Tilting forward

[KC10Chief]

I'm fairly new to scuba but trying to fine tune all of my gear. I have mostly Scubapro stuff including the Hydros Pro BCD. The fins are the Nova wings. I have a Bare 3mm full wetsuit and will be buying some more wetsuits eventually. When I'm wearing my 3mil, I tend to slowly tilt forward if I'm holding still. I am using six pounds of weight, all in the weight release pouches on the BCD. If I'm doing a skin dive, I don't need any weight and I feel perfectly balanced. I can hold any position I want without having to move. Upright, level, head up, down, upside down, etc. Any tips on how to adjust for this? A pound of weight on each leg or something? HA! Adjusting my tank height?

 

[Killerflyingbugs]

Try adjusting your tank down and see if that helps or you could move a few lbs to a weight belt lower on your body.

 

[Diver0001]

I agree with the above.

I would personally first try moving weight to the weightbelt. The weight belt is slightly more "south" of the fulcrum than the weight pockets and you may see a difference.

If you're still tilting forward after migrating weights to the weight belt then consider moving the tank lower or attaching a 2lb weight to the tank. In order to do this use a CAM band (not a weight belt) to attach a small trim weight to the tank at some point lower than the weight-belt. If you do this then put the weight on the outside of the tank (the part farthest from you). If you put it on the inside of the tank (the part closest to your butt) then it won't work nearly as well.

R..

 

[Michael Guerrero]

If moving the weights to a belt doesn't work try a tail weight.

 

[g1138]

An entire alternative before giving your intended answer: Go with the forward lean and get comfortable floating with your belly parallel with your horizon, or 0 degree trim with the bottom.

Otherwise if you looking to hover vertical try to lean back with your core, move your legs forward and bent as if you're halfway out of standing up from a chair/sitting stance. Sometimes you may even have to go to a full sitting stance.
I'll sometimes float in a vertical fetal position, with legs crossed and hands over my knees. When I'm a bit chilly it helps me feel warmer.

The one downside with this is you gain "natural" comfort at a trade for severe lack of mobility. It takes a good 3-5 seconds to level out and prep to swim. So you are not at all ready to react to your buddy's needs or to move yourself somewhere.

Or you could put all that weight on a weightbelt with the blocks on your kidneys.
BC integrated pockets put your center of gravity forward.
At 6lbs total, you don't have much wiggle room to put some of that in trim pockets without going to 1lb blocks (which won't help your cause entirely) or shifting majority of weight to something you can't ditch in an emergency (ie the trim pockets), which is at all not smart.

 

[stuartv]

In my opinion, adding more weight than you need, just to change your trim, should be the last resort. I agree with some of the above suggestions.

- move weight from BCD pockets to a weight belt - if that will position them lower on your body.

- adjust your BCD to sit a little higher on your body and/or move your tank down a little bit in the cam bands.

- play with arm, leg, and feet positioning. If you are holding your hands out in front of you and have your knees bent too far (so your fins are actually kind of close to your butt), changing those things might "fix" you.

- try more negative fins. Hollis F1 and ScubaPro Jet fins are both negative buoyancy, unlike most fins that are close to neutral. Notice that being negative does not necessarily mean they are heavier. A thing can be more negative, while weighing the same, by simply being more dense. So, using negative fins is not necessarily the same as adding ankle weights. One keeps your feet down while maintaining the same amount of mass you have to move. The other keeps your feet down by increasing the mass you have to move when you kick (and thus causing you to burn more gas from your tank).

- check what tanks you're using. If it's a Catalina AL80, I think they are more "tail light" as they get empty and a Luxfer AL80 is less "tail light" as it gets empty. So, if you are using a Catalina AL80 and trying to be neutral as the tank gets below half full, that would contribute some to making you tilt forward.


This is all assuming you're talking about tilting forward from a flat, horizontal trim position.

 

[HantsDiver]

In my opinion, adding more weight than you need, just to change your trim, should be the last resort. I agree with some of the above suggestions.

- move weight from BCD pockets to a weight belt - if that will position them lower on your body.

- adjust your BCD to sit a little higher on your body and/or move your tank down a little bit in the cam bands.

- play with arm, leg, and feet positioning. If you are holding your hands out in front of you and have your knees bent too far (so your fins are actually kind of close to your butt), changing those things might "fix" you.

- try more negative fins. Hollis F1 and ScubaPro Jet fins are both negative buoyancy, unlike most fins that are close to neutral. Notice that being negative does not necessarily mean they are heavier. A thing can be more negative, while weighing the same, by simply being more dense. So, using negative fins is not necessarily the same as adding ankle weights. One keeps your feet down while maintaining the same amount of mass you have to move. The other keeps your feet down by increasing the mass you have to move when you kick (and thus causing you to burn more gas from your tank).

- check what tanks you're using. If it's a Catalina AL80, I think they are more "tail light" as they get empty and a Luxfer AL80 is less "tail light" as it gets empty. So, if you are using a Catalina AL80 and trying to be neutral as the tank gets below half full, that would contribute some to making you tilt forward.


This is all assuming you're talking about tilting forward from a flat, horizontal trim position.

One in bold is the only one I can agree with. Moving weight around and changing equipment is rarely if ever the answer. Just work on body position in the water.

I'm not a GUE super fan - but fundamentals is the best course for this if the op wants to fix it.

 

[MichaelMc]

One in bold is the only one I can agree with. Moving weight around and changing equipment is rarely if ever the answer. Just work on body position in the water.

It seems like people put trim pockets high up on BCs, and use heavy BP/W plates centered over the lungs for a reason. It gets the trim better, if higher weight is needed. Leaving arm/leg position for dynamic tweaks in the water. There is after all only so far you can move the arms/legs.

For moving weigh down, I think the options have been listed. I do not see it mentioned, but there are weight harnesses, like workman's suspenders and tool belt that hang at or below weight belt level and have ditchable pockets. But *moving* some to a weight belt is the simplest. It is generally felt that you want to be level in the water, if are are doing nothing else. So that if you kicked you would not change depth. Apparently actually level can feel a bit head down to most people.

 

[EFX]

I had the same problem when I was diving with a ScubaPro Nighthawk. I had all my weight in the weight pockets. I found that after diving horizontally the weights would fall to the bottom of the pockets. When going vertical these weights would be forward of my centerline pitching me forward. I fixed the problem by grabbing the front of the weight pockets and lifting them slightly while leaning back. This forced the weights to the back of the weight pockets and I was able to hover vertically without pitching forward.

 

[KC10Chief]

Thanks for all of the tips! This isn't a serious tilting issue. I just slowly start tilting forward if I'm holding perfectly still. Only with my full 3mm wet suit on. One thing I thought to try was wearing a 1.5mm top under my wet suit. Adding just a tad bit more buoyancy up top. If I'm skin diving, it's perfect. No tilting.