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OK Al, lets talk about reasons to dump your weightbelt and bolting to the surface. When you techdive this is a mindset that you have to get rid of. You are abandoning your safety-net of bolting to the surface as an option. You have to equip yourself to deal with the problem at the bottom. To do this you equip yourself with redundant, high quality, well maintained equipment and use an effective buddy team. This does not scare me. What does scare me is having a 30min 20ft stop obligation and having to hold on to an anchorline for dear life because your stupid weight belt fell off. I maintain that you are figuring on, perhaps counting on that bolt for the surface as your last ditch grasp at life. This is a bad option as you can die from bends and embolisms. And no, you don't need a PFO to embolise. Let's look at airplanes vs. helicopters. Airplanes can be equipped with an ejector seat. Helicopters can't due to that rather large whirling blade directly over the cockpit. Why do pilots fly helicopters then? Because they have alternative plans when the shit hits the fan, but ejecting is not one of them. Same with techdiving. Dropping a weightbelt will not save your life. Perhaps make your body recoverable but that's about it. Jim ------------------------------------------------------------------- Learn About Trimix at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/ > From: Al Marvelli <ajmarve@ba*.ne*> > Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 23:23:33 -0400 > To: Jim Cobb <cobber@ci*.co*> > Cc: Tech Diver <techdiver@aquanaut.com> > Subject: Re: Making sure this dead horse is thoroughly beaten (wasRe: > Computers WAS Re: Oxygen Toxicity - using 100% in open water) > > Jim, > > rec,tech or smeck, if you are completely out of gas you GO UP. Up is where you > can > breathe, and when you are out of gas you will want to be there as fast as > possible. > cmon this cant be so hard to understand. > > If you need to you can either get more gas< and a watchful eye> and go back > down or > you get on the boat and wait for redemption or the USCG Dalphine/helo. > > NOw the issue of weighting vs overweighting is a seperate one, if you are > doing it > right or correctly or compton style or whatever the hell its called this week, > you > are not overweighted, you are balanced. I understand balanced as weighted so > that at > the end of the dive you have enuff the weight to compensate for the lost gas, > but > not so much that you require extra floation to hold a stop, or just be > neutral. If > you are at or near neutral at the surface, then at depth losing the belt is no > great > problem. If you are paying attention to the belt, its a non issue. if you can > not > dive a weiht belt, you dont need to be using doubles or bolting weight to > yourelf, > you need to lean how to use that belt, preferrably in shallow water. > > I see this as the fundametal difference between us, i prefer skills to > equipment for > problem solving. You are free to hold a diffenet opinion, butyou have not > convinced > me to change mine yet. > > If you need to you shold be able to get rid of this weight; again please > explain to > me what one is supposed to do if they cannot and they are out of gas or do not > have > the necessary redundancy. Cannister lights are great, but again if we are > discussing > the open water diver we are most likely not discussing a cannister lite, and > you > were giving advice to people who were going to mount p weights to backplates > in > addition to hard mounting their lights to their plates on single tanks; not > very > smart on their part imho. > > And arent the people who embolize from just going up the ones with pfo's? the > ones > who shouldnt be diving to begin with?besides we are not talking about this as > a > standard practice but rather as an emergency procedure. If you this more than > twice > when its not practice, you need more instruction or more practice. > > > btw the w/e diving wasnt bad, scootered the San Diego on sat, lizzie D and > mistletoe > on sun, 2 ft seas both days.Not exactly the bmf, but it will do for now. > > rgds, > > Al Marvelli > > Jim Cobb wrote: > >> Al, I can't imagine any scenario either rec or tech were dropping a weight >> belt and rocketing to the surface does a diver any good. If you get yourself >> neutral where you can do a controlled swimming ascent to the surface you are >> better off. You don't need to be in deco to die of an embolism. Many people >> dive way over-weighted because it is so easy to add a bunch of weight to a >> weight belt. >> >> Not using a weight belt forces a diver to get his buoyancy right for a >> particular type of diving. In my case I always take my canister light, this >> suffices for me. In a tech scenario you need the extra weight with AL >> doubles and a wetsuit due to their buoyancy characteristics. Even in this >> situation you use just enough weight to be neutral, not a ton so you rocket >> to the surface at the slightest difficulty. >> >> Jim >> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Learn About Trimix at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/ > -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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