Wing size???

[cool_hardware52]

Drysuit, 400G Thinsulate, 25# weight, and choppy seas.

Or, Drysuit, DC TPS Thinsulate Extreme, 22# weight and a long surface swim.

Mark

No doubt there are conditions that would dictate a larger wing than a 30. Thick wetsuit, or DS with thick undergarment could easily lead to weighting that might require more lift.

What I often see are broad recommendations that leave people thinking they need more lift than they really do.

I have no ax to grind, we build 30 and 40 lbs single wings, quite happy to provide either...


Tobin

 

[RTodd]

No doubt there are conditions that would dictate a larger wing than a 30. Thick wetsuit, or DS with thick undergarment could easily lead to weighting that might require more lift.

What I often see are broad recommendations that leave people thinking they need more lift than they really do.

I have no ax to grind, we build 30 and 40 lbs single wings, quite happy to provide either...


Tobin

These guys crack me up. I use a 38lb wing with 200g, double al80s, 3 stages, stainless plate and 11lb v-weight. The weight offsets the exposure suit to make you neutral. As an overgeneralization, when wearing a drysuit, the wing is only for the weight of the gas in your tanks. A wing is not supposed to help you keep your chest dry when you are on the surface.

 

[mweitz]

Where exactly are you diving RTODD?

Mark

These guys crack me up. I use a 38lb wing with 200g, double al80s, 3 stages, stainless plate and 11lb v-weight. The weight offsets the exposure suit to make you neutral. As an overgeneralization, when wearing a drysuit, the wing is only for the weight of the gas in your tanks. A wing is not supposed to help you keep your chest dry when you are on the surface.

 

[pants!]

As an overgeneralization, when wearing a drysuit, the wing is only for the weight of the gas in your tanks. A wing is not supposed to help you keep your chest dry when you are on the surface.

What about when you have a catastrophic drysuit failure? Your wing will need to be able to compensate for lost buoyancy with a flooded drysuit, wouldn't you agree?

 

[RTodd]

What about when you have a catastrophic drysuit failure? Your wing will need to be able to compensate for lost buoyancy with a flooded drysuit, wouldn't you agree?

I gave you a list of all the weight I would be carrying, add it up. A 38lb wing would still cover that. Plus, drysuit failures are never really catstrophic. And, think about what I said about the gas, if you still had the weight of a significant portion of your gas when it happened (my example involved 5 al 80s), you could ditch some of it or hand it off to your buddy. This would not be part of my inflation planning in this instance, just pointing it out. However, in the cave dive example I gave, we would probably ditch some stages (either becuase they were empty or we had plenty of gas to exit) in order to move faster and come back for them since a suit failure of that magnitude would cause you to start getting cold even in thinsulate due to the amount of water that would be moving around.

In an open water case, your balanced rig could have enough ditchable weight in the case of a total drysuit loss so a more reasonable wing size resulting in less drag would still work. Not trying to give you a hard time, but newer divers tend to both over and under think this stuff.

 

[mweitz]

RTodd, can you tell us about your singles rig for cold OW beach diving?

Mark

 

[RTodd]

Where exactly are you diving RTODD?

Mark

You got me, your west coast dives are completely different and nothing we are saying about thinking about a balanced rig could possible apply to you. BTW, I assumed your example was for single tanks since that was the original question. For that weight in doubles, I would use a 40lb wing in the ocean too.

 

[mweitz]

The real point is you have to offset your negative weight AND keep yourself high enough out of the water to be able to breath in the worst conditions you will dive in. I'm not trying to keep my belly button dry, I strongly feel that gulping water every couple of breaths detracts from the dive and can lead to higher C02 buildup on longer surface swims.

Does that make sense, or am I missing something?

Mark

 

[cool_hardware52]

These guys crack me up. I use a 38lb wing with 200g, double al80s, 3 stages, stainless plate and 11lb v-weight. The weight offsets the exposure suit to make you neutral. As an overgeneralization, when wearing a drysuit, the wing is only for the weight of the gas in your tanks. A wing is not supposed to help you keep your chest dry when you are on the surface.

RTodd,

I think you and I agree in the most part. Very very few people need a single wing with more than 30 lbs of lift. (This assumes a genuine 30 lbs, some "30" lbs wings we have tested have far less lift)

The conditions where more MIGHT be necessary are cold water, lots of exposure suit, (thick wetsuit or shell DS with thick undies), on a big guy, big tank, etc. In other words a combination of equipment and conditions seen by a small percentage of users.

Please note I didn't say never, just not the norm.

Regards,


Tobin

 

[mweitz]

I had a couple of things pointed out to me via PM. I am going to eat a little crow and say that I'm wrong.

I will try out the things suggested to me and post back, but I'm sure I can make a 30# work for my surface swims.

Mark