My new rig (BP/W)

TTU_Reefer said:
Il have photos of it on me in mexico soon!!!

30# wing seems so small...im a big solid guy....if I drown because I cant ditch my weights, seajay expect alot of haunting in your near future ;) jk
Click to expand...

Heh. :)

I understand about your wing concerns. Keep in mind, though, that you're not looking for a total of 30 pounds of bouyancy - you're looking for 30 pounds of bouyancy over what you already have... That is, 30 pounds of ADJUSTABLE bouyancy.

Weight yourself correctly first. Once you have that nailed, then an additional 30 pounds of adjustable bouyancy will be huge... Much more so than someone who's 30 pounds overweighted and then swimming with a 40 or 50 pound bladder, effectively with only 10 or 20 pounds of lift available to him. If you start at neutral (zero) to begin with, you'll be dramatically better off, with less gear and better streamlining and a whole lot less trim problems.

Have you dived the rig yet? Where's the pics of the rig with the second cam band? :)
 
just got home from mexico last night. expect surface pictures the second walgreens in done(didnt want to bring my digital cam on the tiny boat).

did a 81fsw wreck dive with a wicked current, beautiful 90+ft viz, 25+ spotted eagle rays, dove a steel 120 (with my SS back plate and #30 wing) more on all this equiptment config later

Also did a shallow dive right after, where I saw a 10ft great hammerhead in 30fsw...yeah :)

LOVED the BP/W, Il never dive a BC again. at the bottom I was neutral and could adjust my trim with lungs and swimming up and down. truly felt like a fish...

stand by
 
My gas consumption was crap though, did 27min at 81ft max, avg 75fsw. On a 120 cf steel tank. Started up the ascent line with 1100 psi, ended with 800 psi. What is the formula again? thanks be back tonight for details of rig

Oh and weight with the steel 120 was scary, obviously no extra lead and I sunk like a rock, but the wing was plenty for it.
 
Yeah, typically steels work better for drysuits than wetsuits - often a steel will overweight you a bit, which it sounds like you were.

Steels also place a lot of weight waaaay back behind the diver - which can be good, and it can not be good - it depends on what you need.

The formula that you're talking about - I assume you're talking about weighting:

1. Empty or near-empty tank. 500 psi or less is fine.
2. All of the gear that you're planning on diving.
3. Totally empty wing.
4. Completely full lungs (all the way). Hold it (fine, so long as you're on the surface).
5. Stop moving completely. Float head-up at the surface, and look at the horizon.

The water should EXACTLY bisect your mask. That is, you should be looking dead-on at the line made by the water's surface.

Add or subtract weight to make this happen.

...That'll get your weighting right, for proper bouyancy. That's a HUGE start. :)

Keep in mind that the amount of weight that you'll need will be different in salt water than it is in fresh water - in other words, if you do this exercise in a pool, you'll be off in the ocean. If you do the exercise in the ocean, you'll be off in a lake or quarry. The difference is about 3% of your total weight - around 6 pounds - but to nail it, do the exercise in both environments, and every time you change gear or exposure protection.

Next, you'll want to trim properly. That's a whole other exercise. :)

Congratulations in taking the first major step toward better diving - since you're new enough to not yet have learned any bad habits from crappy gear, you're gonna be a very experienced and professional diver earlier than most people. :)

After diving your rig a couple dozen times and really tuning it in nicely, you'll get a real kick out of diving a BC again... My thoughts when I did this were, "How do people diving with this freakin' thing?" :)
 
what equipment are you buying next? (i feel like i have some part in buying everything.) haha.

i cant wait for pictures.
 
Ah, yes... "Rock Bottom." That's the calculation that you're looking for. :) It sounded like you were asking that, but since we've never talked about that before, I wasn't sure. :)

I think you're speaking of an article that I wrote in 2006 that was published in a variety of places, including in the library at DIR Explorers: http://www.direxplorers.com/new-dir-articles/1376-rock-bottom.html

I don't know your Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate, but back on the line with 1100 and at the surface with 800 psi was a really good call. That's very safe!

