Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Joe Gourlay wrote:
> My question is this: if your bc gets damaged, and you can't ditch any
> weight, whats to keep you from sinking like a lead brick?
There are many factors to consider, I will give you my present view on the
subject.
I pretty much always dive in a dry suit, so I have buoyancy back up built
into the system right there. The way I dive the two gas spaces (suit and
BC) is with the automatic suit exhaust valve set to its loosest setting,
that reduces the expansion/compression potential of that gas to a minimum,
and the BC filled to compensate only for the gas in the tanks I'm wearing.
100 cu ft of air weighs about 7-8 lbs in the water, if you have double
tanks then it's twice that, and so on. The point is that if I'm diving a
single tank, for example, the most negative I will ever be during the dive
is 7-8 lbs right at the beginning of the dive, because I have weighted
myself, based on previous trial and error, to be neutral with an empty
tank. As the dive progresses, I will get lighter and lighter, back
towards neutral and hence with no need for the BC to keep me floating. As
I said, in my case I have both the suit and the BC for buoyancy, but the
important point to be made here is not to carry too much, nor too little
weight to start with. Not only does it make you a safer diver, it makes
life easier as you have now minimised the amount of buoyancy gas you have
to adjust during the dive due to depth changes etc.
If both my suit and BC fail at the same time then I probably shouldn't be
diving due to a lack of interest in maintaining my gear, but even then I
still have my buddy to drag me up if that is needed.
Egil.
====================================================================
Egil Aabel Naesguthe
Queen's University E-mail: egil@me*.qu*.ca*
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Kingston, ON Phone: +1 613-545 6730
K7L 3N6
Canada Fax: +1 613-545 6489
====================================================================
--
Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]