Why weight integrated bc's?

[Wayward Son]

Wife & daughter both hate weight belts. I used a belt for years, finally got an integrated BC & much prefer it.

Neither method is perfect, each has plusses & minuses. Gotta choose which way wins for you.

 

[fishoutawater]

Thanks for the anatomy lesson Catherine. I had to look Iliac Crest up. But short of me getting bone grafts, I'll Keep swingin' the belt around, bending over, suckin' in my gut and cinching it tight.

 

[runamonk]

Hoping someone would explain to me why weight integrated bc's are so popular, and why they even exist.
Seems to me, if you had to take it off to get through a tight spot, you'd have nothing to keep you from shooting towards the surface, especially in a wetsuit.
And how do new students handle this during their pool drills, when they do the don/doff procedure? Or don't they teach that anymore?

I put weight in both places. I don't just have weight in my BC. Yes my wife and I had to remove and replace our bc in our pool sessions as well.

 

[runamonk]

I find integrated weights so much of an inconvenience... the tanks always falling over, etc. I like weight belts because the weight is centered near my center of gravity and does not budge. People are one or the other. BF has integrated Zeagle. But, he has no hips, so maybe weight belts are a problem for "straight" people! Iliac crests are needed to hold the belt in place.

This was my problem. I could never wear 30+ lbs on my waist, it was always slipping down. The very few weight harnesses I have tried turned out to be total garbage and way overpriced.

So now I have a really nice weight belt with pockets on it and I only put 10lbs into and the rest goes into my BC and this works out great for me.

I'm still in the process of trimming down my weight (which was 40lbs during the class and now I'm using 34lbs).

 

[BSea]

While you might do ditch & don in the pool, you probably don't have a full wet suit with hood & gloves in the pool. The bouyancy would be completely different than what you might typically dive with.

I'll never go back to my weight belt, but I will practice this skill full a full suit.

 

[runamonk]

While you might do ditch & don in the pool, you probably don't have a full wet suit with hood & gloves in the pool. The bouyancy would be completely different than what you might typically dive with.

I'll never go back to my weight belt, but I will practice this skill full a full suit.

We did our stuff in the pool using dry suits. We did all our BSD classes and dives with a dry suit, it was much more difficult at the time because our instructor insisted we do all bouyancy control with the drysuit instead of our BC's.

Incidently we both wear full 7mm farmer john style wet suits, hoods and gloves. We're diving in the puget sound (currently 52deg).

 

[BSea]

We did our stuff in the pool using dry suits. We did all our BSD classes and dives with a dry suit, it was much more difficult at the time because our instructor insisted we do all bouyancy control with the drysuit instead of our BC's.

Incidently we both wear full 7mm farmer john style wet suits, hoods and gloves. We're diving in the puget sound (currently 52deg).

Sounds like your pool sessions have you well prepared.

 

[sea nmf]

It's not removing your weights you might want to do, it's removing your BC. Entanglement and a slipping tank are two reasons a diver might want to remove their BC. A weight integrated BC makes it more difficult.

I know I'm giving away my bone-headedness here. But I actually did remove my weight integrated BC at 40' to re-secure my tank strap. (My buddy was a newbie and couldn't quite get it.) I didn't think ahead of time about the "floating up" part.

Anyway, I wrassled my rig and grabbed the tank with my legs, fixed the problem, and put the rig back on. But it wasn't pretty.

I vowed that if there was a next time, one of the weight pouches was going down the front of my dive skin (front zipper kind).

I just find weight integrated BC more comfortable.

 

[Damselfish]

I love WI, one less separate piece to deal with and more comfy than a weight belt. I don't use much weight, if I did I might consider dividing weights between the BC and a belt.

One thing I disagree with is having someone do training with a belt if they have a WI BC they plan to use. Ditch and don is easier with a belt, all the more reason to understand how it's different with WI if that's what someone will be using and actually try it. Maybe do both.

 

[BSea]

One thing I disagree with is having someone do training with a belt if they have a WI BC they plan to use. Ditch and don is easier with a belt, all the more reason to understand how it's different with WI if that's what someone will be using and actually try it. Maybe do both.

I agree. Why train with gear you don't intend to use. When I took my lessons, we bought gear that we intended to use, and that's what we used in class. Of course the choices were pretty standard back then.