Wing Size Advantages and Disadvantages

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

The idea of balancing your rig has 2 major advantages. One is that if you have to doff/don underwater (serious entanglement, etc.) you are roughly neutral rather than having to hold desperately to your rig to avoid corking. The other is that it is not uncommon to doff your gear at the surface for convenience (some boat crews will let you pass it up rather than climbing the ladder with all your gear, etc.) and regardless of reason, if you doff the gear at the surface it has to be able to float itself.

Respectfully,

James
Thanks. So the perspective was nuanced - from beyond a “balanced rig” extending into “balancing your rig” to cater to special use cases. The other thread about the importance of donning doffing gear in the water did make me ponder on how to deal with this imbalance of weighting.
 
Thanks. So the perspective was nuanced - from beyond a “balanced rig” extending into “balancing your rig” to cater to special use cases. The other thread about the importance of donning doffing gear in the water did make me ponder on how to deal with this imbalance of weighting.
There is nuance, but it doesn't need to be too crazy.... for example, I normally am in a 3mm full suit and my steel tank on an aluminum plate only needs 2lb of lead. In a perfect world, that would go on a weight belt (still leaving me positively buoyant without the rig), but for trim purposes I put it on the upper cam band. I just live with knowing that I WILL be positively buoyant if I have to doff/don at depth (but in this case, not by a huge amount).
If I dove a thicker wetsuit or a drysuit, I would definitely want more lead on me/less on the rig. But even if you aren't going to shoot for you and your rig being each individually neutral at the safety stop, your rig should be able to float itself..... doff/don at the surface is much more frequent of an event, and it would be shame to sink your rig and have to beg someone to recover it!
For my local diving, I use an approximately 14 lb wing (home made), but I find that my larger 28-sh lb wing feels identical in the water.

Respectfully,

James
 

Back
Top Bottom