Double steels with wetsuit

[NeedABiggerBoat]

Just wondering about diving a pair of steel tanks while in a wet suit. I know its usual to use a dry suit for the redundant buoyancy in case of BC failure, but does anyone here dive wet with double steel tanks? I wear a 7/7 farmer john, with a transpack and want to get HP100's. If all my lead was ditch able, could I swim up double HP100's if my wing failed? Thanks!

 

[VooDooGasMan]

You are in need of a little weight when doing this but yea it is doable.


Happy Diving

 

[VooDooGasMan]

I dive 100's with a jumpsuit, and a 8# belt, how bad will the BC(wing) be leaking, might not be enough to worry. If you just weight yourself so you do not fly to the surface and if all else fails drop the tanks and yell I'm gonna need some new tanks.

More than likely you will never run into this, learn to dive them, Here where I live it is way less weight on me, sometimes I don't even put a belt on the first dive, then the second dive i put on an 8# belt.

Go play and find your comfort, and if ya dive al's you need more weight on belt.


Happy Diving

 

[txapacheguy]

I dove my HP98s earlier in the year for a couple of courses while wearing a 7mm suit. I needed no weight whatsoever, nor did I wear any. I think their characteristics are similar to HP100s.

While I do not intend to make a normal practice of diving wet with the double steel tanks I did not feel it was unsafe. I had a lift bag, spool, and two buddies with me at all times. We were diving in an area with either a 85' floor, or a wall to reach for in the event of a catastrophic wing failure.

Swimming those heavy tanks and all my other gear up from 100' or deeper without any help from my wing would have certainly been difficult considering the lack of buoyancy from my wetsuit.

For what its worth, when diving double aluminum 80's, I use a plate weight and v-weight to avoid the weight belt, so the situation is not much different.

If you find that swimming your rig up from depth minus your bcd is too much once you get everything set up, you could consider obtaining a dual-bladder wing(not something I plan to do anytime soon). You can find lots of opinions on the worth of dual-bladder wings vs. the extra task loading, complexity, and potential drawbacks and safety issues some folks think they cause.

Whatever you decide, stay safe and have fun with it!!!

 

[clifftondiver]

If the wet suit is going to be your primary exposure protection consider getting a dual bladder bcd. That way you won't have to worry about swimming up to the surface should your primary fail.

When I dived my doubles in my wet suit, I would get cold long before my gas ran low. If you don't get cold, good for you. If you do, be wary. It will be easy to stay down too long.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I don't do it and i think it compromises your safety.

If I were to do it, I would do one or more of the following: dual bladder BC, splitting the lead into a ditchable and non-ditchable component so that you could get off the bottom in an emergency (ditch some and swim), but could still probably hang at 30 feet or so and do some kind of deco without floating to the surface (assuming you are doing deco with 2 big steels), or carry and learn to use a redundant floation device like a large DAN smb which has a pull dump and could be ridden to the surface in an emergency.

Some would say it is bad practice, and it forces you to make non-optimal adjustments in your gear or procedures..

 

[mk706]

Agree with adding a second bladder for redundancy with the set up. Would be difficult to swim up double hundreds with a wing failure.

I had the same thought several months back. I opted for double Al80s for now. Will continue to dive HP100s as singles. When I buy a dry suit next year will move the 80s to stages. I don't need any lead with double 80s and a 3mm. Still very negative. Double HP100s would be much more so. Lots of negative bouyancy, like lights & reels.

 

[tmolm69]

What????? you should never plan a dive with your dry suit as a redundant buoyancy source!!!

Tim

 

[Lucy's Diver]

I dive HP steel 120s with a 5mm and hooded vest fairly regularly. I need no lead. I use a dual bladder wing with the redundant bladder not hooked to an air source. It's meant for oral inflation. The rationale, as I was trained, is that it's way easier to get to the hose to orally inflate it while maintaining some degree of bouyancy control than to figure out which one is stuck open while staying down in the event of that failure. The redundant hose is lightly bungeed to the can light on the right side so I can find it easily.
I also carry an SMB and 100 pound lift bag. I have plenty of experience controlling a lift bag and my own wing during an ascent, I figure just a lift bag would be easy.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

What????? you should never plan a dive with your dry suit as a redundant buoyancy source!!!

Tim

Why the heck not? It's a standard practice as a matter of fact.