Loss of weights at depth

[k374]

Say you are at depth, 60-80ft and your weight belt or weights from your pockets falls off and you start an uncontrolled ascent due to this. What is the best course of action to regain control of your ascent?

[OldNSalty]

Dump air, flair, swim down...

[fisheater]

Get assistance from that buddy who is, of course, right next to you.

[TSandM]

Depending on the amount of weight you have lost, it may not be possible to regain control of your buoyancy. If it's a small amount, you can try swimming down, or grabbing rocks, or hanging onto kelp stipes if you are where there is kelp. If you are in a drysuit, going head down is fraught with hazard, because you now can't vent the drysuit if you can't swim down hard enough to make up for the lost weight.

I know I can swim UP 11 pounds of negativity, so I would assume I can swim down the same amount. But I carry a 20 lb weight belt, and I suspect that, if I lost it, all I could do is try to flare and grab anything available to slow myself.

The most weight I have lost at depth was 5 lbs. I used kelp stipes to control the last part of my ascent on that dive.

[pacificgal]

I separate my weight between my BCD and my weight belt, I use 18 lbs., 6 in each weight pocket and 6 on my weight belt. I have lost one of my weight pouches at depth, 33% of what I was carrying and did not shoot to the surface. I swam a quite a bit crooked but still stayed down.
Once at the surface I could not redescend without that 6 lbs., but that showed me that it's good to have your weight distributed so that if you lose one of them (which happens, at least with the BCD I have) you won't shoot to the surface.
By the way, I dive cold water in about 12mm of wetsuit protection, 18 pounds isn't too much.

[mikeyjoe]

I lost one pouch in Roatan earlier this year - long story - and it was relatively easy to dump and fin down to pick it up. Never tried it with losing both, though....

[Michael_Lambert]

Don't dive equitment that could possibly fail as such.

Personally i dive 24 pounds of weight in a single tank and 20 pounds in my doubles.

- 12 pound plate
- 8 pound V-weight ( Doubles )
- 12 pound STA single

I always dive a Dry suit and have a 50LB liftbag so the failure of a BCD is not an issue and don't forsee a need to ever have to dump weight. The weight i use can not just come off... and if i get into a situation that bad... i will unbuckle the harness and climb completely out of my rig.

[Web Monkey]

Say you are at depth, 60-80ft and your weight belt or weights from your pockets falls off and you start an uncontrolled ascent due to this. What is the best course of action to regain control of your ascent?

This should have been covered in your OW class.

You can flare (flatten your body out) by becoming horizontal and creating as much drag as possible, which will slow your ascent.

You can swim down and grab your weights and reattach them, but this may or may not be possible depending on how buoyant you are and where your weights went.

In any case, if you've been staying away from the edge of the dive tables (or your computer's no-deco limit) a reasonable ascent as shown in your OW class is actually pretty safe.

As with all other emergencies, the best way to handle it is to avoid it. If you dive with a BC where losing weights is a possibility, or are diving a weightbelt with a plastic buckle or are "round in the middle" and can't reliably retain a weightbelt, it's time to upgrade your equipment so you don't have to deal with the above "what if . . "

Terry

[Teamcasa]

Say you are at depth, 60-80ft and your weight belt or weights from your pockets falls off and you start an uncontrolled ascent due to this. What is the best course of action to regain control of your ascent?

Dump air, flair, swim down...

At 60-80 feet, and depending on the amount of exposure protection you have, dumping all your air may be enough to keep you down but unless you recover your weights, you will have to go up.

My lovely bride lost a weight pocket, kept her head, dumped her air, came over to me and grabbed on. I dumped most of my air and we both settled into a clam down and assess the situation mode. Fortunately the third member of our dive team, (Mike) found the missing pocket and the dive continued.

However, in the absence of a good buddy, or something to grab on to, OldNSalty's advice is spot on.

[fnfalman]

Make sure you dump all air out of your BC. Usually you do this while trying to swim down at the same time. The butt dump valve tend to work a lot better than shoulder dump valve for some reasons.

Then flare your body (starfish your body) to slow the ascend. Hopefully your buddy is close enough to reach you and help control your ascension.

When you flare your body, you will find that it drastically slows your ascension enough so that you can be reached by your buddy or for you to do something else to help resolve the situation. But generally speaking when you dump your air out, you will also slow down the ascension process significantly as well. Most of the time, it's the newbies or the ones who are too overweighted that shoot up when weight is lost. They get all freaked out and freeze, next thing you know, they'd shoot up to the surface like a missile.