New guy looking for weighting advice

[Darcimus]

Okay, here goes.

Did my OW in Playa with a full 3mm wetsuit and rental gear. They had me running with 28 lbs of weight. (20 on a belt, 8 in pockets as the BCD wasn't weight integrated.) Maybe I'm just too new, but I thought that worked fine.

Get home, buy my own gear (AquaLung Axiom i3 BC, 8 lbs in the integrated pouches, 5 pounds in each of the pockets on the tank straps for a total of 26 lbs) and I think I'll be good to go because everyone tells me you need more weight in the ocean.

No, not good. I've been in the pool three or four times since I got home and I can't get the weighting sorted out. I tried using less weights in the tank pockets (3 lbs) but then I had trouble with a super-slow descent. Now, I did buy a 3 mm shorty because I'm a furnace and I like the extra cooling on my legs and arms so I understand there will be that loss of buoyancy. Right now, I'm at the point where I can't find the happy medium that allows me to be neutral. Even with short pulls on the i3 system I either add too much or dump too much so I'm drifting up or down to the pool bottom.

I've also relaxed my breathing considerably since my first dives (Lasted 24 minutes on the first one when I should have went 24...big lungs and I maybe panicked a bit before the first descent so I sucked a lot of air back) but even with breathing in for a two-count and out for a four-count, I still find that my inhale/exhale sends me up or down way too fast, where other guys can just hover near the bottom.

Does anyone have any advice for me? Am I at the point where I need just a little more weight? Then what happens when I go back to Playa (planning for September) so I have to pack on over 30 lbs of weight? I am planning on taking my own gear (minus tank and weights).

 

[Drone076]

Just do a weight check (buoyancy check). You don't need to just guess how much weight u need.

 

[NYCNaiad]

Yes, you are more buoyant in fresh water/pool than in salt water. I also agree with doing a proper in water check. But I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that new divers often have problems with buoyancy especially in shallow water. This resolves itself with time or you could take a buoyancy course to help you.

 

[BRT]

I'm a guy who needs a lot of weight but I never saw anybody who needed close to 28lb in a 3 mil.

 

[RainPilot]

Yes, you are more buoyant in fresh water/pool than in salt water. I also agree with doing a proper in water check. But I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that new divers often have problems with buoyancy especially in shallow water. This resolves itself with time or you could take a buoyancy course to help you.

Naiad, actually you are less bouyant in fresh so you need to add weight for salt diving. I know you know this, it's a typo but just for clarification for the OP.
Agree with the other comments.

Darcimus, one thing to consider is the amount of gas you are inhaling each time, not just the rate of breathing. I almost always find that new divers breathe fast, then they slow down but compromise by breathing very deeply until they relax and breathe like they are lying watching TV.

The high tidal volume will lead to big swings in buoyancy as you have observed.

The adding of gas to the bcd is a skill that will come. I don't use the i3 system so can't advise you on its peculiarities but generally at first, add a lot less than you think you might need in each blip. You'll get the hang of it with enough water time.

I don't know how tall you are or what your build is like but 28 lbs sounds like a LOT of weight, especially in FW. My students start with 2-4 lbs in the pool to sink themselves, add max 4 lbs for a 3 mm suit and then if they have a jacket bcd add another 3-4 lbs to sink the bcd. Add another 3 for an empty tank and you have a MAX of 15 lbs. none of my students has ever needed more than 10lbs in salt water for dive 1.

Edit: seems like BRT got there first, simul-typing again

 

[NYCNaiad]

Naiad, actually you are less bouyant in fresh so you need to add weight for salt diving. I know you know this, it's a typo but just for clarification for the OP.
Agree with the other comments.

Darcimus, one thing to consider is the amount of gas you are inhaling each time, not just the rate of breathing. I almost always find that new divers breathe fast, then they slow down but compromise by breathing very deeply until they relax and breathe like they are lying watching TV.

The high tidal volume will lead to big swings in buoyancy as you have observed.

The adding of gas to the bcd is a skill that will come. I don't use the i3 system so can't advise you on its peculiarities but generally at first, add a lot less than you think you might need in each blip. You'll get the hang of it with enough water time.

I don't know how tall you are or what your build is like but 28 lbs sounds like a LOT of weight, especially in FW. My students start with 2-4 lbs in the pool to sink themselves, add max 4 lbs for a 3 mm suit and then if they have a jacket bcd add another 3-4 lbs to sink the bcd. Add another 3 for an empty tank and you have a MAX of 15 lbs. none of my students has ever needed more than 10lbs in salt water for dive 1.

