Need help with horizontal trim, out of ideas

[elan]

Come on guys give him a break - switching to a different tank moving to doubles getting a drysuit
Just move the weight up on the top comeband and you will likely be good.
I also have heavy legs when I have 16lb on my belt and I dive my LP66. And that is even in a drysuit. I usually put some more air in the legs and it works. But in your case just move some pounds up

 

[divndoc]

I had the same problem. Check out this product. I use the 4 lb, my son uses the 3 lb. Home

 

[Lenaxia]

Hey guys, OP here.

Thanks again for the suggestions; I did a bit more diving this weekend but sadly did not get any video of my posture.

Just to reiterate what I started with since I know most people dont care to re-read the first post:

• SS 6lb BP w/ 32lb wing with an SS STA.
• 7mm full wetsuit w/ 5mm booties and 5mm gloves and 5/3 hooded vest
• 12lbs bullet weights on the belt
• HP100 steel tank, 7.25" diameter (I have set it as high as possible and still am feet heavy)
• Hollis F1 Batfins (L)
• No ankle weights or weights anywhere else
• I am 6'4" 220lbs with an athletic build

What changed after 2 dives is that now I have 6lbs left on my belt and 4lbs on my upper cam band. This is as little weight as I can get.

I am still slightly feet heavy but only mildly at this point and it takes about 5-6 seconds of freeze before I start to rotate. Not ideal but better.

I am thinking about moving another 4lbs to my upper cam band but am hesitating to do so. On my second dive, I purged my HP100 worthington down to 500psi and immediately inverted as I had become extremely feet light. This wasn't just a little feet light either, I went from horizontal trim to straight vertical in about 5 seconds after I finished dumping my air and froze my posture.

Basically with a full tank I'm feet heavy and with an empty tank I'm feet light. Tank was high enough so I could tap my head on the valve when looking as high as I could.

Also, at 500psi with an empty wing at 10ft and 6lbs on belt, 4lbs on cam band I was about as neutral as neutral could be, no more eight can come off, I just need to find some way to move it around to keep trim unless I want to do my safety stops inverted.

As for my posture, my back was arched as much as possible and my feet were up behind me, I am not dragging my knees below my body and curling forward so my posture is definitely not contributing to my feet heavy situation. I made sure to test this several times.

There won't be much more experimenting in terms of diving wet as my drysuit should come in this weekend, but this has really given me a much better understanding of weight distribution.

I just need to figure out weighting for my drysuit now! Any suggestions on what to start with? I'm thinking just putting 16lbs on my belt my first time out and stripping/distributing the weight around my body as needed.

 

[Peter_C]

You can extend your legs full out to make yourself more feet negative. Seems like you are swinging both directions depending on tank pressure so you are probably about dialed. Now put that cold wet thing away and start enjoying diving more and longer.

How much you use with your drysuit depends on how much you plan to wear for your undergarments. I need 20lbs on my belt to sink, 400g undies, and a set of fleece base layers which are sweatshirt thickness. I also have a 5lb wedge under my BP/W for singles and just my tanks with an AL plate for dub's.

 

[iztok]

• SS 6lb BP w/ 32lb wing with an SS STA.
• 7mm full wetsuit w/ 5mm booties and 5mm gloves and 5/3 hooded vest
• 12lbs bullet weights on the belt
• HP100 steel tank, 7.25" diameter (I have set it as high as possible and still am feet heavy)
• Hollis F1 Batfins (L)
• No ankle weights or weights anywhere else
• I am 6'4" 220lbs with an athletic build

Here is from me:

• SS 6lb BP w/ 32lb wing [-]with an SS STA.[/-]
• [-]7[/-]5mm full wetsuit w/ 5mm booties and 5mm gloves and [-]5/3 hooded vest[/-]
• [-]12lbs bullet weights on the belt[/-]
• [-]HP100 steel tank, 7.25" diameter (I have set it as high as possible and still am feet heavy)[/-] HP119 8" diameter
• Hollis F1 Batfins ([-]L[/-]R)
• No ankle weights or weights anywhere else
• I am [-]6'4" 220lbs with an athletic build[/-] 5'8" 208lbs

I don't have any additional weights to what equipment has. Are you sure you emptied wing completely?

 

[TSandM]

Hmm . . . very odd that you went that feet-light with an empty 100. I've found that mine, at least (Worthingtons) don't change balance to speak of as they empty. Are yours Fabers? I dove some Faber 85s that went butt-light when they were empty (but of course, they start out a bit that way).

I think it's perfectly reasonable to start with your weight on the belt with the dry suit, and then move it as you need to. Your first dives are going to be figuring out how to deal with the thing, anyway . . .

 

[Lenaxia]

The tanks are definitely HP100 worthingtons, not Fabers (the galvanized coating gives it away). I too was surprised by how feet light I was as I started to invert. I let it go anyway to see just how much. My guess is I was about 2lbs feet heavy at the beginning of my dive and about 5lbs feet light at the end of my dive.

From everything I've read, not to mention all the diving I've done almost exclusively on worthington's has never indicated such buoyancy characteristics, however I don't tend to drain tanks lower than 1000psi due to cold limitations (which should be solved with my drysuit!).

Well regardless, I think I will be taking either a Fundies or UTD essentials class here as soon as I get comfortable in my drysuit.

 

[eelnoraa]

Hmm . . . very odd that you went that feet-light with an empty 100.

Given you are 6'4", the weight of the tank+gas should be most on your upper body. With full X7-100, you are 8lb negative and neutrual when empty. the weight shift is mostly on your upper body. If you were head heavy at the beginning and feet heavy at the end, it is more understandable. Is there exessive air trap in feet? one explaination is as you get lighter, you try to swim downward to fight the positive buoyancy. Air get trapped in feet, so feet light.

 

[Lenaxia]

Given you are 6'4", the weight of the tank+gas should be most on your upper body. With full X7-100, you are 8lb negative and neutrual when empty. the weight shift is mostly on your upper body. If you were head heavy at the beginning and feet heavy at the end, it is more understandable. Is there exessive air trap in feet? one explaination is as you get lighter, you try to swim downward to fight the positive buoyancy. Air get trapped in feet, so feet light.

You're right with my height most of the weight is on my upper body, unfortunately this dive was wet so no air trapping possible since I was not wearing a drysuit.

You guys are making me want to make another wet dive to try to figure out what happened! Yet at the same time I dont want to because its cold, lol.