Jeremy, the only really light ones I have ever seen were those old 90's,
and they are ridiculous. The light Luxfers are the best, but I ahve seen
perfect Catalinas - Casey used to have a fleet of those that were ideal.

If you put the bottle on or it is too heavy, the slowdown is gigantic.
If anything falls below your slipstream at all it is a major slowdown.
With exactly the same effort, I drop 10 seconds per hundred meters
swimming with a pull buoy at normal workout speed by getting my feet up.
If I put on "zoomer" fins, and jut hold my feet dead still ( no
kicking), I drop 15 seconds - that is what drag below the slipstream
does to you diving , as well, and that is why when you see vid of us,
everything is in the slipstream.

The only way I can get those 15 seconds back is to kick hard and swim
hard - a huge increase in effort. It is always easier in the water to
reduce drag than to increase power, since drag increases exponentially
with speed, and then the power required to overcome the drag increases
likewise. With swimming, you can get up on toop of the water for racing,
but in diving, you must deal wtih the water "head on".

It is the same with sound - if you want something louder , get closer,
or else add power exponentially to get an arithmetic increase in sound
at distance. This is why I always get front row seats aat a rock
concert, and I never dive wtih stroke gear. Wearing something like
bondage wings while diving is like watching one of those tractor pulls -
never made much sense to me, when with the same horsepower you could be
runing 200 mph. 




Jeremy Downs wrote:



> 
> G-
> OK stupid question time.
> 
> Could you buy slightly lighter tanks and add some lead tape (the waterproof
> stuff used to balance mag wheels) at proper balance points until you achieve
> ideal weighting?
> 
> It seems like you could dial the weight right in and add perfect trim also.
> I have not tried it but it seems like it would work. It might even be a way
> to salvage some of the crappy lightweight tanks that nobody wants.
> J-
> 
> P.S. I just recieved a couple of Norwegion dive magazines yesterday from a
> gentlemen overthere (BTW thanks Rudolf that wall looks wild) in one of the
> issues was a tank with a screw on base. I could not read the text to find
> out what it was or what they were doing with it. It seemed strange and I was
> wondering what it was for, has anyone seen this before? What would be the
> advantage other than an easy vip or cleaning?
> 
> At 07:10 AM 11/1/97 -0500, G. Irvine wrote:
> >Kent, we have found that they change slightly from issue to issue. We
> >end up having to actually weigh the tanks in a batch before deciding to
> >buy. For aluminum 80's we are shooting for the old Luxfer style. Mine
> >will go neutral at 2000 psi of trimix with the reg and gear on it, which
> >is what I want so if floats in front of me when I am changing stages.
> >This is not what the specs call for. Some of the Catalina's issued in
> >the late 80's are bricks, and the old Walter Kidde's (neutrabuoys) are
> >so heavy that they make great doubles, as do the old Catalinas. A
> >reasonalbe Luxfer will be -3 to +3 empty to full, but the idea is -4 to
> >plus 2, if you can find it for a stage bottle. You wqould not belive the
> >degree to which the wrong stage bottle slows you down.
> >
> > On 104's I have one set that is minus 9 empty with all of the manifold,
> >bands, etc, and another that is minus 7.
> >
> >
> >Kent Lind wrote:
> >>
> >> Jammer Six wrote:
> >>
> >> > What I had hoped to do was to weigh the tanks, full and empty, and work
> >> > backwards, and determine how much air they REALLY hold (as opposed to how
> >> > much air the manufacturers and dive store wizards CLAIM they hold).
> >> >
> >> > It now appears that that is impossible, given the equipment and finances
> >> > available to me.
> >>
> >> Now here's something useful that one of the techie magazines could do.
> >> Measure and publish the actual weights, buoyancy and capacity of all the
> >> tanks out there (at least the common ones) as well as the weight and
> >> buoyancy of the commonly used manifolds and valves.  In the same
> >> article, also dig out all the other tanks questions I hear posted here
> >> from time to time.  e.g., are the new 104s the same as the old 104s, is
> >> the Faber-made ScubaPro 95 the same as the Faber-made OMS 98 etc. etc.
> >> Are you listening Immersed?...SubAqua?
> >>
> >> -Kent-
> >--
> >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
> >Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
> >
> >
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