Integrated weights, hard weights on BC or weight belt?

[Scubatude]

I am not a fan of ditching weight at depth and the above information is good. However there are valid reasons for having ditchable weight...on the surface, handing gear up to the boat crew, carrying gear. Threading hard weight on to your harness is not the answer. I use these on my rental BP/W, and have these on some of my other rigs. Both of these pockets thread securely on to the harness and have an inner weight pouch that is easy to load, remove, handle, and ditch.

 

[Peter Guy]

I hate weight belts so I've opted for a weight harness (DUI but there are others). I split my weight between my BP and the harness but I'm also diving in cold water with a fair amount of weight.

I don't think there are any "right" answers -- just the best one for you and what that is really depends on how much weight you are planning on carrying.

BTW, ditching at depth? Not so much. But being able to ditch at the surface -- good idea!

 

[PantherDiver]

Everyone I've talked too said the Neotek semi-dry is really good at keeping the core part of the body dry. I was also told divers needed a lot more weight that it was really buoyant, I'll try the weighting it down thing. I was looking at the pee valve for females but also read that the compression will prevent flow.

I typically wear a farmer john and had my weight perfect that I was slightly though not much negative on a 80 AL at 500psi. During u/w criminal investigator class we had to be overweighted and stuck on the bottom in the muck.

So what I am hearing is add some weight to my BC system and also have weight I can dump. Are the rubber belts adjustable? I was looking at the hollis padded belt. I thought the DUI weight belt was for drysuit only. Thanks for everyone's input.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

Like the others said, a weight belt is probably the most flexible in terms of diving conditions and breaks your weight up if you want ditchable weight. It is suitable for wetsuits, drysuits, or no suits, and I wear mine under my waist/crotch strap so it doesn't slide down and won't come off unless I deliberately take it off.

Whatever you end up with, just practice with it a little to make sure you're comfortable if you want to ditch it.

 

[danvolker]

So what I am hearing is add some weight to my BC system and also have weight I can dump. Are the rubber belts adjustable? I was looking at the hollis padded belt. I thought the DUI weight belt was for drysuit only. Thanks for everyone's input.

Rubber belts are very adjustable, and since they stretch, they can be fairly tight, and still allow your diaphragm to expand when you breathe......much more intelligent than the scuba belts.SEE Weights + Belts : Florida Freedivers

 

[John C. Ratliff]

make sure you do a proper weight check and don't go willy nilly with the lead. Put the suit in a mesh bag in a pool and put weight on it until it starts to sink, that's the easiest way to do the weight check. I really wish wetsuit manufacturers would publish a buoyancy number with each of their suits, but that's wishful thinking. Make sure you have enough wing to handle the rig, you'll need 30lb minimum.

You may want to also add a P-valve to protect your suit and neighbors in the long run since semi-dry's don't flow hardly at all. They're pretty cheap, can be installed yourself with a soldering iron, and make the whole experience infinitely better.

http://www.amazon.com/Scuba-Choice-...ng-water-sports&ie=UTF8&qid=1414844103&sr=1-5
That is the belt they are talking about, worth it if you have to have a belt.

A couple of points. First, a buoyancy check without putting on the gear won't give you a valid number, as it neglects your buoyancy, and the buoyancy of the air space within the suit if it's a dry suit. This needs to be done in full gear, with the diver in the water (s)he will be diving in (fresh vs salt water).

Second, since when are we advocating using weights without a quick release? That standard belt buckle dates us back to the early 1950s before quick release belts were developed, and was used by hard hat divers. I wear a rubber belt with my weights, but it has a quick release buckle.

Finally, I find not having ditchable weights a real problem. The one time I needed to ditch my weights involved being caught off shore by 20 foot waves, and having my scuba available even after ditching our weights was critical to our survival. See the photo below of the conditions we were in (taken by our girl friends from shore before we spent three and a half hours awaiting pickup by the U.S. Coast Guard).

SeaRat

 

[tbone1004]

you should know your personal buoyancy, the buoyancy of the gear, and the buoyancy of the suit. Too often people in wetsuits don't fully flush the suits and there are air pockets trapped that don't come out and they overbreathe at the surface during weight checks so it is typical to have a few pounds too much. The best thing to do is find out how much weight if any you need as an individual, then check each of your suits and that usually gets you pretty damn close, and is much faster for those of us with multiple exposure suits to put them in a bag and hang lead from it until it sinks than it is to put them on and have to gear up completely.

Obviously you can't do that in a drysuit, but this isn't about drysuits, properly weighting in drysuits is a colossal pita.

Storker, I put the drysuit clause in there because it is an exception to the rule with ditchable weight. No point in ditching more weight than the buoyancy of the wetsuit because it can get you too positive which can cause increase susceptability to motion sickness in the surf.

 

[FinnMom]

it is true that many people with experience and that dive relatively frequently feel comfortable without ditchable weight. If you aren't thrilled about the idea there is also fair reason for that. I would be happier if I had it, but all things considered I still dive without because it's more comfortable and less gear to drag around/forget/misplace.
If you want some ditchable weight just 8-10 lbs (6-8 kg) makes a big difference and is fairly comfortable if you pack it evenly into a fabric belt with weight pouches.

 

[TSandM]

I have one of the Mako rubber belts, thanks to Dumpster Diver. I was quite dubious about it at first -- I was worried that the pronged buckle wouldn't release easily. On the other hand, they are used by freedivers, who are much more at risk if they can't dump weight than we are. I wore the belt and tried it -- it dumps as easily as my compression buckle belt did, but is far more secure when fastened.

Where you put your weights depends on three things: Where do you need them to balance? (That's number one.). How much do you want to be able to ditch? And how much do you like moving heavy things around on land?

My husband uses a DSS backplate with weight plates. He likes that, because it minimizes the weight he has to put elsewhere. I loathe it, because it makes his rig so darned heavy to move around (eg. to change tanks). I use weight on my rig, all right, but it's in weight pockets on my cambands, so I can take the weights out when I need to move the setup around on land.

As long as you balance, and are comfortable with being able to get back to the surface from depth in the event of a BC/wing failure, it really is personal preference where the weights go and how they are mounted.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

TS&M and others,

This is where I have to disagree with you, and it is one of the very few times that we are in disagreement. Weight belts must be easily released. The page I am showing comes straight out of a very old book, Rick and Barbara Carrier's Dive, The Complete Book of Skin Diving, Wilfred Funk, Inc., New York, 1957, page 113. As you can see, the belt buckle type you are now promoting is shown is one of the three "a. Dangerous types--NEVER use these closure methods on a weight belt." Better releases are shown as "b. The types that must be used are styled so that they may be removed using one hand and in a single motion." They specifically show the type of closure that you are promoting as a dangerous type of closure for a weight belt. Here's the reason. You can open this closure in a single motion, but because it has the square frame and prong, there is nothing to prevent it from simply re-ingaging at the next hole. It takes two hands to ensure that this buckle releases correctly. The same is to be said for putting a crotch strap over the belt; it can hang up on the crotch strap unless it is like the European system, in which the weight belt is used instead of the waist strap on the scuba, and the crotch strap connects to the weight belt on the belt's buckle. I am rather perturbed that this basic bit of knowledge, which has now been taught for over half a century, has been lost to this generation of divers!

SeaRat