cool_hardware52
Contributor
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