Preferred redundant buoyancy when diving wet?

[DevonDiver]

I cannot "swim it up" from depth. Maybe Johnny Weismuller could. Swimming it up from about 40'-60' is easy with the improved buoyancy.

What you're really looking at here is ditching weight for the ascent. There's nothing wrong with that. The 'balanced rig' principle deals with configuring your gear so that you can swim it up... by balancing the proportion of ditchable and non-ditchable weight.

In warm water, min exposure protection, that probably means no ditchable weight needed at all. In cold water, thick wetsuit, then ditchable weight comes into the equation. Have enough ditchable weight, so that you can easily ascend (under control). You don't want that ascent to be buoyant and out-of-control - so incorporate an appropriate amount of integral weight within your rig (that could be 'V'-weights, light canisters, pony cylinders etc).

No, I do not look to a buddy for a primary solution to a problem. That is a good way to die.

It's called team diving. Nothing wrong with that, it just takes a will to create the team-work.

 

[Max Speed]

if need be, I could have crawled my way back to the surface...had my main wg, alt wg and lift bag had all failed me...

I did take a "walking tour" of a local quarry once. Went back down to retrieve a reel at the end of the day and decided to skip the fins and a few other bits. I was curious how hard it would be to get back out. (A hand over hand buoy line ascent was the backup alternate Got some funny looks. I guess I needed a hardhat to fit in...

 

[danvolker]

To clarify a few things:

Recreational dive.

22 lbs lead plus SS backplate plus a 19CF pony.

Balancing the rig is not possible. To put it in perspective, with an otherwise identical setup no lead is required in a 2.5 mil wetsuit. I suspect the "balance the rig" school dives in warm water.

I cannot "swim it up" from depth. Maybe Johnny Weismuller could. Swimming it up from about 40'-60' is easy with the improved buoyancy.

I do not own a double bladder wing although that is a good solution. A dry suit is another great option but I do not dive dry except in winter.

I never thought of folding up the SMB to keep the air at the bottom. I will try that. I normally carry both a lift bag and an SMB.

Never thought of leaving the weight belt on the bottom and reeling up from it. Interesting option if there's a convenient bottom. I'll try it for practice.

Looks like the best option is still the lift bag with an SMB for additional redundancy.

No, I do not look to a buddy for a primary solution to a problem. That is a good way to die.

Given what you are doing, George or I would say you would be better off in a dry suit, for the deeper diving where wet suit compression creates lift issues at depth.... Personally, I like to stay in my 2.5 mil BeACHAT Cammou wet suit as long as I can....but when diving deep, even in florida, it gets cold often at depth......thick suits become very poor at keeping you warm at 180 feet deep, as well as poor in your expected bouyancy from them...which is pushing you at the Dry Suit

I may need to use my dry suit next week, when we do the Hole in the Wall...it is an awesome dive, to between 130 AND 150 feet, and this is just deep enough for us to go from 78 degree or warmer water, to 65 or below..sometimes well below.

 

[Max Speed]

What you're really looking at here is ditching weight for the ascent. <snip>

It's called team diving. Nothing wrong with that, it just takes a will to create the team-work.

I have a variety of ways to leave "some" weight behind so that is always an option. I just hate to lose my stuff

I have had two buddies who had a failure of "will to create the team-work" during incidents (freeflow and a total first stage failure). Kind of sours me on that option when the buddy is not my wife or son:depressed:.

 

[Adobo]

I have a variety of ways to leave "some" weight behind so that is always an option. I just hate to lose my stuff

How much does 22lbs worth of lead and weight belt cost? $50? In a catastrophic failure of your buoyancy device, you would hate to leave $50 worth of gear behind?

I would gladly pay $50 to extricate myself from such as situation.

 

[Max Speed]

How much does 22lbs worth of lead and weight belt cost? $50? In a catastrophic failure of your buoyancy device, you would hate to leave $50 worth of gear behind?

I would gladly pay $50 to extricate myself from such as situation.

I think the point of all this is that there are better ways. Ditching weight is the least optimal choice.

 

[RTee]

Again...the last thing you want to do is to ditch all your weights as others have previously mentionned. Doing so is the best way to transform a mere malfunction into what could become a full blown emergency

 

[Adobo]

I think the point of all this is that there are better ways. Ditching weight is the least optimal choice.

Are you sure about that?

Let's examine your other proposed solutions, specifically, using a lift bag for redundant buoyancy. Lets say that you are doing a wall dive with a hard bottom of 100ft. Lets say that you are at the tail end of the dive (~1000psi in your al80) and you are starting to work your way up. Then the wing fails catastrophically (for example, you pull the corrugated hose off the elbow that is attached to the wing) and now the wing is venting all of the gas you have in there. Is there enough time to deploy a lift bag to use as redundant buoyancy? Or is it more likely that you will find yourself at 100ft before you can even get that lift bag out of wherever it is stored?

I would say that a diver who has such a failure will find himself at 100ft, overweighted, without buddies(remember, you said you don't trust your buddies for this kind of thing) with less than 25 cubic feet of gas left in his tanks. Now, let me ask, is this the right time to deploy a lift bag which you will use to pull yourself up to the surface? Are you sure there is enough gas to be doing all that?

The optimal choice is that you would be diving a balanced rig in the first place. Meaning, in a single tank, there is absolutely no reason you cannot swim up your rig to a depth where your wetsuit has regained some buoyancy if you are properly weighted.

Absent of a balanced rig, the next best choice depends on the situation. Although in all honesty, I find using a lift bag as redundant buoyancy as a pretty crappy option. While deploying and managing an SMB (smaller than a lift bag) is a reasonably easy exercise, it gets far more complex if you find you compound the exercise with something like a failed wing.

 

[Adobo]

Again...the last thing you want to do is to ditch all your weights as others have previously mentionned. Doing so is the best way to transform a mere malfunction into what could become a full blown emergency

Not all of his lead needs to go on a ditchable weight belt, does it? Probably need no more than 10lbs of ditchable weight if diving an al80. Regardless, the first answer to this issue is not lift bags or ditching weight. The first answer is proper weighting. And depending on scenario, ditching an appropriate amount of weight is not the last thing to do. In fact, in the scenario above, it might be more practical than trying to deploy a lift bag.

Anyway, my point was that having a mentality of "not wanting to lose my stuff" is the wrong attitude when dealing with something like a failed wing or any other serious issue during a dive.

 

[Max Speed]

<snip>a full blown emergency

Is that a pun?