beginner question about weight

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beni

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Location
Hungary
# of dives
25 - 49
Hello guys!

As an introduction:
I'm a beginner diver with only 12 dives under my belt and although I have very limited experience when it comes to diving, I'm very enthusiastic about training and being a better diver. I'm interested in technical diving as well so I decided to go with a bp/wing setup from the start with DIR philosophy in my mind. I recently ordered a halcyon infinity from the local authorized dealer.

In the water I don't seem to need much led to be able to sink. Wearing a 7mm wet suit and SS bp with the weighted STA enables me to descend very easily (in freshwater), probably even a bit faster than I should.

It would be very convenient to loose the weight pockets but having only non-ditchable weight on me seems like a big safety concern (I'm talking about open water dives ofc).

The Halcyon dealer is an SSI instructor, otherwise dedicated to the DIR philosophy and every time I point out this issue to him, he strongly advices NOT to use the weight pockets, since I won't ever find myself in a situation when ditching the weight would be the only option.

Even DIR suggests otherwise. I'm starting to question his methods in every way.

What are your thoughts?
 
It is difficult to come up with a scenario where you would want to ditch weight at depth. Especially with 7 mm of neoprene, if you ditch weight deep, you will likely have significant difficult controlling your ascent shallow. I agree with your instructor there.

However, the place where many, especially novice divers get into trouble is on the surface. And having no ditchable weight means someone assisting you, if you are stressed beyond rational thought, has no easy way of making you really buoyant, except to remove your rig.

Does your wing require an STA? If so, can you replace the weighted on with a light one? Then you can put some weight on a belt and have something ditchable.

With more experience, you can probably do away with ditchable weight altogether. Many of us have.
 
Thanks for the quick answer.

I'm not really worried when using only non-ditchable weight, and I know uncontrolled ascent has it's own serious hazards, but I just figured it's better to risk DSC than to drown should something happen. The chances of something like that seem very low, but still I wanted to get into the habit of "doing it right".
 
Well, I think in this case, "doing it right" includes working on your personal skills so that buoyancy becomes second nature. It also involves working on team skills, so that if you run into a problem like entanglement, your buddy is right there to help you work out of it, so that you don't have to face taking off your gear or ditching your weights. Diving a balanced rig means that you will always be able to swim your equipment up (and may involve ditchable weight to do that) in the event of a buoyancy failure. And being a DIR diver means staying fit enough that you can do that swimming if you have to.

This really is one of the places where a single decision, considered in isolation, can be criticized, but when it is put into the context of the many OTHER facets of the system, it begins to make better sense.
 
If you've got a working reg in your mouth, i can't think of any reason why you'd really need to ditch weight.

And even if you run OOG you should ascend to the surface without ditching weight (remember the *Controlled* Emergency Swimming Ascent does not involve ditching weight) and then orally inflate to become positively buoyant.

And generally, if you avoid going out of gas due to inattention or poor planning, and you can share gas with your buddy, then you can easily solve problems and don't need to have emergency procedures like ditching weight. If you protect your ability to breathe off a regulator underwater it makes everything a whole lot simpler -- as soon as you lose that ability, it all gets a lot more exciting.

If you are 20# overweight, you run out of gas and you pull your LP inflator hose off, then you could have a very bad day without being able to ditch all that weight -- so don't carry that much weight and don't run completely OOA.
 
An eventual move to a drysuit should also mitigate over-weighting concerns at depth...
 
In the water I don't seem to need much led to be able to sink. Wearing a 7mm wet suit and SS bp with the weighted STA enables me to descend very easily (in freshwater), probably even a bit faster than I should.

It would be very convenient to loose the weight pockets but having only non-ditchable weight on me seems like a big safety concern (I'm talking about open water dives ofc).

The STA is modular and can be used without the weight insert. From your description is sounds like you think that you're wearing more weights than you need to, and that's generally not something that brings anything positive of any sort :)
So maybe you can put that weight insert in the garage for now, and take it back out if you get a drysuit further down the road.

The Halcyon dealer is an SSI instructor, otherwise dedicated to the DIR philosophy and every time I point out this issue to him, he strongly advices NOT to use the weight pockets, since I won't ever find myself in a situation when ditching the weight would be the only option.

Even DIR suggests otherwise. I'm starting to question his methods in every way.

What are your thoughts?

There really aren't any good reasons why a fairly new diver in a single tank configuration shouldn't have some ditchable weights. Especially when diving with a relatively thick wetsuit that compress and loose buoyancy at depth.
While it's a good idea that you can swim the rig to the surface in a worst case scenario, (and that often will be as easy and quicker solution than figuring out how to drop what), ditching some weights on the surface after such an event to float more comfortably would probably be ok for the diver. Ditching some at the bottom or on the way up is probably going to be better than drowing if that's the alternative, so I wouldn't get all worked up over not wearing anything ditchable regardless of the situation.

Dropping one big heavy weight belt is generally a bad idea, but like in your case it's going to be a fairly low and reasonable weight you'll be carrying and I wouldn't be conserned about ditching that if I felt the situation called for it.

Diving in a twin set configuration, with a membrane drysuit is a completely different thing. So depending on configuration and thermal protection my take on it would vary.

The emphasize on good buoyancy control that others have pointed out is going to be even more helpful. Boyle (as in Boyle's law) is a good guy when it comes to helping divers with neutral buoyancy ascend to the surface ;-)

Best,

Fredrik
 
But I just figured it's better to risk DSC than to drown should something happen.

It's AGE you should really be worried about in that scenario, not DCS. That said, you may want to have a small amount of weight be ditchable. There's no reason to doubt your mentor there over this, though, as it's a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

Others have already pointed out that you may be overweighted overall, regardless of dumpable weight or not. Fix that ;-)

Also a strong recommendation for finding a local DIR community and getting good mentorship. Taking GUE Primer or UTD Essentials early on is a really good idea to avoid building too many bad habits. These are intro-level, relatively inexpensive (well, as far as diving goes) classes designed for recreational divers. Don't make the mistake of waiting.
 
Thanks everyone for the sound advice! This forum is such an awesome place for a newbie diver like myself to ask for guidance.

I have been looking into the GUE courses before, but this topic further motivated me to contact the local instructor.
 
I have been looking into the GUE courses before, but this topic further motivated me to contact the local instructor.

That's always the best way to do it. I am always shocked at how approachable my local instructor is.
 
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http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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