From: craig@cattnts.canada.ncr.com (Craig Campbell)
Subject: Re: how much weight do I need ?
Organization: AT&T / NCR Canada Ltd., Toronto, Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:11:30 GMT

In article <sez78yO00iV4M4fZdM@andrew.cmu.edu> ps3p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Peter A. Simon) writes:
>Craig Campbell writes:
>
>>In article <sey1vI200WBO843nYB@andrew.cmu.edu> ps3p+@andrew.cmu.edu
>(Peter A. S
>>imon) writes:
>>>Beware of
>>>weighting yourself in such away that you MUST use your bouyancy
>>>compensator for flotation.  What if it is punctured, or you run out of
>>>air?  You're up the creek.

>>Peter, I must be misreading your intent.  Once you reach any depth, you
>>Must use your BC due to suit squeeze.  Also, other tank configurations may
>>make being neutral an impossibility (Dual almost anything made of steel).

>>craig

>I dove for years and years and years without a BC ...
>...So, diving without a BC, wearing a farmer
>john 1/4" neoprene wet suit and using both steel and aluminum tanks,
>singles and doubles; and weighted so that I was neutrally buoyant at the
>surface (my eyes at the water line with lungs full of air), at depths
>ranging from 10' to 220' [NOT RECOMMENDED!!!], I haven't had any
>problems either with "squeeze" (see below) or with ascending.

Without a BC, weighted as you recommend I would have the following problems.
1)  No buoyanct control.  I would be a major mud puppy at depth.
2)  Trim?  Not happening.
3)  Deco stops?  After my tanks are emptied, my neutrality will have become
    possitive buoyancy, so no successful stops are likely.
4)  With Dual 95's, it is questionable as to whether I would be able to leave
    a reasonable depth with just fin kicks.  (Those suckers are heavy.)

I can't imagine how you dive without a BC.  When I first learned (late 70's)
we had horse collar BCs.  Primitive, but effective.

>Vis a vis squeeze, I don't see how a BC affects this.  Do you mean the
>loss of buoyancy caused by the collapse of the gas cells in a
>closed-cell neoprene wet suit?

Yes, I meant loss of buoyancy at depth due to the crushing effect of squeeze
on a wet suit.

>By the way, I now use a BC when diving with SCUBA, although with a dry
>suit I think it's a bit of expensive overkill and just one more perhaps
>faddish piece of gear, foisted on us by the never ending greed of the
>equipment manufacturers and sellers, that I have to f*** with getting it
>on, wearing it, taking it off, washing it, and storing it.

A BC has two (2) bennefits when worn with a dry suit.

1)  The air in your BC can't race into your boots and trigger an uncontroled
    feet first ascent.

2)  If your dry suit was ever punctured (a bad thing), then you still have
    some buoyanct control.  (I had a reverse case two dives ago.  My BC 
    inflator hose (from mouth piece to BC) cracked open.  My suit was my
    backup.  Redundancy.  {The word almost sings...})

3)  The limited shifting of air in a BC makes trim control a lot easyier.

None of these seem to me faddish of foisted reasons by equipment manufacturers
and sellers.  But hey, what do I know...

>Peter Simon
>NUAI Inst. #1434

Just another man's (different) experiences, not necessarily better or worse
than any other's.

craig

-- 
Craig Campbell		|	These opinions are entirely the result of a 
Systems Engineer	|	small butterfly crashing into the far side
NCR Canada,		|	of the planet.  Chaos Rules.
an AT&T Company		|	I speak for no one, except, possibly, myself.