Diving without Weights

[flexlarson]

wow didnt know I started such a long thread. ...........COOL
I now use some weight when I wear my new 7mm suit . ........MY old Suit WAS SO OLD it had minimal insulating properties and did not add much bouyancy. ........Im generally only diving with 5 or so lbs in a skin.
I think Ive got a little more fat on me now than when I started Diving .

This is a great website .

 

[caseybird]

Most people can get to that point, if they really want to.

I know very few people who started out diving with no lead. They're all bodybuilders or models, which just means they did all the hard part BEFORE learning to dive.

Yeah, with all the supermodel, ironman, underwater videographers flooding into diving there isn't much room for guys like me on the dive boat anymore. But they never, EVER buy split fins.

 

[vkalia]

When you first get to the bottom, you are heavy by the amount of gas in your tank above your end pressure (That is about five pounds for an AL80) and whatever you lose through compression of neoprene. (At forty feet you would lose a bit more than half of whatever the buoyancy of your wetgear is at the surface.)

I dont think it is possible to dive with a thick wetsuit and go without weights in all scenarios - precisely for the reason you outlined.

With a normal Al80, where the buoyancy swing is around 2kg, it is easy to compensate for that with your lungs. Maybe even handle bigger tanks and thinner compressed-neoprene suits.

But with thick suits, the weight swing is so much that if you dive without weights, you cannot be neutrally buoyant under all circumstances.

Vandit