Solo with a weight belt

[LeadTurn_SD]

drdaddy,

If you have both suits, you can do a quick and dirty buoyancy comparrison in a large wash bin or bath tub... fill the tub, then test how much weight it takes to just "sink" each wetsuit (get the suit completely "wetted", get as much trapped air out as possible, then fold the wetsuit, carefully stack weights on it, and repeat the process with the other wetsuit.

This may at least give you a ballpark idea of the difference, and is probably about all you can do until you actually dive the new wetsuit.

Best wishes.

 

[nielsent]

drdaddy,

One thing i used to do when crabbing was if i had a large load of crabs I would send them up in a mesh bag attached to my lift bag, with a reel or finger spool attached to the lift bag also, at least that way its not part of your bouyancy issues, and you have something to use on ascent for stops. Don't know if this would work for you, but it worked great for me.

 

[seaducer]

Just curious how many solo divers use a weight belt or harness?

This diver does. Weight belt carries everything the plate does not.

 

[jvevea]

I practice it, but it's mainly a task loading, BC and SA exercise for me and I've never had to doff my rig for any real world reason. I don't do tight restrictions solo, so the only possible reason I'd contemplate this outside of a drill situation would be entanglement.

Complete failure of an air cell, combined with a flooded DS unable to hold gas at the start of a dive would leave you very negative in a set of double 100s. Pretty remote possibility imo. Other than that, I can't really think of a good reason to drop weight at depth if you're properly configured.

For my standard rig, you'd have to add "...and sudden inexplicable holes in your smb and lift bag." I agree, pretty remote.

 

[scuba=dude]

Well as for me, I'm of the stripe that I do the belt and weight in dicth pokets in the BC

 

[seahorsey]

I wear my drysuit weight split between integrated and belt. If I lost the integrated weight pocket (apparently happens to A LOT of divers, since every diveshop has a stack of pockets found on the bottom), at least it would be only a quarter of my total weight gone, not half. Not as catastrophic.
Also, I was quite glad to have easily ditchable weight when the deflator valve of my BC stuck in the open position at 100'. By the time I realized what was going on, I was a bit deeper than before and quite negatively buoyant (I wore twice as much weight as I needed, for giveaway weights for customers). Sure, there are other ways to deal with it and I did manage, but knowing I could easily ditch the cheap weight belt, with only half my weight, gave me some extra confidence while going up.
Also it's easier on seams and fabric of your BC if you wear a lot of weight to stick some in the belt.
And yes, the pocketed kind is REAL handy for changes between salt and fresh or different underwear etc.
And its very easy to release if you needed to, at the surface for example, and by anyone (boatcrew, passer-by divers unfamiliar with your BC). And the webbing belt especially is so cheap and easy to replace, you won't hesitate to ditch if you feel it could help. Unlike integrated pockets where you may think twice.

 

[sylpha]

i use a weight belt, i mainly dive from a RIB and passing kit up into the boat after the dive it just isn't fair to expect someone to haul all the weight i need plus my twin 7's in one go.

i do think that you are in more danger of losing your weight belt at depth than you are likely to need to ditch a weight belt so i add a lanyard between my weight belt & my stab jacket. I don't like integrated weights, because i've seen too many fast ascents after the integration fails. I don't know if that's because the integration system doesn't work of the diver doesn't set them up properly.

the guy who brings up crabs. please think about using a lifting bag for your crabs, 2 years ago in Weymouth a guy had just such a bag of scallops, something went wrong on the surface, the weight of the scallops inverted him, his dv was knocked out of his mouth & he drowned.

 

[DevonDiver]

Single Tank.

I don't need any weight. A couple of bolt-snaps and my ali backplate seems to do me fine. When teaching, I put 2x 1/2 kg weights into pouches on my camband.

Double Tank.

I put 2x 2kg weights on a weight belt. I tend to change cylinders around a lot, depending on mix etc when I am teaching, so a v-weight wouldn't be practical. Otherwise, I would use a v-weight.