The more I listen to you- The better I understand just how low quality my first dive instructor was.

TOP TIP: when you have one of those dives where your trim is great, take a pic of your gear after you surface! A picture says a thousands words! (from the height of your cyl on you bcd, to the position of your trim weights, the accessories you carried, you name it, a picture helps you work out later why that dive "worked" and allows you to try to recreate it! (and like wise, if you have a dive where your trim is terrible, you surface and find you've accidentally slid you cyl 4 inches too high on your bcd, take a pic of that too, labelled "DONT DO THIS AGAIN" ! :-)

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Hello Max Torque, thanks for sharing.

Sorry James, please think about it ("Step 5" @ 8:38 - 8:55): why would a steel tank behave relatively differently than an aluminum tank? Also the 12 liter steel tank is 2.16 kg (about 3.5 lb.) lighter after deflation from 200 to 50 bar, same as the aluminum tank., believe me ;-). This means that the relative density remains constant! (I'm only talking about the compensation for gas consumption!) In my opinion, it would be best to do the procedure you describe, but with 50 bar in the tank (or all tanks), whether it's steel or aluminum and THEN add another .5 kg weight (to ensure not loosing control of neutral buoyancy in an emergency situation, where you have to go under 50 bar at the end of your dive - i.e. unplanned security stop, or helping another diver - don't missunderstand me, going less than 50 bar should never happen of course, but it happens!) After all, how much additional weight you have to take with you only depends on HOW MUCH gas you take with you (i.e. Sidemount in addition...). But with testing@50 bar and having THEN the exact amount of lead you don't have to think about more lead, because the additional weight needed then will be within your full cilinder(s)! So my take on this is that every diver needs to compensate for their gas consumption, even when using steel cylinders of course, and this is not a question of tech diving or any other sophisticated approach.

Diving is about safety, experience, training and bottom time.. Logging your dives and important info can definitely make you better..Wet suits, drysuits , drysuit underwear, single or double manifolded steel and aluminum tanks, extra gear such as lights,speargun, goody bags,reels,lift bags,and up lines also add to the mix. So enjoy the adventure, join a good dive club with like minded and experience minded members, continue training and dive as much as you can.And always remember, the dive is not over until you are back on the boat..Safe diving

Excellent info. Thank you for your time and effort to share from your experience 😊

Thanks, great tips, this answers many questions i had.

Just came back to look at a "library" video; one comment I have, I found weights are (a lot of times) not the exact weight they have stamped on them. I have two, 10lb weights, one is actually 9lbs 14oz, and the other is 10lbs 6oz. That is a half pound difference and when one is working weighting down to min, that will make a difference in maintaining level. I found that actually weighing all my lead, then using 2oz pencil leads (fishing) to equalize my weighting, between sides. I am 230lbs myself and use less than 29 lbs total lead, drysuit diving with a steel hp 100cu.

Awesome to see James here. So straight forward teachings. Thank you!

Excellent video...thank you

Excellent information. Thank you James. Regards from South Africa.

Ok James, so you were reading my mind I guess. I’m a new diver, and I’ve had a lot of questions about this. You answered them all! Thank you for sharing your expertise!

Another awesome video!!!!!

I have a buddy who likes few extra pounds of lead. He just got a nickname. Thank you James

Awesome video!!!

Thanks for that

Very good points and good explanations: THANKS! One more extra component to think about and this is a relatively large camera gear (if you use one under water). My experience is, that being slightly negatively buoyant while filming helps my stability under water (in particular if the currents are stronger than ideal). Best, Paul

Great video

Lots of info in that video, good luck. Mate! :)

Thanks for making videos !

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Hello osamah2131, thanks for watching.

Great info thanks James. I think you touched in this but - good weighting - and weight ‘management’ during a dive is also influenced by the divers ‘breath management’ (or how well they influence their buoyancy through their breathing). Nervous, hyper divers breathing hard on the surface can find it hard to descend without ‘extra’ lead. Manage/control breathing and weighting can be streamlined

Can't believe all this time I forgot to press that bell icon :))

Suggestion: Once you've correctly dialed in your weight for a dive, record it someplace (dive log?). What's top of mind that day will fade over time. Also be sure to note your gear set up for that dive. If you have different gear for a future dive, your weight requirement will possibly change and you need to note that set up and weight as well.

