What solo cert do you have, has it ever been turned down?

[Miyaru]

How would you ensure this if diving a deep OC dive with three stages?

Your stages are not part of your balanced rig.
If you'd need to use the reserves of those, causing them to become very buoyant, you can always send them up on your smb line. (Or leave them on the cave ceiling and retrieve them on a next dive).

But since this is about diving solo, I don't think I'd do such a dive requiring 3 deco gasses. That's beyond my personal limits of what I consider acceptable.

 

[Wibble]

Your stages are not part of your balanced rig.
If you'd need to use the reserves of those, causing them to become very buoyant, you can always send them up on your smb line. (Or leave them on the cave ceiling and retrieve them on a next dive).

But since this is about diving solo, I don't think I'd do such a dive requiring 3 deco gasses. That's beyond my personal limits of what I consider acceptable.

Doing some OS mix dives using a bottom stage to extend the bottom time. Have to factor in the weight of the gas given that it could all be consumed in extremis. Being light at deco isn’t a good place to be.

 

[EFX]

Any diver must make sure he/she can return to the surface.

.....and stay on the surface.

 

[Subcooled]

.....and stay on the surface.

That's a very good point. Many have reached the surface only to sink again for the very last time. And this is true for buddy diving, too!

 

[EFX]

I have a balanced rig and have successfully swam it up (in fresh water) from 100 ft. to the surface with the wing completely empty. However, I'm slightly negative so I need to fin slightly to stay afloat. I imagine if you're with a buddy, and you stay together, your buddy can add more gas to his/her BCD and keep you both afloat until the boat picks you up or you swim ashore. If I was by myself, I would try to remove some lead weight I have in tank pockets before ditching the gear. So, there are options besides drowning to try out before you take the plunge to Davy Jones locker.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Yes, we are using different languages.
Buoyancy is an upward forces. Dropping weights does not increase that upward force, it only stops working against it.
Inserting "means of achieving" completely changes what you are saying.
Redundant buoyancy is an adjective modifying an noun. The noun is buoyancy, an upward force. Redundant means more than one way of achieving that upward force, such as an SMB, or a drysuit, or dual bladders.
I think you are confusing buoyancy with movement upwards.

Well, as a solo diver with over 60 years experience, I have to disagree. When you have an upward force (BCD, wet suit, dry suit) that is offset by weights (weight belt, weights in the BCD, etc.) you have a cancelled upward force. You drop those weights, you have an net upward force, not a neutralized force.

Now, I was diving before we had BCDs (and helped develop them). Before BCDs, we dove with a wet suit, weight belt, and in the later 1960s a CO2 vest (for surface use, to maintain a face-up position on the surface). We also did not have any redundant equipment. We learned how to operate without a mask, for instance (my buddy, Bob Means, and I took off our masks when we went through pool harassment in the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers and handed them to our tormentors). We also learned how to operate without our scuba, if necessary (emergency swimming ascent, even a buoyant ascent from 25 feet).

So even when diving solo, I have no need for everything to be redundant. Actually, because I usually dive in relatively shallow water (less than 30 feet) with high currents (diving under a rapids, for instance), streamlining and very good swimming techniques are more valued by me than redundancy.

Now, regarding staying on the surface once it is attained, that should be a given! We used to weight ourselves so that we were floating vertically at eye level on a full breath at the start of the dive with no extra buoyancy in any kind of device, and at the end we were somewhat buoyant. With the invention of BCDs, we continued to weight ourselves in this manner, but used the BCD to compensate for the loss of buoyancy of the wet suit at depth. This works extremely well.

Now, what I’m seeing is the emphasis on “balanced rigs” which have lots of weight to get down, and are “balanced” so that the diver can be horizontal. If buoyancy is lost, a “redundant” means of offering buoyancy is needed so that the diver can get to the surface. I note two things here; first, that this is what we classically called “equipment dependency,” and second that this offers much more incentive for the diver to buy more equipment, and so the instructors and dive industry have an incentive to practice this type of diving and instruction.

SeaRat
John & Mossback Mk 3-1 by John Ratliff, on Flickr

 

[EFX]

Now, what I’m seeing is the emphasis on “balanced rigs” which have lots of weight to get down, and are “balanced” so that the diver can be horizontal. If buoyancy is lost, a “redundant” means of offering buoyancy is needed so that the diver can get to the surface. I note two things here; first, that this is what we classically called “equipment dependency,” and second that this offers much more incentive for the diver to buy more equipment, and so the instructors and dive industry have an incentive to practice this type of diving and instruction.

Your definition for "balanced rig" is different than how most users define it on SB. As I have described it above I don't use "lots of weight" to get down but just enough to allow me to descend when I exhale, and that allows me to swim up to the surface. To be horizontal the term I would use is to get the weight distributed not balanced.