poomero
Contributor
I dive a back plate and wing set up right now and with my wetsuit I use 18 lbs of lead. How much can I expect to carry with a drysuit?
dry suit and weights
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There is not enough information here to answer, because we don't know what kind of wetsuit you are using.
We teach in Puget Sound with our students in 7 mil suits with 7 mil core warmers with attached hoods. In general, most students will carry somewhere in the range of 24 to 28 pounds, and may be slightly overweighted with that much (since fear floats). My husband and I both use about 30 pounds of ballast (including the backplate) with dry suits and Puget Sound undergarments. Our water temperatures are similar to Northern California, so I suspect it would be similar.
We teach in Puget Sound with our students in 7 mil suits with 7 mil core warmers with attached hoods. In general, most students will carry somewhere in the range of 24 to 28 pounds, and may be slightly overweighted with that much (since fear floats). My husband and I both use about 30 pounds of ballast (including the backplate) with dry suits and Puget Sound undergarments. Our water temperatures are similar to Northern California, so I suspect it would be similar.
To add a data point, in case it helps... right now, I am using 26lbs (including the SS plate) in a shell drysuit, with thick undergarments, in doubles (HP100), and I am 6 feet tall, and about 200lbs. I can probably remove a pound or two. I only did 2 dives in singles (LP95) in a drysuit, I needed 34lbs, and pretty sure that was the minimum required, because I could not sink without it, and needed to add more lead (my drysuit instructor was with me, helping to sort out the weighting issues, these were my drysuit cert checkout dives). When I dove in similar conditions in a 7mm wetsuit in the past, I only used about 20-22lbs, and that was with a fairly buoyant Aqualung jacket BC (in singles), in lighter fins, and without the reels and lights I carry now. This was a worn out rental wetsuit, it could have been a bit more compressed than yours. You can hardly draw any kind of general conclusions from this, but I would not be very surprised if it turned out you needed at least 12 lbs extra when moving from wetsuit to drysuit. Or at least, that was my case. This would seem somewhat consistent with what TSandM posted above.
It also depends on the type of suit and undergarments. With a five pound Freedom Plate and steel tank I wear eighteen pounds wet or dry. I usually dive 119s or 130s and occasionally double 100s with eleven pounds. I recently dives in Canada using a steel 95 and needed twenty pounds.
In salt water with a 7mm wetsuit and a single steel HP 100 I wear 4lbs. With the same tank, a thin undergarment and a dry suit I'll need 8lbs total.
Just think of it this way, the shell suit itself is "0", the SS BP is -4-6, the cylinder is (??), undies(??), how much air you plan on keeping in the suit(??). We can throw all of the variables and math in the world into this equation, but nothing will come as close to being accurate as a session in the pool(or a dry suit class) wearing the suit, undies you plan on wearing, your dive rig and a bag of lead on the side of the pool.
I tried to calculate it out when I got my first dry suit only to find my numbers were way off when I finally hit the water.
I tried to calculate it out when I got my first dry suit only to find my numbers were way off when I finally hit the water.
Aaron hit the nail on the head. There is no truly accurate way to say how much weight you will need without actually getting in the water and doing it. Charts, graphs, programs, etc. are pretty much a RWAG and not at all reliable. As to what you use with a 7mm? Doesn't matter. Dry suit is a different animal.
RWAG - Really Wild Ass Guess
RWAG - Really Wild Ass Guess
I had heard of WAG and even SWAG, but this was the first time I had ever heard of RWAG...
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