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Great suggestion!

@seikibrian8641

2 жыл бұрын

In addition to changes based on gear, there will also be a difference between fresh water and salt water as noted in the video, so that should be recorded as well.

@RCAirogrip

5 ай бұрын

my dive logs are so useful as I change which suit I use depending on the temperature throughout the year. All I have to do is check my log from the previous year using a particular suit and I´m ready to go.

Air weighs .0807 lbs per cubic foot. Assume a 3000 psi AL80. At your safety stop you would be 2500 psi of air lighter. That equates to 2500psi/3000psi x 77.4 cf = 64.5 cf of air. Air weighs 0.0807 lbs/cf. Therefore you used .0807 lbs/cf x 64.5cf = 5.21 lbs of air If you do your test with a full tank you must add 5.21lbs of lead for an AL80 tank to be neutral at the surface at the end of your dive. If you add only 2 lbs as you stated you would be underweighted by 3lbs. Similarly for an HP100 steel tank: (air used = 3442psi - 500psi = 2942 psi) 2942psi/3442psi x 100cf = 85.5cf .0807lbs/cf x 85.5cf = 6.90 lbs of air. You must add 6.90 lbs of lead to be neutral at the surface at the end of your dive. If you did it your way, you would be 7 pounds light! You're gonna rocket up! I think you just Alec Peirce'd yourself.

@ELAMINHamid

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the tip bro, good one indeed..

@adam211086

3 жыл бұрын

Generally James has some really good advice, but when he said be neutrally buoyant at the start and your good for steel cylinder, I nearly fell over. Good luck holding a safety stop 7lbs or (3kg for us Brits) under weighted.

factors to note. water density also is a factor. depending on many factors the water may be more or less dense.

Great video as always! One thing I want to add is, the placement of your weights is almost as important as the amount. 2Kg in the wrong place can break your dive, even if it's the right amount.

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the info!

Amazing video 🤙🏼

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you 🙌

great tips, James thanks! (I try to use lead bags, not blocks in my BCD), one friend of mine drop a lead block on her toes, braking 2 toes and scrapping her diving vacation….. :-( Record weighting in your Dive-Log, so it's easyer to fine tune you weight….

@ScubaDiverMagazine

4 жыл бұрын

That sounds painful :(

Just wanted to share a tip that helps me dial in my BCD perfectly I've done a video on how to operate your PCD two of them on my channel Keith Robinson, hate to drop that here but it might be useful for some of your folks to go and watch it during the course of that first of those two videos I cover the fact that a lot of people have problems finding their perfect balance in the water they're perfect weight distribution they're perfect buoyancy balance and buoyancy are two different things if you've got too much weight on your feet say and it keeps lifting your head up you may find yourself climbing back to the surface without meaning to too much weight high on your body and you may find yourself diving without really noticing. But all that aside I find the easiest way to figure out my balance is to select my weight fill my BCD get in the water and then use the fill valve that connects to my tank disconnect that and slowly release Air through it because if you're just going to push the button on your BCD to release Air it's going to release a lot of air fairly quickly and it seems no matter how light it touch you give it a lot of times it's just too much air being released same with touching the fill valve a lot of times that's just too much air being put into the vest to really give you the perfect neutral buoyancy that most divers want, so what I do is fill my BCD get into the water then disconnect the fill hose and use that valve it turns out that valve has the smallest egg treat or exit hole to take in or give out air which means if I'm going to add air it's coming in under pressure so you won't notice that it's letting in the least amount of air it'll seem about the same but when you're letting air out and it's disconnected you will notice that it lets out very little air at once in fact in my video I demonstrate this it is in fact the most precise release valve that you have! Yet most people don't consider it such or use it as that but a lot of pro divers will simply fill their vest disconnect the fill holes fine-tune their weight no fine-tune their buoyancy once you have that right even if you're carrying a fair bit of weight you can dial that in perfect the problem is using traditional fill valve and release valve you either letting in too much or letting out too much and a lot of guys struggle to find their ideal buoyancy because of it I find letting out the tiniest little bit of air with that release valve is very difficult to do and with the dump valve it's impossible but as soon as you disconnect that fill hose you're in danger because you're no longer able to fill your BCD in an emergency so the idea is do this shallow figure out your neutral buoyancy and then hook up the cable again as you're going down it's okay to release a little bit more when you're diving so just use your standard release valve for that but once you're down and you want to come back up the same applies it's okay to use the fill line because adding more air is only going to make you come up a little faster which usually isn't that big a deal but achieving perfect neutral buoyancy in the water is very difficult if all you want to do is go down or come up that's easy but if you want to hover along the bottom or hold a very particular altitude and maintain it perfect buoyancy is very very important, it'll also help you to keep your energy expenditure low and your oxygen consumption low.

