Buoyancy and Trim

[InTheDrink]

Well seeing as my last thread about line management disintegrated into squabbles about Buoyancy and Trim, let's explore this here properly.

What would you say is the best way to establish how good your Buoyancy and Trim is? I don't have the luxury normally of being videoed although the ones I've seen of me on trips I seem to be pretty ok.

Lynne, a year or two ago, gave me one drill which I think is pretty good and that is hovering with your eyes closed. This is a good way to see whether you really are neutral or just making small adjustments based on visual clues.

Another drill is of course loading as many tasks as possible and seeing what happens to your buoyancy (e.g. mask replace, s-drill, etc.)

Any others you could suggest?

Cheers,
John

 

[ucfdiver]

I would suggest getting reasonable trim, and stop putting yourself under a microscope after that. In FL caves, you know if you're out of trim because swimming gets harder and harder, or you'll stir up stuff.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Get in the water with a down line that is marked every 3 meters. Get to 3 or 6 meters and get neutral. turn around facing away from the line and do some skills. Task load yourself. Turn around and see where you are in relation to your marker. if you're way off then you know you need to work on it.

 

[Indian Valley Scuba]

Excellent suggestion Dive-aholic. We use the same technique when teaching buoyancy control classes, with marked lines, and multi-tasking responsibilities for the divers. Glad to see another using similar techniques.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I like it as well. Would be a good indicator to see if those who want to take my AOW class are ready for it. Give them something besides my own opinion to use as a gauge when doing the pre class open water assessment.