Wing size for 5mm wetsuit aluminum 80

[tbone1004]

In South Florida, we often will deploy a DSMB from a wreck at depth and deco on it. I have drifted over a mile (probably 2) while in deco. Big DSMBs help the captain find you when there can be many of them up on during the deco, spread over a good distance. As for radar - I have yet to see a dive operator in South Florida with one.

As for the 4lbs, Carter lift bags are recognized as some of the best DSMBs on the market. This is a quote from their page for their PF models, which I have CBPF-35 and a CBSS-25..

"A four pound weight will make the personal float stand up vertically in the water."

I know I will not trade mine for any other. Rugged and dependable.

fine, so tie the lead to the bottom of the dsmb so you don't have to tug on it, but it shouldn't be on your body. If you're shooting from say 70ft, then you only need two big breaths and it's full and ready to go. The 4lbs on the smb itself offsets the first one, and the second one is when you let it go.

 

[Nasser]

Ya, not doubt every diver should over weight themselves by 30 lbs so they can shoot a bag. Can't be too careful now can we……..

The reality is divers don't shoot bags from the surface, they do so from depth, and at depth their exposure suit will have compressed, often by quite a bit.

Compressed suits *reduce* the buoyancy of suit, making the diver negative.

Apparently that simple fact continues to escape you.

Tobin

How much wetsuit compression do you expect at 6m? Most single tank divers (at least here in the Red Sea) shoot a DSMB up at their safety stop.

 

[tbone1004]

at 6m, you have to plan on the wetsuit losing ~30% of it's buoyancy even though it will likely be a bit less.

 

[cool_hardware52]

How much wetsuit compression do you expect at 6m? Most single tank divers (at least here in the Red Sea) shoot a DSMB up at their safety stop.

The majority of suit compression happens shallow. Remember the absolute pressure has doubled from 1 ATA at the surface to 1.6 ATA at 6m…….

It's the same reason trying to hold .5 m depth at 3 meters is far more difficult than trying to hold .5 meters at 30 meters. The percentage change in pressure per meter is greatest near the surface.

Thicker suits of course have demonstrate the greatest compression, and the effects are not linear with respect to suit thickness, i.e. a 3mm suit won't compress 1/2 of what a 6mm suit will. The reason is the "skin" on the neoprene. The skin is not foamed and does not compress, only the material between the skin compresses. The skin thickness tends to be fairly consistent regardless of the total thickness of the neoprene. By example is the skin is .5mm x 2 for a total of 1mm, a 3 mm suit has about 2mm of foamed material between the skins, but a 6mm suit will have 5 mm or 2.5 times as much.

The fact remains that wetsuits compress, or we wouldn't really need BC's at all.

If you don't believe me on your next dive don't add any gas to your BC as you descend. See just how negative you are at 6m.

Tobin

 

[packrat12]

fine, so tie the lead to the bottom of the dsmb so you don't have to tug on it, but it shouldn't be on your body. If you're shooting from say 70ft, then you only need two big breaths and it's full and ready to go. The 4lbs on the smb itself offsets the first one, and the second one is when you let it go.

I know I am not going to tie a lead weight to my DSMB and carry it around like that, let alone deploy it that way... Also I will use a LP inflator or regulator to inflate a DSMB. If I do not want to be slightly negative, I will tie my deco tanks to it or hold slightly negative... depends on the mood.

 

[NAM001]

I would get the 30. the 28-30 is a very n ormal range atleast in warm water. I dove with a steel plate and a lp120 and the 28# wing barely kept me up with a lavacore on. had to go back to a wet suit till I could change to a al plate. Also remember you should have enough reserve to carry a buddy up. the steel plate with a overfilled lp120 and no suit is a far cry from a 5 mill suit with al 80 tank. probably 15# or so.

 

[cool_hardware52]

I would get the 30. the 28-30 is a very n ormal range atleast in warm water. I dove with a steel plate and a lp120 and the 28# wing barely kept me up with a lavacore on. had to go back to a wet suit till I could change to a al plate. Also remember you should have enough reserve to carry a buddy up. the steel plate with a overfilled lp120 and no suit is a far cry from a 5 mill suit with al 80 tank. probably 15# or so.

The solution to being overweighted is *never* a larger wing……..

Tobin

 

[cool_hardware52]

EVERYONE knows THAT!! You just get a wing with redundant bladders.. Right?

Not sure why you persist in derailing *another* thread.

A newer diver comes here for advice and has to sort through your nonsense. Apparently you find humor in advocating dangerous diving practices.

What a service to the community. SMH.

Tobin

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Some might argue that advocating for divers to wear so little lead that they float uncontrollably to the surface and risk embolism and being hit by a boat...is dangerous.

 

[boulderjohn]

I had an interesting experience relative to this thread the day before yesterday.

One of my students had accumulated a pretty fair number of dives with his dry suit and his BP/W over the course of the training, and he was doing pretty well. On Monday he decided to wear another layer of undergarment on his upper body because he had been cold the day before. (I did not know he did this.) As the dive progressed, he realized he was underweighted. He dumped everything he could from his wing and his suit, but he was still about to cork. When he let me know the problem, we began an immediate ascent. He hung onto me for much of the time we were doing our deco stops, and I was fortunately weighted enough to keep the two of us down. He also was able to cling to the rocky wall hear us for some of the stops.

He added more weight for the ensuing dive and was fine. He had not realized how close he was to his weighting before, and he had not realized how much difference that extra shirt would make.

It is fortunate for him I was able to keep him down when he first realized his problem. If he had corked right away and missed his decompression stops, it could have been serious. A friend of mine, a very experienced technical diving instructor, corked on a dive that way, missing his deco stops. He was able to get on oxygen right away, which helped him enough that he was only paralyzed for about 5 months.