trim issues

Ok so I don't really know if this is the right forum for this but I don't know where else to post this. My dad has serious trim issues. He swims at a 45 degree angle with his head up, and eats his air. He wasent this bad when we got our ow but he's getting worse. At 60ft he uses an air tank in 15 minutes. He's 6'1 or 6'2 about 180 lbs he could be a little thinner but not that bad of shape. He uses 24lbs to get down because he also has trouble breaking the surface. We took 2 lead 1lb weights and attached them to d rings on his shoulders but it didnt help. Were gonna try adjusting his weights at a beach dive and get him sorted out. Were going to try 18 lbs first and put 2lbs on each shoulder then put 4lbs in each integrated weight pocket and 6 lbs by the tank. I guess well see what happens but any suggestions before we try? Thanks

You may have seen this before, but proper buoyancy is key to solving his issue.

How To Perform a Simple Buoyancy Check

Initial weight
If you don’t know where to begin, take about 10% of your body weight. If diving in tropical waters with a thin wetsuit, subtract 4-6 pounds; if diving in cold water with lots of exposure protection, add 4-6. This will give you a starting weight to tweak.

Enter the water
Begin at the water surface with full diving equipment and an inflated BCD. Ideally, cylinder should be nearly empty (600 to 1000 psi) resembling your end-of-dive profile.

Hold a normal breath and deflate your BCD
At this point you should find out if you are properly weighted. If you sink, you are overweighted, if you bob out of the water, you are underweighted. An ideal weight will keep you approximately eye-level.

Repeat
Based on feedback from the previous step, adjust your weight accordingly and repeat until you float at eye-level.

Compensate for your cylinder
If you are doing this check with a full aluminum cylinder, you should add about 4 pounds to compensate for the end-of-dive when the cylinder will be more buoyant.

ScubaScotty561:

He swims horizontal with his head up, and eats his air.

Click to expand...

Do you mean with his body vertical?

Does he want his trim to be different?

When you say "he swims horizontal with his head up".... can you add more description to that? Because that sounds to me like the desirable position, i.e. body horizontal and head up to see ahead of you (so I must be missing something).

Do you mean he is angled somehow?

Yeah sorry not horizontal, angled like a 45 degree angle. Was multi tasking while I started the thread and didn't realize the horizontal part.

i'm thinkin'...........
oh yeah!!!!!-you do mean vert.with his head being up!!!!
24# on a belt???or in his bc-or split up?
steel,alum.big,small,etc.!
wet suit thickness,fatty tissue,add all you wish!
start with insta-gators basics
i know you're going to start with a full tank,so add the 4#s +/-
(most of the divers i know never start their dives empty)
from there see how fin pivot works out for him
remember,it ain't work,if youre having fun at it!!!
play with it,and enjoy it
have fun
yaeg

The buancy check as stated above is a good start. A desireable trim position is horizontal or a slight head up position. This streamlines swimming and wont be kicking up the bottom. Try moving the tank up higher, lowering the floatation. Lighter fins and more hrness weights as well. Even bungeeing the top prtion of the BC/ WING will help with this. A hood may even lighten up the top portion some. As for air consumption, use a snorkel until you submerge, and then breathe in deeply, pause for about 3 seconds without closing the throat, and exhale slowly and fully. Pause 3 seconds and repeat. Never lock the glottis while diving so pauses are not a problem. Relax! The more you dive the less air you will lose so dive often. Get in shape with cardio, jogging, rebounder anything. Things should change for the better soon.

If he wants to change his trim, it's a matter of kinesthetics not weight positioning. If he doesn't want to change his trim, power to him.

If all else fails, it IS a matter of weight positioninng. I dive a Nomad wing and sidemount. I tried everything I could to keep from adding harness weight to trim out since my 2 stteel tanks are heavy enough to where I dont need weight to sink. As a cavediver tying off reels etc. trim is everything, so now I have a 2 pounder on each harness strap and all is fine. I did Google the word knesthetics since I never heard it and neither have they.

While proper weighting and proper weight distribuiton will help, that is not your main problem. What you are dealing with is someone who does not understand what it is to be neutral.His swimming angle is caused buy him being considerably negative while he swims and he is using a lot of air because he is working hard to both swim and not sink. The 45 deg angle and moving straight is a dead give a way. He is both swimming UP to keep from sinking forward to move ahead at the same time, hence the 45 deg angle. If he were neutral, at a 45 deg angle he would rocket to the surface as soon as he started to fin.
First off, do a good weight check making sure his fins are not moving (bet they are). I make a lot of students cross their ankles while doing a weight check, it's pretty much impossible to fin with crossed ankles. Next he needs to learn to dive while neutral. You best bet is a good instructor but go back and do the neutral exercises you did in class. While some think they are silly, the fin piviot and buda hover would help this diver a lot, it's impossible to do them negative.

A slight correction to some of the weighting procedures above. You need to add around 4 lbs to you weight if you are using a full tank, more if you are using larger tanks, The tank material does not matter, an 80 cf tank loses around 4-5 lbs of buoyancy reguardless of it's construction.