Patrick Kuehn
New
This might not be an appropriate question for the advanced board, but I'd like an advanced person to answer.
I'm primarily diving wet in Southern California in a 7mm suit. I use a wing and stainless steel back plate. I'm usually diving a big single steel tank like an HP120, sometimes a spun steel Asahi 120 that is -5 lbs buoyant empty and -13 lbs when full. Assume my suit is maybe 16 lbs buoyant and compresses and my gas weighs ~8 lbs.
I'd like to be able to float my rig and gear without me in it which can be around -24 lbs buoyant. So, I figure I should have a wing with enough capacity to do that.
I figure I need enough wing lift to:
1) compensate for protection change (16 lbs worst case)
2) at least equal the weight of the gas I will consume, so I can start the dive that negative and stay neutral at my safety stop
3) float the rig if I'm not in it
My question is, why are positively buoyant floatation materials not attached to a HOG rig to adjust rig buoyance in a less flocculating, more fail safe, and more streamlined manner than through an air inflated wing? It seems like the optimal wing size is achieved when the rig's buoyancy is equal to the potential worst case buoyancy loss.
I'm imagining a non-compressible positively buoyant material (no change at depth), which I can permanently attach to my rig. In my case, I'd add 6-8 pounds of lift.
I'm primarily diving wet in Southern California in a 7mm suit. I use a wing and stainless steel back plate. I'm usually diving a big single steel tank like an HP120, sometimes a spun steel Asahi 120 that is -5 lbs buoyant empty and -13 lbs when full. Assume my suit is maybe 16 lbs buoyant and compresses and my gas weighs ~8 lbs.
I'd like to be able to float my rig and gear without me in it which can be around -24 lbs buoyant. So, I figure I should have a wing with enough capacity to do that.
I figure I need enough wing lift to:
1) compensate for protection change (16 lbs worst case)
2) at least equal the weight of the gas I will consume, so I can start the dive that negative and stay neutral at my safety stop
3) float the rig if I'm not in it
My question is, why are positively buoyant floatation materials not attached to a HOG rig to adjust rig buoyance in a less flocculating, more fail safe, and more streamlined manner than through an air inflated wing? It seems like the optimal wing size is achieved when the rig's buoyancy is equal to the potential worst case buoyancy loss.
I'm imagining a non-compressible positively buoyant material (no change at depth), which I can permanently attach to my rig. In my case, I'd add 6-8 pounds of lift.
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