Your BC fails now what??

[lamont]

It continues to amaze me that people state that they can swim rigs that are 12 or more lbs negative up from the bottom (after a BC failure) but these same people will tell you that should you accidentally lose an 8 lb weight belt, you will go rocketing toward the surface in an uncontrolled manner. Seems like you can't have it both ways. I know for a fact that I can control an ascent when I am 20 lbs bouyant with little effort; it is actually much easier than swimming up 15 lbs of extra lead.

If you are 20# negative due to catastrophic wing failure, you can fix that with some form of backup buoyancy (drysuit, SMB, buddy, line, etc)

If you are 20# positive due to a weightbelt slipping off and do not have a line to hold onto that'll be much more interesting.... you have to swim down and with a drysuit you'll be trapping gas in your legs and won't be able to vent, compounding the problem -- your buddy might be able to dump and get negative and try to help, but if they're properly weighted they should only be negative by the amount of backgas they have left. on a 20 minute O2 stop this would be amusing...

 

[CJ Bill]

At the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, if you're diving in warm water with a single tank and properly weighted it shouldn't be a problem: I've not needed to add air to my BC for my past 50 warm water dives (except at the surface). If you're in a dry suit use that for your bouyancy.

 

[drbill]

A timely thread even though I've already responded to it. I was on a 180' dive at Ship Rock last weekend and as I began my ascent, I experienced more difficulty than I've experienced in the past. I continued slowly up the wall and slope to begin my shallow deco stops at the 40 ft range and was able to establish neutral buoyancy.

I discovered after I surfaced that I had a small puncture in my wing. Good to know that I can still swim up essentially without it, but equally glad that I just won two replacement wings for that harness on E-Bay!