If you do the calculations (you're going to need some data for this - average depth, dive runtime and cuft consumed to correctly predict your SAC rate - many dive computers do this automatically) you may find that you're STILL cutting it too close... You did, after all, say that your SAC rate was very high. I suspect that as you dive more, your SAC rate will fall to a respectable level of .5 or lower... Especially as you nail both weighting (bouyancy) and placement of weights (trim).

In short, I always recommend to intermmediate divers to use a Rock Bottom of 750 psi for 3 ATAs or less (66 ft) average depth, 1000 psi for up to 5 ATAs (130 ft) average depth, or switch to the "Rule of Thirds" (1/3 of your gas for going IN, 1/3 or your gas for going OUT, and 1/3 in reserve) for anything more (which is practically the same thing in most cases) - for any kind of penetration diving. Less experienced divers should dive even more conservatively.

...Which is to say that if you, as a beginning diver with a new rig were diving to 80+ feet (more than three, but less than four ATAs), you did great being on the line with 1100 and surfacing with 800. :)

Next time you do a dive like this, try this for a skill builder (which will do amazing things for you later - you just don't know it yet): Be back on the line at 1000 psi - no more, no less. Then ascend to 40 feet (at your regular 30 ft/min) and hang there for one minute. Hang at 30' for two minutes. Hang at 20' for four, then 10' for eight. Take 1 minute to do each of the 10' ascents.

That is, stop for one minute at 40', then go to your next "stop" and double the time each time. Take 1 minute to do each 10' ascent.

Watch your SPG during this time (it'll give you something to do) and see what happens.

The objective will be to complete the stops and end up with 500 psi when you break the surface. :)

By the way... Welcome to "tech" diving - you've just completed a series of decompression stops. :) Yes, that's really all there is to it.

...But by doing this exercise, you'll start to think like a "tech" diver - and begin to manage your gas consumption like a "tech" diver does. :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for that post, your wealth of information is so helpful.

I had the ATA break downs written in my log book, and I attempted to do a gas plan but desided to just do 1/3rds because I wasnt sure of the math with the 120(opposed to an 80cf). On the line I did, 1100 on the line, 1min at 55ft, 1 min at 40ft, 1 min at 25(got stuck behind a diver),4 min at 18ft, surface with 800psi. (120cf tank)

btw on the line it was hard enough to even stay on it, current was nuts. Between checking my computer and deflating my wing I had a hard time holding on!!

R1-14ASM.jpg


David will appreciate the hand gesture. My back up reg hose was all jacked up over my arm however. This is a shallow dive we did. I got more pics of just the rig to come!
 
Last edited:
no, still shopping...i like mine so its hard for me to justify spending on it...but I loved yours..so I might pick one up sometime soon.
 
if you would have mentioned it, i didnt use it over spring break. (i was building fences in East Texas..........) you could have taken it with you and given it a trial run. just to see if you like it or not.

too late now. (maybe later.)
 
TTU_Reefer said:
Thanks for that post, your wealth of information is so helpful.
Click to expand...

Yeah, man... My pleasure! :)

I had the ATA break downs written in my log book, and I attempted to do a gas plan but desided to just do 1/3rds because I wasnt sure of the math with the 120(opposed to an 80cf). On the line I did, 1100 on the line, 1min at 55ft, 1 min at 40ft, 1 min at 25(got stuck behind a diver),4 min at 18ft, surface with 800psi. (120cf tank)
Click to expand...

Wow... That's great... Great minds think alike, hunh? :) Sounds like you're already doing a series of stages... Or at least thinking along those lines. That's great - if you think along those lines, more advanced forms of diving will come to you with ease, 'cause you'll already be there mentally. :)

The idea behind the staged decompression isn't to necessarily hold a certain stop for a certain amount of time - the idea is to overall, flatten out the "checkmark."

