about SAC, which is psi/minute, but since he said it was how much air he actually uses in a certain period of time, I assumed he was talking on an actual dive,at depth.