absolute_mess
Registered
Hi all,
I've just finished my first weekend of Advanced Nitrox / Decompression Procedures and am having some issues with trim, so I'm hoping for some advice.
The first day of the course, I dived in my Hollis HTS2 harness and wing. I had no problems staying in trim with a set of steel 12 litre twins and an aluminium 6 litre deco bottle. I was then offered an excellent deal on an aluminium backplate and harness, so with my teeth gritted, I pulled out my credit card again to upgrade my kit.
On the second day of the course, I used the BP/W configuration with the same 12 litre twins that I'd been using before and the same deco bottle. This time, I had a huge amount of difficulty staying in trim. Every time I relaxed, I started to tip forward and if I'd let myself go completely, I'm pretty sure I would have flipped upside down, mid-water. This obviously meant that I spent a great deal of energy (and gas), trying to remain in trim and this in turn caused lots of issues holding my (simulated) deco stops. It also created problems for team configuration because I was unable to back-fin properly or to hold my position relative to my team mates because I was too busy trying to stop myself from somersaulting.
I'm finishing off the course next weekend with two 35m dives and a 45m deco dive. I'm really concerned about having similar problems at those depths (the training dives last weekend were only 10m). Does anyone having any advice on how I can improve my trim? Is is just a matter of moving the BP and wing a little higher on the twinset? The valves/manifold were hitting the back of my head while I was diving, so it might just be that I had them up far too high. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance for your advice!
I've just finished my first weekend of Advanced Nitrox / Decompression Procedures and am having some issues with trim, so I'm hoping for some advice.
The first day of the course, I dived in my Hollis HTS2 harness and wing. I had no problems staying in trim with a set of steel 12 litre twins and an aluminium 6 litre deco bottle. I was then offered an excellent deal on an aluminium backplate and harness, so with my teeth gritted, I pulled out my credit card again to upgrade my kit.
On the second day of the course, I used the BP/W configuration with the same 12 litre twins that I'd been using before and the same deco bottle. This time, I had a huge amount of difficulty staying in trim. Every time I relaxed, I started to tip forward and if I'd let myself go completely, I'm pretty sure I would have flipped upside down, mid-water. This obviously meant that I spent a great deal of energy (and gas), trying to remain in trim and this in turn caused lots of issues holding my (simulated) deco stops. It also created problems for team configuration because I was unable to back-fin properly or to hold my position relative to my team mates because I was too busy trying to stop myself from somersaulting.
I'm finishing off the course next weekend with two 35m dives and a 45m deco dive. I'm really concerned about having similar problems at those depths (the training dives last weekend were only 10m). Does anyone having any advice on how I can improve my trim? Is is just a matter of moving the BP and wing a little higher on the twinset? The valves/manifold were hitting the back of my head while I was diving, so it might just be that I had them up far too high. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance for your advice!