Thank you. I just got a new BCD and was wondering what steps should I take to check weight properly.

@ScubaDiverMagazine

Жыл бұрын

The best way is to find plenty of time with a buddy in shallow water. Wearing all of your normal dive gear and a near-empty cylinder to simulate the end of a dive and the most buoyant your cylinder is going to be. Empty your BCD and Drysuit and see if you can hover just under the surface without floating or sinking. If you find yourself sinking then you're carrying too much lead. Pass a block of lead to your buddy and reassess your buoyancy. And when you're with your buddy they can help you with your trim position and whether moving lead from your weightbelt higher would help you stay flat in the water.

So I’ve only done 18 dives so far and I’ve had a lot of problems with achieving / maintaining neutral buoyancy. It makes me gulp as I try to stay where I am. It’s just stupid, some days I dive perfectly with 7kg but on the last few dives they have given me twice that then bollocked me for using too much air. Is this a good plan? Buy all my own kit, get a freshwater weighting assessment with the local club or at Lake Garda and get the same assessment when I go to Tenerife for my expert training / exam?

At around 8:12-14: Cross your legs. I think you've just proposed a solution for what can be an almost autonomic action.

Question on checking your weight at the end of a dive, at the 5m safety stop shouldn't you do this without any air in your BCD? if you sink, you're to heavy and vice versa?

Hey James in Cozumel how much weight do you have to have when you dive? Thanks

GREAT VIDEO - you always have amazing tips to share. I dive with a steel HP120. If I understood you correctly, my buoyancy will be OK at the end the dive, at 500psi, even though I've used up approx 8 lbs of air weight? Thanks for any help you can provide so I better understand.

@ScubaDiverMagazine

2 жыл бұрын

The great thing about diving with steel cylinders is that there is negligible difference in buoyancy at the beginning or end of the dive, unlike ali cylinders. Part of the reason I dive with a Faber steel cylinder here in the UK.

If I'm diving in cool water say I have 16 pounds when I go to saltwater how much weight should I take off when I don't have time for a weight check

I sink when I breathe fully out. I tend to barely float when I fully fill my lungs with air.

12:25 🤣🤣🤣

Lol...scuba diving without weight is expensive snorkeling 😀😀😀

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Tell me about it

Tips for stopping my legs from rising

I’m gona have to find cooler water to dive so I can wear more neoprene. I sink like a stone.

Man! Great material.. thank you for it, if i may ask about a subject that not getting enough attention in Diving community, which is over sized divers, like myself or yourself 😉, could you please put together some interesting information like usual and share it.. fat people like myself are great divers too, aren't we 🤩..

@ScubaDiverMagazine

4 жыл бұрын

We'll look into it :)

@lo-rez

2 жыл бұрын

Bear-hug size sure, but I wouldn't say he's OVERsized

Well, damn. Finally a way a dummy like me can understand! Lol 😆

Man how is your heart doing?!?

Not sure why you'd say there's a difference between aluminum and steel tanks, given you're "correct" with a full tank at mid-breath. You have to compensate for the mass of the air consumed regardless of what container it's in. In fact, if the steel tank holds more air than the Al tank (frequently the case), you will need to add more weight with the steel than you would with the Al to be correct at the end of the dive.

