ankle weights

[trewbs]

I was thinking of diving with ankle weights with my dry suit because I'm always worried that my feet are going to float up.
Does anyone has any comments/advice about them?

Trewbs

 

[Bob3]

Ankle weights can be a little more tiring on the legs. I'd recommend playing around with your trim first; you can achieve pretty much the same effect by sliding your weight belt a little lower down , or add a small trim weight to the bottom of your tank.
There is also the possability that you may have too much air in your suit, allowing an annoying bubble to slip into your toes.
Some folks find the slight negative aspect of fins like the Jets to eliminate the floaty feet problem as well.

 

[ERP]

As long as you stay in control of the air in your suit and don't let the air in your feet get out of hand, you shouldn't need ankle weights.

I spent my first couple of drysuit dives pretty much head down (not much fun), but with a little practice you can control the effect fairly easilly.

Another option is Gaitors (like the Halcyon ones) they are probably a better solution to minimising feet float . Uncle Pug uses some sort of stretchy elastic webbing with velcro on his andy's suit which is probably just as effective as the gaitors and a lot cheaper.

 

[sdbaroni]

I use both ankle weights and a tank weight to help me stay trimmed out while diving in a dry suit. The ankle wieghts are small - 2lbs each, but it helps. The tank weight is a great way to help trim you out and distribute some more weight off your waist. I also use a steel tank for the added weight.

sdbaroni
www.destinationdive.com

 

[Genesis]

and I find that I have no problem with keeping my trim in good shape.

My "trick"? Don't use the suit as a BC. Use your BC as a BC, and put just enough air in the suit to offset compression of depth and the squeeze.

This way there is no air bubble (well, ok, not much of one) to shift and thus no problem to compensate for.

 

[ERP]

and I find that I have no problem with keeping my trim in good shape.

Looking at the other thread your diving with rock boots? They tend to keep the gas out of the feet.

With integral rubber boots on the drysuit there is a tendancy for feet to get floaty even with minimal gas on the suit, this is especially true during ascents. It's manageable with practice, but it can be pretty unnerving on the first couple of dives.

Gaitors do much the same job as the rock boots, they minimise the amount of air flow in the area and minimise the volume the air has to expand into.

 

[Genesis]

I'm not using the rockboots, as they don't fit in my existing fins. Instead I bought a pair of cheap, thin neoprene wetsuit booties and am using those.

As it turns out those are less than optimal, so I may just buy another set of fins to solve the fit problem. I hate to do it though because I really like my Twinjets and a second pair is a stupid amount of money to spend for something that won't be my "primary" dive configuration.

The drysuit itself just has neoprene socks on it; no soft boots, and as such I'm uncomfortable diving from the boat without some kind of additional protection (for the suit, not me!) before I stick my foot in the fins.

I found that its a matter of not putting too much gas in the suit. I dive it with the dump pretty close to full-open and that seems to work fine for me, along with keeping the "bolus" of air that can shift around in the suit pretty small in size.

Only got "feet up" once and didn't have trouble recovering from it.

(I HAD spent some time in my pool practicing before trying it in open water though!)

 

[ERP]

I'm not using the rockboots, as they don't fit in my existing fins. Instead I bought a pair of cheap, thin neoprene wetsuit booties and am using those

They'll have much the same effect as the rockboots. Your effectively minimising the area for the air to pool.

The problem with the rubber boots is that even if they fit well there is an excessive amount of space for air to pool.

The rubber boots on my drysuit are a tight fit when I wear heavy fleece socks, but I can feel them get loose on ascents and if left unchecked they will get VERY floaty.

If you get head down I agree it's not particularly difficult to rectify the issue, if it isn't complicated by buoyancy problems, which it often is.

The secret (if there is one) is to realise you no longer have "squeezed" feet and rectify the issue before it get's out of hand.

For point of reference, I dive with the dump valve on my suit wide open, and with minimal air in the suit. My suit is off the shelf and the fit isn't ideal, so it does trap more air than I would like.

 

[Genesis]

If you're feet-up and are ascending, the direction you wish to go to solve the immediate problem (an unwanted ascent) is the direction you're pointing! KICK!

Once you get the ascent arrested (and you CAN unless it gets REALLY out of hand!) flipping over is easy. If you flip first then you're still ascending and that situation has gotten worse - maybe much worse!

I decided against a "formal" drysuit class for several reasons, in no particular order:

1. All the places around here wanted to teach me to use the drysuit as a BC. I have a lot of problems with that, the most important of which is that it forces you to dive with the dump cranked down and I believe that the enormous potential volume of the suit makes that decision amazingly unsafe. Plus, I already have a BC and know how to use it.

2. They all also maintained that the proper means of recovering from a "feet up ascent" is to do the "tuck and roll". Uh, if you are going up, and catch it relatively early, the correct path TO ME seems to be to FIRST fix the ascent problem (which you easily CAN since you are pointed in the right direction!) and SECOND to fix the feet-up problem. Second, you don't run into that problem to any significant degree if you don't have a huge amount of air in the thing to begin with (see (1) above!)

3. None of the local places, save one, thought that they should offer this class with their own gear; rather, they thought you should either rent gear from them or buy it first then take the class from them.

4. Finally, I tried it out in my pool and came to the conclusion that I could handle it.

Turns out I'm right

 

[MikeFerrara]

Genesis,

The reason for a tuck and roll in a feet up ascent is that you need to get righted in order to be able to dump. When performing this you do kick down as part of the move. One of the things that can cause one to get in such a situation is a stuck inflator. If you have lots of extra air in the suit just swimmind down isn't going to get you far. Better practice it the way the book says just in case. I have students do this with me holding their inflat button to simulate a stuck inflator.

What did you mean by?
"3. None of the local places, save one, thought that they should offer this class with their own gear; rather, they thought you should either rent gear from them or buy it first then take the class from them."

You either rent or buy. What other choice is ther? Are you saying you should use theirs for free?