Weight Integrated safer than weight belt?

[teamgs]

Greetings,
Our DI mentioned something interesting yesterday, that I hadn't thought of. She stated that a weight integrated BC is inherently safer than a weight belt (particularly a rented one) because if you have a weight belt/buckle failure, you will lose all your weight, possibly rocketing to the surface. With a weight integrated BC, losing one of your weights, still leaves the other ditchable one, plus the trim weights.

While this is certainly possible, does this sound like a valid concern, or more like a pitch to sell equipment? We were going to rent reg's and BC's for our trip to Maui next week.

Regards,

Gary

 

[marcurts]

I had aweight integrated bc and I lost 1 weight pocket and ended up floating to the surface, not rocketing, but floating. Thank goodnes I was only 25ft down. If for some reason you have to remove your bc and your wearing neoprene you better hold on to that bc or your headed for the surface. I find weight belts uncomfortable so I bought a DUI weight harness, IMO it is the best for me. It is adjustable and you can ditch one pocket if thats all is needed.
My 2cents

 

[scubatoys]

That's semi valid - but if diving warm water - you're not going to have that much weight in anyway. But I would say the safety is it's much easier to ditch weights when you have to. Belts get hung up between your tank and butt... And if it's a good weight system, like the zeagle, or some other non-velcro system, they are less likely to accidently get lost. I've seen lots of slipping belts in the real world.

So safer?... probably. More comfortable?... definately. Worth buying before your trip?.... your call.

 

[MikeFerrara]

What is safe is not having too much weight and not having too much of it ditchable in the first place.

I don't know why they don't teach this in OW classes because it certainly is important.

In recreational equipment you probablt should never be so heavy that you can't swim to the surface in the first place and ditching weights at depth is always dangerous.

Beyond that you need to be able to dich enough weight to establish buoyancy at the surface.

I've seen enough of these poorly designed weight pouches lost that over all I'd have to say that a belt is more reliable and it's easy enough to ditch when there's a need.

 

[DeepTrip]

Greetings,
With a weight integrated BC, losing one of your weights, still leaves the other ditchable one, plus the trim weights.

A buckle can fail, so does an integrated weight of a BCD. I'd rather agree with scubatoys, it is more comfortable, but I doubt that they are safer.

Benny

 

[gfisher4792]

I would also just throw in if a belt buckle fails, chances are that you'll be in a horizontal position, so the belt will just be resting on your lower back. And, depending on the situation, if it does slip, it has a shot of just hanging on your leg, or of you noticing and grabbing the webbing. IW, in what I've seen, will just drop and off it goes.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I agree with Mike that proper weighting is the more important issue and something that is no longer taught, or if taught is not stressed to the proper degree in OW training.

Often instructors are more concerned with getting students underwater quickly on their OW checkouts than they are in getting them properly weighted. One of the local instructors uses and gives a formula of 10% of your body weight plus 10 pounds for the wet suit plus 4 lbs for the tank. By his formula, I should be using 33 lbs of weight. But properly weighted with a single tank, I use 20 lbs with a 7mm wetsuit counting the backplate and STA. If I were a student of his, I would be 13 pounds overweighted and losing either 1/2 my integrated weights (16-17 lbs) or my weight belt (33 lbs) would be a serious issue.

The issue at hand is that with integrated weights you lose half the weight while with a weight belt, you will lose all of it. The questions to be considered are then whether you are twice as likely to lose your integrated weights as you are a weightbelt and whether losing twice the weight puts you at twice the risk. The answers to both depend on how well the particular weight integration system is designed and to a lesser degree whether the diver is overweighted in the first place. An overweighted diver wanting to stay down may finally stop kicking AND dump all the air from their BC although all that extra air in the BC takes longer to dump and creates more potential for rapid expansion if the diver is fairly shallow.

Personally, I prefer weight integration on my BP/wing and with double tanks the weight pockets normally have 6 lbs in them. Losing 6 pounds of weight is at worst (shallow depth at the end of a dive with less 500 psi in each tank) a slow ride to the surface from a saftey stop if you spread eagle on the way up and is also not so excessive that you could not swim your way down a bit to achieve something closer to neutral bouyancy to finish the stop. And if the tanks are at least half full, the loss of 6 lbs is pretty much a non-event allowing a normal ascent as long as you do not let the tanks get too empty.

In any event the idea of "rocketing" to the surface is flawed as it is largely avoidable. Even if you lose all of your weight a comparatively slow ascent is possible if the diver remains horizontal and assumes a spread eagled position in the water. Drag increases as the square of the velocity so if you add a lot of drag you will substantially slow your ascent. If on the other hand you allow yourself to become vertical and streamlined and only use your head for a nose cone, you will do a credible imitation of a Trident ICBM on your way to the surface.

So my thoughts are to weight yourself properly and then take care to properly secure either the weightbelt or your integrated weight pockets. If the integrated weight pockets use velcro, ensure it is kept clean and replace it when it wears out.

 

[Walter]

Mike is, as usual, correct. Proper weighting is crucial. Weight integrated BCs fail more frequently than weight belts, although both do fail. I believe the weight belt is the far superior method.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I don't know why they don't teach this in OW classes because it certainly is important.

Well there's thee, Mike, and me...
That makes two.
Rick

 

[Rick Murchison]

Well, let's see...
Frankly, under water, I can't tell any difference in a properly weighted weightbelt and a properly weighted integrated weight system... as for failures, I have had a weight pocket flap get stripped by a piece of monofilament I didn't see one night; I've never lost a weight belt.
Rick