@ELAMINHamid

4 жыл бұрын

I believe the difference is in the bigging of the dive, with steel tanks, I don't carry as much Weight as when I dive with AL, basically, I use steel tank only when i dive with wet suit, I would carry around 30% to 40% less weight! Specially in beach Diving, better carry weight as a tank rather than lead!

@hakanlarsson3954

3 жыл бұрын

Paul Billings Paul Billings a empyem alu tank is usally positive in the end of a dive while the Steely tank still is negative. So for you to stay safe in the end With almost empty tank you need more lead to not be too light.

@pbillings808

3 жыл бұрын

My reply is directed at the statement 8:39 where you would add lead only for the AL tank, which is simply incorrect. At this point, both tank materials are perfectly weighted for the beginning of the dive (eye-level, midbreath). For BOTH tank materials, you must then add weight for the air you will consume. Furthermore, many steel tanks carry more air and would therefore require one to add much more than 2 pounds to hold you down when that air is gone.

@DannyB-cs9vx

3 жыл бұрын

The big difference between Aluminium and steel tanks is at the end of the dive. When you are trying to maintain the 15' level and the tank is low on air. Aluminium tanks tend to be positively bouyant, (up to 4lb), and steel remains negative. If you do not have enough weight to offset this bouyancy you will continue to the surface missing your 15 foot stop. you need more weight with aluminium than steel. How much depends on who made the tank. KZread doesn't like me dropping links so use a search engine for scuba tank specs.

@pbillings808

3 жыл бұрын

In my view, the important thing is to offset the TOTAL buoyancy at the end of the dive. An aluminum tank is just one contributor to that.

On a lighter note. My body is more like Benny Hills lol do lots of weight

Unless you dive tech (side mount) then what your tanks are made of is irrelevant! All that matters is the total mass of air in your tank that is released during the dive ie the CHANGE in bouyancy rather than the absolute value. Unless your tanks go diving without you ;-) then them and you are a unity object strapped together, and with the aim if for you and your kit too be, as a single object, as close as possible to neutral bouyancy (ie the same average density as the water you are displacing). If you dive with ally tanks, you will need more mass in the first place to get neutral, with steel tanks, less mass, but the change in bouyancy is the same for both materials (assuming the same total volume of air being available to you)

@ScubaDiverMagazine

3 жыл бұрын

Hello Max Torque, thanks for sharing.

@diver953

3 жыл бұрын

Isn‘t a aluminum tank at the end of a dive at 50 bar getting positiv? A steel tank at 50bar is still neutral?

@maxtorque2277

3 жыл бұрын

@@diver953 yes, absolutely! And this matters for tech diving where you have relatively "unsecured" tanks, ie tanks on clips and leashes, where the tank changes from sinking to floating as it is breathed down, which changes the way you handle and manage those tanks. But it doesn't change your overal buoyancy as mentioned! if you start the dive perfectly weighted for either a steel or ally tank(s), then the change in buoyancy, the bit you have to compensate for, is simply dependant on the mass of air you breath out during the dive from the those tanks

@DannyB-cs9vx

3 жыл бұрын

@@maxtorque2277 If you have an aluminum tank and are neutral bouyant when full, you will be up to 4lb light when you try to stay at your 15' stop. A tank that becomes bouyant when empty has to have additional weight at the beginning of the dive. With the added weights it becomes heavier than the steel tank above water. Looking at the spec charts at Huron Scuba there is only one model aluminium 80 tank that remains negative when empty. I don't see any steel tank that becomes positive when empty. Techicnical or sport, phisics don't change. You become lighter than water you will float. Missing a decompreeion stop is cause for concern. Your weight has to be correct at the end of the dive, not the beginning. You can add air to a BCD at the beginning, but no way to make it heavier at the end. With aluminium you will need up to an extra 4lb of weight compared to steel.

You completely ignored the issue of a nervous, or less experienced diver. They will need a few extra pounds of weight to even descend at all. And after a few dives they could shed those extra few pounds of weight. And the idea of a diver in a wetsuit needing 20lbs of weight is shocking. If you are that overweight maybe you shouldn’t be diving.

If butter (fat) floats, you must be 50 lbs floaty 😄😄😄

Excellent presentation, friendly...frank Schmidt owsi 583804