Open Water Dives - 27.8lbs weight belt - did I get too much weight?

[chrpai]

Great advice. Checkout the UTD Extreme Scuba Makeover videos on You Tube also. Also, you don't have to hire someone to get great advice. Post the general area you live and you'll likely find a very active local diver who can mentor you along your journey. When you get great advice and practice correctly and often you progress really fast. The sooner you do this the more you will get out of the sport.

Beware of LDSs that offer what I call zero to hero progressions. Open Water , Advanced Open Water, Rescue, 5 specialties to become a Master Diver. Before you know it you have 20+ training dives and maybe a dive trip somewhere (probably just local quarry diving) and they tell you that you should become a Dive Master.

20 dives later ( and I see guys out at the lake logging 20' for 20 minutes dives to rack up a dive count all the time ) and you are suddenly a "professional" with crazy opinions on all sorts of subjects. But the unavoidable truth is you don't know what you don't know.

I see this all the time. These are the guys that are an absolute wreck. Get your O/W and find a good mentor and dive a lot. Eventually do AOW and Rescue because being aware of how to avoid problems and deal with problems is a great thing.

 

[phoenix31tt]

The more I read some stories the more I wonder if we were the exception as opposed to the rule


when my instructor weighted me I asked him if he wasn't sure I was UNDERWEIGHTED, because according to online calculators I was.

during the dive he would monitor the air in our BC and our trim and after every dive we adjusted weight until we were close to perfectly weighted.


then even after the class his advice was as we get more comfortable in the water monitor our weight and adjust accordingly.


its sad that this is the exception:-(

 

[dumaresq]

A couple of people on this thread have stated that 27 doesn't seem that far off... I a bit confused, and no expert here I'm around 195, I dive with a 7mm FJ with an AL80 and I usually dive around 22 pounds. I can hover at about 15 feet (for the safety stop) and stop my assent just above 5 feet. Am I under weighted?

I know nobody can say for sure but if I was only 130 I'd think I'd only have like 15-18 pounds. When I did my open water I dove with around 28 pounds... Which was definitely over-weighted, but I didn't know it at the time.

 

[flots am]

In my personal experience, when I was an OW student, I would have bolted if I wasn't firmly on the ground.

Being overweighted makes it much more likely that you'll end up on the surface or the bottom instead of mid water, since you need air in your BC to counteract the weight. The bubble in your BC will expand as you go up, making you more buoyant and contract as you sink making you more negative.

It will in short, make being neutral much more difficult, which is exactly what an OW student doesn't need.

flots

 

[dumpsterDiver]

A couple of people on this thread have stated that 27 doesn't seem that far off... I a bit confused, and no expert here I'm around 195, I dive with a 7mm FJ with an AL80 and I usually dive around 22 pounds. I can hover at about 15 feet (for the safety stop) and stop my assent just above 5 feet. Am I under weighted?

I know nobody can say for sure but if I was only 130 I'd think I'd only have like 15-18 pounds. When I did my open water I dove with around 28 pounds... Which was definitely over-weighted, but I didn't know it at the time.

The OP has never clarified what 7 mm wetsuit she is using. She never came back to confirm that she has a very low body fat. If she clarified those items, then I would feel comfortable giving my opinion on the weighting..

 

[dytis-sm]

I remember after my OW classes were finished, my daughter and I took a bag of weights and spent 45 minutes playing with weights and placement. Trim was as important as overall buoyancy. The best 45 minutes we ever spent. IMO, there is no substitute for taking some time with a Buddy at a dock and trying different weighting. Did the same thing when I got my drysuit.

After getting trimmed and horizontal, I was able to shed weight quickly thereafter. It also helps having a Buddy tell you when you reach a horizontal position, for it originally feels strange at first.

Terry

That is exactly what the UTD Extreme Makeover videos show you how to do... I discovered them by accident and UTD was charging $99 to watch online. I watched the same videos on Amazon On Demand at $2 a piece... But I have to say that the UTD people had done a great job to explain buoyancy and how to adjust both buoyancy and trim.

 

[Steve_C]

If I recall fat is like 0.8 - 0.9 while muscle is around 1.0 and bone is a touch over 1.0

So the the solid parts of two people with the same weight can have different density. Then there are the lungs which are different sizes. Then there are the wet suits. Different wet suits have different amounts that they compress or absorb water.

A dry wetsuit may be more bouyant then one that has been dived in recently depending on the suit.

Then as noted there are the differences in the BCD and the tanks.

-----------------------

So 27 may be a good weight. Although it does sound like a lot to me especially for someone who weights 130. Unless you are very compact and mostly bone.

 

[chrpai]

Wet suits vary widely for sure. I used to dive a 2pc 3mil with a vest jacket and AL80 in fresh water and need 14lbs. Now with a 1pc 7mil, SS BP/W and LP95 I don't wear any additional weight.

 

[KD8NPB]

27 lb with a 3mm seems high.

I use 32 lb with a drysuit + 200g thinsulate + zeagle ranger + AL80.

 

[hhsuey]

The OP has never clarified what 7 mm wetsuit she is using. She never came back to confirm that she has a very low body fat. If she clarified those items, then I would feel comfortable giving my opinion on the weighting..

I am wearing gloves, boots, and a hood. Also, the wetsuit is a two piece suit with jacket and overalls. Yes, on low body fat. Not a she, but a smaller he.

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