Where Did I Go Wrong?

[cool_hardware52]

But ... there seems to be a consensus here that the weight should be on the diver, not on the rig. I would like to know the reasoning behind this.

Good reasons to have "some" of your ballast on your rig and "some" on your person when diving buoyant exposures suits with single tanks:

1) It reduces the size of the required wing. The wing does not have to float *all* of the ballast and *all* of the gas if you ditch it.

2) It makes the rig easier to move about out of the water because the rig does not represent *all* of the ballast.

3) It makes in water donning easier because the diver is has some ballast to offset the buoyancy of their suit, they aren't "pinned" on the surface in a 20+ lbs positive suit.

4) Weight belts are cheap and universally available, rebending back plates or swapping to a larger wing, or adding a STA are all easily avoided by adding a belt.
A 4-6-8 lbs belt is no problem for almost any diver to manage.


Tobin

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Since going to a BPW from a jacket bc I have been using a belt for any extra weight I may require except when diving dry then I also use the DSS weight plates bolted on. I began with an integrated bc and until I found this board thought it was the best option because my OW instructor( who also sold the damn thing to me) said integrated was the way to go. Way to go my ass! Diving dry I needed to add 26 lbs to the bc on top of the tank and regs. Made it alot of fun getting geared up! After finding this board, DSS, and going to keeping the weight distributed between the rig and a belt I will never go back to a fully integrated unit. Even in the pool with the jacket bc I do not use the weight pockets. A belt is much more convenient and easy to use. Take the weight pockets off the harness, slide em onto a 7 dollar belt with a steel buckle( I got mine from Piranha mfg), and be done with it. I have more pockets coming for my zeagle express. I'll put 2 on the cambands and the other two on a weight belt I'm setting up for warm water travel. It will work out to about the same as my BPW setup and save me some weight on the plane.

 

[Mike Boswell]

I want to thank everyone for their very informative responses.

When I bought my wing I was only focussed on getting enough buoyancy to float my rig. But, after taking the rescue class, it became apparent to me that a little extra buoyancy might come in handy in certain emergency and rescue situations.

In the end, this whole issue was neatly resolved when one of you very kindly offered to trade his 40 lb wing (he had ordered a 30 and a 40 was shipped to him by mistake) for my 30 lb wing, and so we swapped wings. Two problems solved.

Thanks to you folks and your generosity, I also learned a lot more things than I would have guessed possible.

 

[cbrich]

I dive with pretty much the same setup except I don't wear any extra lead. Have you done a buoyancy check when the tank at 500 psi?

 

[Mike Boswell]

I dive with pretty much the same setup except I don't wear any extra lead. Have you done a buoyancy check when the tank at 500 psi?

Yes, it floated fine with an empty tank, but not a full one.

I can barely hold a 15' safety stop with 8 lbs. of lead. How do you manage this with zero lead?