Edit: seems like BRT got there first, simul-typing again

Yep. Typo. lol. I need to go to bed!

 

[zen_man]

My thoughts: You not fully exhaling. 28 lbs sounds like a lot, especially with a 3 mil suit. I remember when I started, I was not full exhaling and was breathing in the upper half of my lungs. Once I really relaxed and was breathing more normal, my weight needs changed significantly.
Dive in a really calm area and practice relaxing and full breaths.
Just a thought.

:zen:

 

[eelnoraa]

Like other mentioned, 28lb is a lot of weight. Most don't need that much with drysuit and thick undies. But let's not rule it out. Just do proper wight check. Make sure all air is out of the BC. Don't worry about weight distribution just yet. Once you figure out the right total amount, then you can move the around.

 

[mattia_v]

I'll echo what the others have said. A peak performance bouyancy specialty with a good instructor and time spent sorting out your own weighting will do the trick.

How much weight you need is something that you'll need to measure to figure out properly. In salt water, with my (negatively bouyant) aluminum BP/Wing, an AL80 and a 3.5mm full-suit (at 6ft, ~190 lbs) I need 2-4 lbs. When i was 10 lbs heavier (now have more muscle mass and less fat) I needed 10-12lbs with the exact same setup; some of that was experience / getting used to a new gear setup, and less time fine-tuning exact weight needs the first time around after the first 2 days, but most was body composition (which plays a role)

 

[stuartv]

You should also be aware that the more overweighted you are, the harder it will be to control your buoyancy.

Imagine that you are at a certain depth and you are neutral. Now imagine that you inhale and start to rise up and you end up 1' more shallow than where you were. The air in your BCD bladder will expand a little bit when you raise up that 1' and that will increase your lift, making you tend to float up even higher.

Now imagine that you only need 12# of weight to be neutral at that depth. To get yourself neutral, you have a small amount of air in your BCD. When you raise up 1', that small amount of air expands and makes you a small amount positive in your buoyancy. You exhale and that more than counteracts the expansion in your BCD and you sink back down. You probably drop a little bit below where you started, but you start to inhale and that brings you back up. It's a cycle where you are constantly bobbing up and down around your target depth. The better your breathing and boyancy control gets, the smaller that bobbing motion will become until eventually you can hope to appear to be completely motionless.

Now imagine that you only need 12# of weight, but you actually have 26# of weight. That means you have enough air in your BCD to keep you neutral plus enough more to compensate for that extra 14# of weight that you are carrying but don't need. You have a LOT more air in your BCD than if you only had 12# of weight. Now, when you breathe in and raise up 1' of depth, the air in your BCD expands by the same percentage as it would if you only had 12# of weight. But, since the actual volume of air in your BCD is larger, the percent increase means that actual amount of increase in lift is correspondingly bigger. In other words, when you raise up 1', you have much more lift in your BCD to compensate for when you exhale.

That is why being overweighted makes buoyancy control harder.

Here is a specific example:

Assume you are using an aluminum 80 and diving in board shorts (so no additional complication of wetsuit compression to affect your buoyancy).

An AL80 carries 6# of gas. So, if you are properly weight, and the tank is full, you will be 6# negative on your bouyancy. That way, if you get to the end of your dive and the tank is nearly empty (so that 6# of gas is almost gone), you will still be neutral.

Now imagine you're in the pool hovering at 10' depth. Your are 6# negative, so you have enough air in your BCD to give you 6# of lift. When you inhale, you raise up, when you exhale all the way, you drop down.

If you inhale and rise up to 9' of depth, the ambient pressure of the water around you drops from 1.30 ATA to 1.27 ATA. Which means your 6# of lift in your BCD goes from 6# to 6.14 #.

If you had an extra 14# of lead strapped to you that you didn't need, then that would mean, at 10' depth, instead of 6# of lift, you would have enough air in your BCD to give 20# of lift. When you inhale and rise up to 9' of depth, the lift in your wing would change from 20# to 20.5#.

By having that extra 14# of lead, when you inhale and rise 1' (to 9'), instead of having an increase of 2 ounces of lift to compensate for, you have half a pound (8 ounces) of extra lift to compensate for. If you actually rise up more than just 1', it gets even worse.

And if you are wearing a wetsuit, it compresses as you go down and decompresses as you come up, adding even more to the "extra" lift you have to compensate for (for example), when you bob up to 9' and exhale to drop back down to 10'.

So, like everyone has said, it sounds like you have way too much weight. If you get that sorted out, your buoyancy control should be a lot easier.