Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
CaptnDale@ao*.co* wrote: > > Questions: > > > > Assuming you are diving with dry suit and wings, and are weighted > correctly, under what conditions would you drop weights? > > > > Under those conditions would a 5 lb increase in buoyancy be of > > much value? How about a 1 1/2 pound increase? Einar responded: > I agree to a certain extent with the statement above, but i can think of a > situation where the ditching of gear would be an option. Wing failure, > and boyancy problems at the surface. 2.5 pounds seems to be not > enough in this scenario, though. Maybe better to sink everything. > > During the dive though, ditching of gear is a last resort, and the light > is easily accessible, and gives you a better chance of reaching the > surface than if you keep everything on. I'm with Dale: I really don't get all this talk about ditching lights. Besides, what are you guys doing with $800 lights if you don't have a proper drysuit. I dive with a canister light but I really can't come up with a single scenario where ditching the light underwater is going to be useful to me. If I'm having a total cluster on the surface then I'm probably going to ditch my entire rig but not before putting a lift bag on it if I can. I dive cold ocean water with a DUI drysuit, steel 95s or 85s with aluminum stages, SS backplate with Halcyon 65 lb wings and no weight belt. On serious dives I carry a Carter's lift bag and an OMS 65 lb SMB. Given that I am properly weighted, what are the possible buoyancy failure scenarios? I can come up with the following: CATASTROPHIC DRYSUIT FAILURE: In the unlikely event that I totally blow out my drysuit zipper and completely flood the drysuit I know the following: (1) Without my gear I'll still be somewhat buoyant because my thinsulite underwear remains slightly buoyant when wet. Water is obviously neutral in water so no matter how flooded my drysuit is, I'll still be no worse than neutral without my gear. (2) My wings are more than adequate to completely float my entire rig. I know this because they provide more than enough buouyancy to completely float my rig on the surface with full tanks. Therefore, a catastrophic drysuit failure doesn't require any ditching of gear to gain buoyancy. TOTAL WING FAILURE: In the unlikely event that I have a total wing failure I know that my drysuit can provide enough buoyancy to attain neutral buoyancy underwater. How do I know this? I have tested it. I've drained all the gas out of my wings with full tanks just to see if my drysuit provides enough buoyancy to be neutral at depth. No problem at all. To keep that my gas in your drysuit will swimming it is useful to close the auto-deflate valve so that you don't keep accidently dumping gas. But if your rig is properly balanced you should have no real problem attaining neutral buoyancy with your drysuit alone. If you can't do this your rig is probably not balanced correctly or you are using much too large of tanks. Have you guys tried this? TOTAL FAILURE OF BOTH DRYSUIT AND WINGS: Well, I'm not sure how this is going to happen. But there are 2 scenarios: (1) If my tanks are full and the problem is that I've ripped my gear to shreds then I obviously have plenty of gas to deal with the problem in a deliberate manner. First thing I would do if I cannot swim to the surface on my fins alone (which I probably can do given that I know I can easily get 25 lbs or more lift out of my jet fins alone) would be to pull out a lift bag and clip it off to my chest d-ring and get neutral that way. Either one of my 2 lift bags is more than enough to float me given that they both provide equal or greater lift than my wings. Ascending using a lift bag is probably fairly tricky. But I've raised enough objects with lift bags to think I can probably do it to myself. If I lose one lift bag I still have the backup with is tucked into my Halcyon backplate pocket where it will never be lost. (2) If the reason I have no drysuit or wings inflation is that I'm out of both argon and back gas then my rig is going to be pretty light meaning that swimming to the surface on fins should not be difficult as I should be close to neutral. If I've had some sort of massive cluster that has resulted in my tanks actually getting filled with water (like that accident in South Africa) then the correct response is ditch the entire damn rig. It's doing you no good anyway if you have no gas and your tanks are full of water. About the only scenairo I can come up with is a blue water dive where you jump off the boat with your wings deflated and tanks turned off and your drysuit disconnected or some such shit and you start sinking with no ability to inflate. Under that scenario the correct response would seem to be turning your tanks on rather than trying to get your light off. Afterall, the the more immediate need is getting breathing gas. But assuming I was stupid enough to jump off a boat with wings deflated, valves turned off, and no drysuit inflation. AND, I was unable to get my valves turned on *OR* gain the surface by swimming. Then I'm not going to be fooling around with ditching a light, my entire rig is coming off over my head NOW or I'm probably going to be dead anyway. Am I missing something obvious here? You guys tell me when its the proper time to ditch a light. Kent Lind Juneau, Alaska -- 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]