Buoyancy Control with Dry Suit

[keelhaul123]

How do you cold water divers handle buoyancy control in conjunction with your dry suit?

In my class, it was suggested to just leave the BC fully deflated and use the dry suit for buoyancy trim. This seemed to work well for me. I like only having to worry about the air in the dry suit, and it seems to almost automatically vent as you ascend without much effort.

Just curious if there are any potential problems, or if I'm better off down the road getting use to using the BC for bouyancy control and only add air to the suit to avoid squeeze. Though honestly, I didn't have to add much more air to the suit than what I would have anyways to get rid of squeeze.

Thanks,
Jason

I suppose alot of this is both personal preference and the type of diving you do. As has been pointed out the amount of buoyancy compensation may depend on whether you wear doubles or a single, even hauling stages around. Now for myself its easy. iuse the drysuit for my BC. But, 90% of my diving is shore diving which means that as a whole 90% of my diving is done in less than 40 ft of water. At those depths I really only need to put in a wee bit of air to take the squeeze off and generally that is enough to keep me neutral. That also has the side benefit of avoiding any excess air movement through my suit...the less ya have, the less it moves. On that thought though it occured to me that I rarely have air movement issues and maybe its partly because of my gear setup. I am one of those guys who still uses a seperate weight belt. So if you can picture this: I am swimming along nice and horizontal with my 24# belt on, the weight of which on my back acting as a sort of baffle to keep the air from flowing back to my legs. I never really gave this much thought but it occured to me as I read this thread that I do occaisionally actually have to do a little "flipper" maneuver to get the air INTO my legs. Hmmm. Any thoughts?

 

[Uncle Pug]

I notice more effort is required to swim a bag~o~gas around than to move a wing/tank taco through the water.

 

[Quarrior]

I notice more effort is required to swim a bag~o~gas around than to move a wing/tank taco through the water.

There ya go again UP, muddling all this confusion with common sense.

 

[steve2281]

I was taught to use just the suit. However, I have found that "just enough to take off the squeeze" and the rest in the wing works for me. If weighted correctly, though, it never takes more than a couple of shots in the wing. Have made many free ascents, and never had trouble managing both. steve

 

[Warren_L]

For me, buoyancy control is primarily with my BC or wing, but is really a combination of both. I don't mind the squeeze so much, so I generally don't add a lot of air, but if it's colder, then I do need to perhaps add a bit more to allow the insulation to work.

 

[FatCat]

It's all a question of gear configuration and personal preferences.

Are you diving with a neoprene suit? A crushed/compressed neoprene suit? Rubber? Trilam? Which tanks? Do you use the autodump or not?

All these variables cause different weighting requirements and/or different amounts of air in the suit to give the undersuit a chance to work. They also cause a difference in amount of drag.

I notice more effort is required to swim a bag~o~gas around than to move a wing/tank taco through the water.

Personnally, I dive with 4 mil compressed neoprene and a 12L or 15L steel tank, depending on the dive. My suit gives me plenty buoyancy without causing too much drag. I even added two kilos of lead to keep warmer.

I gladly suffer the extra drag to get the extra insulation and as a consequence: the extra bottom time.

But it all depends on the circumstances, doesn't it? If I were to go diving in a ripping current, I'd ditch the extra two kilos in order to minimize drag.

Diving with a steel twin would force me to use the BC, and so on...