If you graph your dive as depth (y axis) over time (x axis), every dive you do should look like a big check mark - or a Nike swoosh. It should plummet to depth in the beginning, and then slowly come back up as you ascend. The shallower you get, the slower you should ascend, effectively "flattening" the tail of the swoosh. :) In many cases, the ascent rate is so slow (inches per minute) that for all practical purposes, it just makes more sense to stop at a given depth and stay there a while... A "decompression stop."

The flatter the "tail" of the swoosh, the safer you are. While that's a dramatic oversimplification, it's also pretty accurate. :)

The longer you stay down or the deeper you go, the more important it is to flatten the tail of the swoosh. Does that make sense?

In effect, there is no limit as to how big you can make the check mark... That is, there are no depth or time limitations, so long as you have enough gas to breathe (which employs gas management - what you're starting to learn now), the appropriate gas for that depth, and of course, so long as you can flatten the tail of the swoosh appropriately.

In effect, what I've just told you is that there's no such thing as NDLs. An NDL, or a "no decompression limit" is a made-up term by an agency that is looking to shortcut your dive education and avoid teaching you gas management. In effect, if they teach you that there's a limitation to depth and/or time, then they don't have to teach you how to calculate how much gas you're going to need during your ascent (which may be extended by stops at certain depths) or risk that you may make a mistake in the calculation (a possibly fatal mistake).

Embracing gas management and learning it and mastering it, you will be a dramatically better diver, able to dive to depths with runtimes that other divers only dream about - or are convinced are impossible.

btw on the line it was hard enough to even stay on it, current was nuts. Between checking my computer and deflating my wing I had a hard time holding on!!
Click to expand...

I can understand that - sometimes the environment can be challenging. Some people are thrilled by the challenge, while others choose to dive only on those days where the conditions are better. Which of these schools of thought you choose is totally up to you, and may change from day to day. :)

There's a couple of things I like to do in order to protect myself against current - you may or may not already be doing these things... But just in case, there's a couple of ways to meet the challenge of ripping current on your ascent:

1. Prone position. Back arched, abs stretched, shoulders, hips and knees parallel with the horizon. A backplate and wing is amazingly streamlined, and if you're in a totally horizontal position, current's got nothing to push on but the top of your head and shoulders. This alleviates a lot of strain.

2. Tuck everything. Put away lights, reels, bottles, etc. Nothing should be left to dangle in the current. The butt D-ring is great for this, as it's a very streamlined place... As is the area beneath each armpit.

3. Hold on. Yeah, it's great being able to ascend without touching anything... A great skill to practice, and a great skill to posess. Sometimes, though, it makes more sense to hold onto the anchor line rather than use all of your gas breathing hard while trying to resist the current. With everything put away and tucked, you should have both hands free... Use one hand (all it takes is a finger or two if you're really streamlined) and then the other to keep from getting tired. Trim your buoyancy and check your SPG when holding onto an upline with your right hand and check your gauges (on right wrist) when you're holding onto an upline with your left hand. Avoid the "Jon Line" or "Jersey Line" mentality. Using something like that creates a diver that is more gear-dependent than skill dependent, and forces the diver to utilize yet another piece of task-specific gear that he's got to carry around with him the entire dive... Like he doesn't already have enough gear to worry about! :)

4. Plan the dive differently next time. If you're doing a series of consistent dives in heavy current, communicate with the boat captain that you're going to shoot a bag at the beginning of your ascent (a great skill to have) and do an ascent on that, rather than on an anchor line. Once he sees the bag surface, he should put a mooring bouy on his anchor line and drop it where it is and drift with your bag. This effectively "turns off" the current and allows you to decompress in much calmer conditions. In some cases, a boat captain may find that his boat is blown by the wind in a different direction than you (and your bag) drift, but it's comparatively easy for him to stay with you, rather than the other way around.

Once you and your team are back aboard the vessel, you and the captain can go back and retrieve the bouy and anchor. He should not be messin' around with it when he sees your bag pop to the surface.

Awesome picture, by the way... I'm sure on that day I was diving in some cold, whipping current in near zero vis, so... I'm jealous. :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top