Weight Options for Doubles?

[ScubaTerp]

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of tweaking my doubles setup, and while I have a long ways to go at the moment I'm concerned about weight. Right now I have a pair of Pressed Steel HP120s (each is -10.5 lbs full, 0 lbs empty). At the moment I dive them with a DR Super Wing, steel BP, a single piece webbing harness, and a Pinnacle Evolution Drysuit with full wool undergarment. I should mention that I'm 6'9", so I take up a bit more space than most people. I didn't have a chance to check the buoyancy of drysuit yet, but it'll happen soon.

I dove them last week, and immediately noticed that I was somewhat underweight. Dropping at the beginning of the dive was somewhat troublesome, but the major issue was later on when we were returning. My tanks were about half capacity and as soon as we reached 10' it became a struggle to maintain depth. Given that my tanks still had some 10 lbs of air in them I worry about what would happen had I been empty.

So my question is this; what options should I consider for adding extra weight? I'm particularly concerned about whether or not I should incorporate ditchable weight, or focus on adding a v-weight or other option. I have an 8 lb v-weight as well as a spare AL backplate, so I have a few options in that regard. I also plan on grabbing an XL Backplate and single bladder wing from DSS sometime in the future.

 

[Gombessa]

Hey Terp,

It sounds like you're aiming to be more than 20lb negative at the beginning of the dive if diving a nitrox mix. That's quite a bit for me...I'd be looking at about 10lb ditchable in that case...

 

[Garth]

i'm sure that more experienced divers will give you the best advice but give me a try here to respond. If you had trouble descending at the beginning of your dive you likely need more weight like you mentioned. Doesn't seem like you would need to switch to an aluminum BP as far as I can see if this is the case. All the air was out of your drysuit at the beginning? Steel tanks are heavy, i have two HP 120 (PST) too. But i'm not 6'9". Seems like ditchable weight would give you the option to swim your gear up if you needed to early on.

I'll be tagging along to see what everyone has to say about this. (interesting)

 

[ScubaTerp]

The idea with the aluminum backplate is that I could combine it with the v-weight to adjust things a bit. If 8 lbs of unditchable lead with a SS BP is too much then I could swap to an AL BP and save a few pounds.

Here are the weights of the various options:

SS BP - 5.5 lbs

XL SS BP - 6.9 lbs

AL BP - 1.5 lbs

Realistically I should probably just accept that I'll be diving with the XL SS BP in time, and focus on that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm looking for ditchable options that would work with a single piece webbing. My body is not ideally shaped for a weight belt (I have no butt), so if there are other options I'd prefer to go with them. Originally I tried the Dive Rite weight pockets, but they didn't stay in the right place and kept on sliding forward.

 

[Gombessa]

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm looking for ditchable options that would work with a single piece webbing. My body is not ideally shaped for a weight belt (I have no butt), so if there are other options I'd prefer to go with them. Originally I tried the Dive Rite weight pockets, but they didn't stay in the right place and kept on sliding forward.

You do have a couple of options on this front. I'd first look into the DUI weight harness, which wears more like a suspender so it doesn't care about your lack of butt.

The other option is something like Halcyon's ACB weight pockets, which slip onto the single-piece harness. The downside to this is that even more of your weight is attached directly to your rig, which may affect the max capacity needed by your wing to float your gear without you being in it.

 

[Blackwood]

If 8 lbs of unditchable lead with a SS BP is too much then I could swap to an AL BP and save a few pounds.

It's all what you're comfortable with.

Personally, I don't have any ditchable weight to speak of (yah, my light canister is a few pounds, but it's probably in the noise). I dive steel doubles, steel backplate, a tail weight and a v-weight. My suit provides redundant buoyancy, so I'm not worried about a failure.

YMMV.

 

[ScubaTerp]

You do have a couple of options on this front. I'd first look into the DUI weight harness, which wears more like a suspender so it doesn't care about your lack of butt.

The other option is something like Halcyon's ACB weight pockets, which slip onto the single-piece harness. The downside to this is that even more of your weight is attached directly to your rig, which may affect the max capacity needed by your wing to float your gear without you being in it.

How do the weight pockets avoid slipping along the webbing? That was my major complaint with the Dive Rite pockets. Eventually they found a home in my Transplate setup for when I dive a single tank.

 

[Blackwood]

How do the weight pockets avoid slipping along the webbing?

serrated webbing keeper ?

 

[crlavoie]

I also dive double steel 120's and I use the XS Scuba weight pockets. I have 1 on each side and they hold 5 lbs each... I only use 5 total though. They also only cost about $8 each.

Basically you need to do a little fine tuning to find the right combination. Before anything else, I would consider going through your rig to see if there is anything that might be causing excessive bouyancy like your choice of undergarment, wing etc. If you're using a big wing and it sounds like you are, chances are that it's trapping air. It only takes a little burst to screw everything up.

To add non ditchable weight, you can use the v weight you have or consider one of the Oxycheq sausage pouches that allow you to add only what you need (the poor man's alternative would be to take a hack saw to your v weight... it works).

All that aside, the total amount of ballast your suggesting sounds excessive with a shell suit. Granted I'm shorter at 6'1" with very little body fat but I still dive a compressed neo suit and only use 5 lbs with a 6 lb plate, a light and double 120's (and manifold and regs). One of my more "rotund" buddies uses the exact same rig with only 10 lbs and trust me, he's got lots of inherent bouyancy.

 

[Diver0001]

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of tweaking my doubles setup, and

...snip....

I'm not going to talk about specifics because I don't have any experience diving in twin 15's. I do, however, make most of my dives in twin 12's so I have *some* idea...

Principle #1. The amount of weight you take must be enough to maintain your depth without struggle *all* the way to the surface at the end of the dive

Principle #2. You should be able to stop moving and hang motionless in pretty much any position for pretty much as long as you want to. This might not seem relevant for your weighting but the amount of weight is only one factor. The *position* of those weights to maximize control and minimize effort is equally important

Principle #3. The amount of ditchable weight can be seen like this: You should be UN-able to descend from the surface once you have ditched all of your ditchable weight. If you can't descend without your ditchable weight then the amount of unditchable weight is acceptable.

If you take these things into consideration then you can figure it out for yourself without other people giving you formulas.

Good luck.

R..