weight

[kimmy]

I have been having a problem lately with being weighted properly. I seems now that I can't seem to get down under but once I'm there I feel that I'm overweighted!!! I do weight checks before the dive and there seems to be no problem.

Thanks

Kimmy

 

[JimC]

Welcome to the wonderfull world of thick neoprean.

Ensure that you have just enough weight to controll an accent with a near empty tank all the way to the surface, no air in your bc, etc. Then you'll have to deal with the extra lead at depth as your wetsuit compresses by adding gas to your BC.

Unfortunatly a 7mm wetsuit can loose a good 10+ lbs of boyancy going from the surface to 80 feet. Thats all extra dead weight you don't want at depth, but need to carry.

The "propper" solution is to get a dry suit.

 

[crispos]

Obviously from your photo, you are an alien Kimmy. That is why you can't get down. If you take human form, you can sink nice and slowly, if you exhale and kick down once your fins get below the water. Have fun.

 

[kimmy]

That's very funny! I'll see what I can do

Thanks for the advice

KImmy

 

[perpet1]

alien........canadian....... saame difference LOL

Just kidding.

 

[JohnCollins]

You sound pretty knowledgeable about what a 7mm suit loses at depth. Do you have any idea how much buoyancy a full body 3mm suit loses from 0-80 ft? I know your guess would be approximate. For sizing, I'm exactly 6 feet tall and 205 lbs.

I dove my new suit the first time last month and needed 16 lbs with a full 3,000 psi AL80 at the start to float at eye-level. I'm guessing that I'll need about 20 lbs to be neutral at 20 ft with 500 psi, but I still have to experiment to fine-tune that. I'd like to know how much buoyancy I'll lose on the suit at depth. Thanks!

Hmmmm. I'm just thinking about this. If you're right about the 10 lbs for a 7mm, a 3mm should lose about 4 and a quarter, shouldn't it? Multiply the 10 lbs by the fraction 3/7? That sounds like it makes sense.

 

[JimC]

I would guess around 4 if I had to. I don't have much experince with a 3mm.

That said 16lbs sounds a bit heavy and 20lbs sounds outright nuts. If you did need 16 with a full AL 80, you'll need 22 to hold it completely empty (about 6lbs of air in an AL80).

I suspect you don't need 16 in a 3mm suit. Cross leggs, cross arms don't hold your breath.

 

[JohnCollins]

I'm not in bad shape, but I'm not in what I'd call prime condition, either. My body fat percentage is higher than it should be, and if I could lose ten pounds I'd be happy, twenty would make me deliriously so. I'm about a 38 waist. This is actually consistent with my past history. Fifteen years ago, 13 floated me at eye-level, and I'm a little thicker now and had to get a larger wetsuit.

I understand your concern, though, which is why I'm trying to figure out how much buoyancy that suit loses at depth. Because until I breat the tank down quite a bit, the buoyancy loss and extra 5 lbs for the air weight puts me near ten lbs overweight at depth, not counting lost buoyancy to the compression on my love handles in addition to the suit (which I have not idea how to calculate).

I do a little cardio and train in karate with my kids. I think I need to do more cardio, get more serious about my diet, and get back to my basement gym. I need to change my BF %, methinks. Get a little "denser" and I don't mean in the head! .

 

[JimC]

Love handles (unfortunatly?) don't compress at depth.

You can't do much about the weight you need to carry to offset the gas you breath over a dive. And you can't do much about wetsuit compresion.

This will leave you overweighted at the start of your dive, and overweighted a lot more at depth. You just need to have the lead, because you need to be neutral at the end of your dive. The best you can do is trim the weight out.


Ofcourse a dry suit takes care of the wetsuit compresion issue and your left with a boyancy swing of only the gas you consume.

 

[pasley]

kimmy once bubbled...
I have been having a problem lately with being weighted properly. I seems now that I can't seem to get down under but once I'm there I feel that I'm overweighted!!! I do weight checks before the dive and there seems to be no problem.
Thanks
Kimmy

Three potential issue to consider.

First, you may be overweighed. This link is to a good article that will help you start in the right ball park.http://www.scubadiving.com/training/instruction/buoycalc/buoycalc.shtml

Second, (and most likely), I have observed this in many new divers and myself (sometimes catch myself still doing it even after 75 dives), you are swimming up (moving your feet around)when trying to go down. It is a kind of fight or flight reaction I guess, my feet automatically start to fin when the water comes past my face and I don't even realize it. Makes it hard to go down when your are swimming up. If you are moving your legs and arms around, you are creating lift. To counter this, take and cross your ankles, or sit cross legged and be perfectly still while descending the first 15 or 20 feet and see if that helps.

Third, you may not have enough weight (hence the problem getting down, and the feeling of being over weighted is the result of the compression of everything and the need to add a little air to the old BC. It is ok to have a little air in the BC at 60 or 100 feet. At 15 feet, you should be neutral with 500 PSI in the tank and no air in the BC, that is the goal. Remember if you are diving an AL tank, it will get lighter as the dive progresses. Your aim is to be neutral at the end of the dive. So you will be a little heavy at the begining of the dive.

You did not mention if you could become neutral with a little air in the BC

Hope this helps.