Too Many of Us Dive With Too Much Weight... A Plea by Paul

    I made this post for the divers at HSD (Hawaii Skin Diver forum) because generally speaking, the HSD group tend to dive shallow, and pile on a lot of weight. I've watched local guys just duck-dive right at the surface and proceed to drop straight to the bottom with no finning. I also put it up on spearboard and was asked to put it up here as well as it may help some of us reconsider our weights for safety reasons and possibly better diving experiences/depths as an end result. Thoughts, experiences and feedback would be appreciated.



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAZ7YgCGznA&hd=1


    A few points/things that have been brought up on the other forums where the above was posted is that:
    1) It really does work.
    2) It is best to remove only a little bit of weight at a time and progress gradually to a lighter or no-weight diving approach. Remove too much and it will be too strange and one will most likely hate it, and write it off. Try for 1 pound of weight removed each time until you find the point of diminishing return and then add one back on if you find you still are wearing a weight belt.
    3) If one ends up acheiving zero-weights, consider having a hydrodynamic pocket sewn on your suit where your belt knife typically goes, and put in a flat knife pouch in there so you're not without your "brain" or emergency cutting knife.
    4) It's not just for yourself, but also your dive partner's sake.


    -Paul

    Great post Paul, The Max I dive with is 12 lbs on a 5mil suit,unless I'm hunting very shallow ( 20') .
    Cheers, Don Paul

    "Great mother ocean brought forth all life, it is my eternal home'' Don Berry from Blue Water Hunters.


    Spearfishing Store the freediving and spearfishing equipment specialists.

    Thanks for posting Paul. I for one used to pile on the weight as diving on our black groupers requires quite a bit of stealth. However, over time, I've learned to gradually use less and focus more on streamlining. I do think there is a tendency from new and novice divers to over do it and South Florida has had its share of blackouts. We do however have to look up once we have covered some water and get into our hunting mode.


    I hope GR (Redtide) reads this thread and comments regarding the weight he uses (or lack thereof). He's a bit of a freak of nature (in more ways than one;)), but that old man dives with almost zero in the summer and a few pounds in the cold of winter with his 5mm suit. But he also has very low body fat. In any event, good discussion and post. Thanks again.


    Rolo

    very good post, and great vid:thumbsup2:
    Some time ago I used alot of lead to dive, since then I have cut my weight in half and my diving has improved significantly. like Rolo said its more about being hydrodynamic and diving without looking at the bottom.

    Yeah, a well-respected spearo on Maui mentioned that he used to dive overweighted and when he tried to go light, he found it to be very difficult. He seemed to expend a lot of energy and it took him forever tg get down there. It wasn't until somebody mentioned that he wasn't dropping vertically. He learned that he had been using his weights as a crutch in getting him to drop vertically. He had to work hard on developing a vertical drop angle and once he did, his diving jumped up several notches. I think he uses 3 or 4 pounds now. :)


    -Paul

    I totally agree 100% The max I dive with in 4.5mm of wetsuit is 10lbs and thats when i'm super positive on the surface. Right now with the 1.5mm that I wear during the summer i wear 8 lbs of weight.

    Quote from Paul

    Yeah, a well-respected spearo on Maui mentioned that he used to dive overweighted and when he tried to go light, he found it to be very difficult. He seemed to expend a lot of energy and it took him forever tg get down there. It wasn't until somebody mentioned that he wasn't dropping vertically. He learned that he had been using his weights as a crutch in getting him to drop vertically. He had to work hard on developing a vertical drop angle and once he did, his diving jumped up several notches. I think he uses 3 or 4 pounds now. :)


    -Paul



    Interesting. I bet my dives aren't vertical as well.


    As for me I wear 17 lbs of lead when I dive less than 20ft. But I'm sporting a 7mm long john bottom, a 5mm top, and a fat ass.

    i dive weight-less(my gear is about 3 pounds, no wetsuit just boardshorts) right now because thats the way I learned it and didnt have weights/belt. with POS fins I was doing 50' easily, im going to try unweighted and weighted this week in the keys and see what results I come up with. as a frequent beachdiver I try to keep gear to a minimum.

    I'm Fat, so I need the weights. But I'll give it a shot. If I ever get back in the water!!

    hi guys , I just came back from cuba. and had an interesting experience with the weigh thing. I went to the south coast , it took me forever to get the permits and stuff to go there. i didn't have much gear , just fins and a gun. so i had to ask some friends for it. I didn't ask for a belt. so a friend who went with me told me we would take turns , I declined and off we went. we started on shore at about 20 100 meters away we were at 50 ant from there it got deeper. i had a very hard time getting to the bottom because I find i float a lot. I was wearing only my underwear. at one point we were at about 60 to 70 ft . and he shows me a hog. I breath up and go down . stop kicking at about 50 but still float up . so i keep kicking slowly untill i hit the bottom. stay there for abou 20 seconds and start to come up . i only had to kick 3 or 4 times. and was rocketing up. i didn't feel confortable at all and once i reached the surface I was dizzy. 10 more seconds and it would be a samba..... so my point is . coming p without weight is very very fast and save. but it takes a lot of energy to get there and move to much to hunt a fish from the surface. so I guess that my next move will be to eliminate some weigh from the belt to see where my confort zone is.
    I was watching my friend go down and I tell you he can dive very deep but he is using a lot of weigh . he does look down on the descent. I told him not to . we went deeper to 100 ft but I didn't try without weigh . let's see what happens next. I'm up for less gear and an easier ascent.

    My deepest dives are without weight, but without wetsuit too.


    I normally don't wear too much weight, but I can't dive shallow. Whe my friends want to try shallow spots, I stay in the boat.


    It is really a matter of depth. The deeper you dive, the less weight you need.

    Marco Melis

    A bad day fishing is ALWAYS better than a good day at work.

    This is me laying in wait at a tuna wall drop off 25 years ago. The suit is 5mil and my custom (still use today) shot wt belt with 11lbs. Light is nice.:D
    Cheers, Don


    Image by J.Malone

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