redhatmama:
As far as men telling women they are diving with too much weight, I think you should let the matter drop. We keep logs and we know how much weight we need. How can someone have too many undergarmets? Obviously, you dive with enough undergarments to keep warm.
There is a very real male/female difference in buoyancy and weight requirements.
Thank you. Very good point. I won't get into the buoyancy characteristics of muscle, bone, and fat, and body composition, etc.... For the skeptics posting above, I'm diving in water as cold as 45 degrees, in a trilaminate suit, for 60 minutes, on days when the air temperature is even lower. Believe me, I am using the absolute minimum of weight and fleece - trust me on this!
Thanks everybody else for the input. Interesting to hear others have same issue. Both my husband's large Zeagle Ranger and my small vest have the 44 lb tag, so I assume that both vests have the same bladder. I think the difference lies in the nylon vest itself. My vest is so much smaller that the bladder can't inflate to its full size; it's not physically possible because the nylon doesn't stretch and the inflated vest is much smaller than the large one. I can tell the plastic bladder inside is skrunched up (a technical term). So I don't think I'm getting the 44 lbs claimed.
At depths greater than 60 feet, I sometimes use both my suit and my vest to control buoyancy. The vest will definitely take me up, even with just a little "puff" or two on the inflator. In fact, I didn't even know my gear wouldn't float by itself until recently when we started diving off our own boat. (Charters around here make you climb out of the water with your gear on, so it's never in the water by itself - on our dinghy, we are more civilized - and we don't have a ladder!) I am extremely careful to ensure that my gear is securely clipped on before taking it off!
My tanks are the Scubapro 72, made by Faber. If I recall correctly, my gear floats with AL80, but not with my steel. I was wondering about relying on the vest in the event of my suit flooding.....