Basic skills in a hogarthian rig

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

There is no safe way I can think of you can wear a halcyon harness and a standard recreational weight belt.

Well I guess since my harness is DSS I'm good then :D.

But seriously, I'd love to hear your reasoning behind that comment. I have no problems with my weight belt & harness combination.

Added w/ Edit:

To add a few remarks ...

The reason I ask is because the issue of ditch-able versus non-ditchable weight is only of the concern of a diver counting on multiple mistakes.

Why would anyone ever ditch weight? Well, any case where the need for positive buoyancy is paramount. Two cases come to mind 1) surface flotation 2) when the diver is otherwise physically incapable of reaching the surface.

With each of these cases ditching weight should, very simply, never be needed.

In the first case, surface flotation, a diver's bcd (or wing, whatever you want to call it) should have the proper lift capacity to do the job, and having ditch-able weight is no excuse for running out of the air needed to inflate the bcd.

The second case is obviously much more problematic, since it is a rescue scenario. Sure it could be a self-rescue, whereby the diver ditches his/her own weight to get off the bottom, or it could be a rescuer removing the weight to float the other diver. However, it is still a case where several previous mistakes necessitate the so-called “solution” of ditching weights.

Almost all the dive training I've received focused on preventing problems and knowing how to address certain issues so that emergencies don't occur.

If a diver cannot rest comfortably on the surface, or even surface in general, then that diver is already diving unsafely and has made several mistakes that ditch-able weight cannot address. That diver has placed him/her self in an emergency situation easily avoided by smart diving practices.

I have an interesting question; when in your training were you given a scenario (and I'm not talking about those underwater don & doffing drills) where you removed your own weight belt? I'm guessing the answer is never. Why? Well because diving training revolves around preventing our own emergencies from ever happening. We receive training to ditch the weight of other divers already in an emergency, who are, by the simple fact that they are in an emergency, already diving unsafely.

Suggesting that anyone who dives with a weight belt and a harness configuration is diving unsafely is to suggest that those divers should be planning on a need for that weight to be removed. The only reason that weight would ever need to be ditched would be in an emergency, a situation safe divers train to prevent. It's also suggesting that the diver's buddy is incompetent enough to fail to remove the weight belt successfully if so needed.

In short the idea that diving with a harness and a standard weight belt is unsafe relies on not just the incompetence of the diver, but also of his/her buddy. This is, honestly, insulting to anyone who dives such a configuration.

And just for the record, sometimes my weight is ditch-able, and sometimes it's not.
 
Last edited:
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

Back
Top Bottom