Brian G
Contributor
What tbone was saying is that the buckle is on the left waist strap, not to the left of the crotch strap. The buckle should be as it is on the GUE backplate photo you posted.
Backplate/wing: set-up questions concerning buckle and weights.
- Thread starter Roger Hobden
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Roger Hobden
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Roger Hobden
Contributor
Excellent suggestions. Do all these three methods satisfy the GUE standards ?
Brian G
Contributor
I'm not a GUE diver, and maybe the training conflicts with the website. The website does have this line "The diver should be able to drop unnecessary weight and swim up without a functioning BC." Several of the photos show backplates with weight pockets. Is ditchable weight no longer a GUE thing?
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@Roger Hobden The buckles is set up for right hand release, so it is on the left side webbing. It runs thru the crotch strap and latches on the right side. Several reasons for it, but right hand release is still the priority and it's easier if it's on the right hip.
Second buckle is to hold the canister light.
Weight belt isn't required equipment because the goal for most of us is to get our rigs set up in a way that we need the least amount of lead as possible. In your AL80 with a 7mm suit, I'd personally use a weighted STA or in my case with a Deep Sea Supply system, I'd use bolt-on weight plates.
I will amend my previous statement in that you may actually be able to use weight pockets, but you're going to want to talk to the instructor first. All of the people that I've talked to that went in with weight pockets didn't come out with them. If they needed extra weight, they found the weight belt to be easier to deal with. I sit in that camp. I have a rubber free diving belt and much prefer that to adding anything to my harness as it makes the webbing sag and it is much more comfortable to have a belt+harness than put everything on there.
Second buckle is to hold the canister light.
Weight belt isn't required equipment because the goal for most of us is to get our rigs set up in a way that we need the least amount of lead as possible. In your AL80 with a 7mm suit, I'd personally use a weighted STA or in my case with a Deep Sea Supply system, I'd use bolt-on weight plates.
I will amend my previous statement in that you may actually be able to use weight pockets, but you're going to want to talk to the instructor first. All of the people that I've talked to that went in with weight pockets didn't come out with them. If they needed extra weight, they found the weight belt to be easier to deal with. I sit in that camp. I have a rubber free diving belt and much prefer that to adding anything to my harness as it makes the webbing sag and it is much more comfortable to have a belt+harness than put everything on there.
johndiver999
Contributor
The guy is wearing a 7 mm wetsuit and an aluminum tank. Clearly he needs ditchable lead and it should be on a belt, yet the discussion and advice meanders off course to all kinds of solutions that are not optimal (in my opinion). Who even thinks it is safe to dive a 7 mm suit with no ditchable lead in a recreational setting?
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balanced rig.... I do not believe GUE condones blow and go from the bottom... Any sort of ditchable weight is for surface use only. You should never dive a rig that you can't kick up without redundant lift
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
We recently had a 42 page thread on balanced rig and ditchable compatibility, one conclusion was that balanced rig does not preclude ditchable weight, it just does not require it. And there was a notion that having some (surface) ditchable weight is a notion well in keeping with the safety aspects of a basic diver discussion.
The third post on this page of that thread gave the most specific definition of balanced rig:
Question about “balanced rigs” and having all ballast unditchable, which provided for ditchable weight, at least in the context of as needed to be able to swim up. There may be other definitions. And this is a thread on buckle placement.
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I was referring to "ditchable" weights as what the industry refers to them in general which is for a blow and go from depth. The ability to shed weight in an emergency at the surface is fine, but I still think a weight belt is the easier way to skin that cat
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
Hmmm. Just to clarify, ditch and swim is specifically the circumstance where the other thread’s definition of a balanced rig provided for having ditchable weights. I’m trying to keep us exact as having (some) ditchable is a fairly central premise in basic instruction, though it is more safely used on the surface.
Clutter on the harness waist belt might be a better argument for having the weight you’ve kept ditchable be on a weight belt instead of adding harness mounted ditchable weight pockets. Among other arguments for a weight belt.
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