Weighting with Pony?

[CA Wreck Diver]

With all the recent threads regarding pony bottles and looking into getting one myself, I am wondering about weighting while diving with a pony.

Do you adjust the weight on your belt so that you are neutral with the pony? Or...Do you leave the weight on your belt unchanged meaning you are slightly more negetive than usual?

Adjusting your weighting to be neutral with the pony would leave you slightly to buoyant in a situation where you hand off the pony to a OOA buddy. But diving overweighted can also be risky. I may have just answered my own question and this may be covered in my up coming wreck class, but I am still very interested in the opinions of the board.

 

[matt_unique]

With all the recent threads regarding pony bottles and looking into getting one myself, I am wondering about weighting while diving with a pony.

Do you adjust the weight on your belt so that you are neutral with the pony? Or...Do you leave the weight on your belt unchanged meaning you are slightly more negetive than usual?

Adjusting your weighting to be neutral with the pony would leave you slightly to buoyant in a situation where you hand off the pony to a OOA buddy. But diving overweighted can also be risky. I may have just answered my own question and this may be covered in my up coming wreck class, but I am still very interested in the opinions of the board.

If you plan to sling and hand off your pony I would opt to be trimmed without pony. Then just deal with the slight increase in weight when pony is added. When you cannot be properly trimmed (as would be the case if you plan to hand off your pony), it is always better to be slightly heavy than slightly light. If you choose to hard mount the pony, reduce your weight so you are trimmed to your liking with the pony as part of your system.

I hard mount my pony, upside down, with it's own SPG.

--Matt

 

[DepartureDiver]

Do you adjust the weight on your belt so that you are neutral with the pony? Or...Do you leave the weight on your belt unchanged meaning you are slightly more negetive than usual?

Adjusting your weighting to be neutral with the pony would leave you slightly to buoyant in a situation where you hand off the pony to a OOA buddy. But diving overweighted can also be risky. I may have just answered my own question and this may be covered in my up coming wreck class, but I am still very interested in the opinions of the board.

This may sound silly, but you are properly weighted when you can stay under, yet always be able to reach the surface .. which includes a BCD failure. In general, you would not need to change your weight. But follow what your instructor says to do and keep doing what you're doing now ... reading and educating yourself. My personal recommendation is to consider slinging your pony.

 

[Snowbear]

Of course you plan to never use the gas in the pony
But "just in case" you ever do - how positively buoyant will that pony make you when your main tank is completely empty (why you have the pony, right?) and your pony is nearly empty?

 

[RICHinNC]

And dont forget the weight of the mount...depending on the mount. I use the Ponease mount and it compensates for a couple pounds of lead.

 

[TX101]

If you plan to sling and hand off your pony I would opt to be trimmed without pony. Then just deal with the slight increase in weight when pony is added. When you cannot be properly trimmed (as would be the case if you plan to hand off your pony), it is always better to be slightly heavy than slightly light. If you choose to hard mount the pony, reduce your weight so you are trimmed to your liking with the pony as part of your system.

I hard mount my pony, upside down, with it's own SPG.

--Matt

Firstly, you seem to be using trim and weight interchangably (alot of people on this board seem to do the same thing). I believe trim & weight are two seperate things (although weight *positioning* can affect trim), someone correct me if Im wrong.

As to the original question.. I would weight myself without a pony if you ever think you will be handing it off. Yes, this means you will be heavy.

An additional question for the group: If you are going to weight yourself with a pony, should you do it with the pony empty or full?

 

[cdennyb]

I have a set of twin 80 alums and a small 13 cu ft argon inflator for the dry suit. I dropped the pres int he twins to 300# and the aRGON BOTTLE TO 500#, THEN dropped the whole mess in the pool to see what the weight was that I had to add to sink it ever so slightly.
I use a 30 cu ft bottle for deco and sling it. I then got all suited up, hung on everything I had, light, deco bottle, same kinda empty tank combo and then added weight until I was negative. I let go of the deco bottle and watched what happened. I got light...so I added a little more weight to sink. That's it.
db

 

[rjchandler]

and add weight for the reg on the pony too. with a pony you prolly get only a 1.5 -2 lb weight change when empty. I figure my 19cu ft withe reg on it aand bolt snaps at 4# and use it as part of my weight.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

A 30 cu ft aluminum pony is 1 pound negative when full and a bit over 1 pound positive when empty. When you add the weight of the regulator, the mounting hardware (either back mounted or slung) and maybe even an SPG if it is slung, a 30 cu ft pony is still going to be negative even if empty.

If it is back mounted, you can probably drop a pound or two in weight. If it is slung you probably don't want to adjust your weight at all in the event you do hand it off, but you may want to move a pound or so of weight to the opposite side to aide the trim situation a bit.

 

[matt_unique]

Firstly, you seem to be using trim and weight interchangably (alot of people on this board seem to do the same thing). I believe trim & weight are two seperate things (although weight *positioning* can affect trim), someone correct me if Im wrong.

As to the original question.. I would weight myself without a pony if you ever think you will be handing it off. Yes, this means you will be heavy.

An additional question for the group: If you are going to weight yourself with a pony, should you do it with the pony empty or full?

The difference between trim and weight is your choice of placement. If you have the correct weight you obviously don't want to add weight just for the purposes of trim so you adjust the placement of your weight to trim your "system".

--Matt