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There is a school of thought in tech diving that accidentally loosing ditchable weight is more dangerous than not being able to ditch weight but I agree. 99% of all divers who get into trouble could have avoided that trouble by ditching weight...
Commercial divers have the same issue as tech divers, basically a soft overhead. The problem is the lame excuse for quick releases that recreational divers use on belts and BCs. The solution is a buckle that wont accidently open or break, not forgoing ditchable weight.
If you are properly weighted to begin with you don't need to ditch all the weight. Losing 2- 4 lbs. is more than enough to start to get positive and once you start it doesn't just stop. But you can still control your ascent.
Dropping an entire belt can also be a very good way to get seriously hurt or even dead.
I have weight spread out over myself and my kit ALL of it is ditchable. I left a weight belt on the bottom one time, darn thing had me pinned!
Never accidently lost a lb. of lead. The one thing I will not use are integrated weights, IMO those are an accident looking for the right time and place to happen.
If you are properly weighted to begin with you don't need to ditch all the weight. Losing 2- 4 lbs. is more than enough to start to get positive and once you start it doesn't just stop. But you can still control your ascent.
Dropping an entire belt can also be a very good way to get seriously hurt or even dead.
I would never want to drop all my weights, and plan accordingly with either a couple of integrated weight pockets where it's easy to ditch just one, or on drysuit days with a harness that allows dropping individual weights.
However for infrequent recreational divers who probably haven't thought that far ahead, it can be a choice between "bent" or "dead."
You can get un-bent, you can't get un-dead, so I really have no problem teaching weight ditching in class. It's a last-ditch action when there's nothing else left to do, and on a rec dive will probably work more-or-less safely.
I have experimented with how much weight I can drop and still have decent control in an emergency ascent. These tests were done when the Navy ascent rate was 60'/minute, which I would happily do today in an emergency. I gradually moved up to 10 KG/22 Lbs where I felt that more would be too hard to control. Fortunately I don't like more weight than that on a belt anyway.
The ability to selectively drop smaller amounts at once is fine as long as the release is reliable and fast enough in an emergency. The reality is there are a lot of divers that drown on the surface and still don't drop lead... go figure!
If you are properly weighted to begin with you don't need to ditch all the weight. Losing 2- 4 lbs. is more than enough to start to get positive and once you start it doesn't just stop. But you can still control your ascent.
Dropping an entire belt can also be a very good way to get seriously hurt or even dead.
Couldn't agree more!, with my SS back plate and a 5MM suit I only need 2 lbs of weight, the 2lbs are ditchable, and if ditched I wouldn't be bulleting to the surface.
I think being properly weighted is a problem for a lot of divers. If your weighted properly you won't have to drop a single pound even diving at 130ft. Of course to do this you need some dives under your belt. Did a blue water dive down to 130ft with some strict rules being enforced namely not being able to add any air to my BCD during the dive. So it can be done.
It is really is 100%; of course some of them are such disasters that they should have dropped their weight before getting in the water! Then there are those that need to ditch a lot of sub-cutaneous weight long before booking the boat.
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