Posted by Steve on March 08, 2001 at 22:21:10:
In Reply to: On weighting, DIR, and steel tanks while diving wet. posted by R Bear on March 07, 2001 at 08:18:59:
R Bear, very interesting post. A couple of question. One pint of lung air equals one pound of positive bouyancy? Your wetsuit is 6# positive at 100' and gains 18# = 24# that's a thick suit for a Florida diver? Some have said that diving wet and steel even a single isn't DIR. I guess I'm against the grain on this issue but I don't understand why. For Califoria diving I have a steel 72 and 100 steel. I really like the HP100 3500psi. The reason I dive this one is because it is about the same size as an AL80 but has 25% more air capacity it is -8# negative when full. Diving this tank I remove 6# of lead then when diving Al80 and the 100 has a din valve which I also prefer. When I get refills on dive boats they get it up to around 2700psi which still give me about 80 cubic feet for my second, third and forth dive. I have been ending my dives with due to reaching the NDL limit and have around 1/3 gas left. My last dive trip I wore a full scubapro layer eze 7mm Ti with the 5mm farmer john sleeveless top with a attached hood and I wore 21# of ditchable lead. If I was to switch to an AL80 which I sometimes do I hate it because I need to add 6# more lead and the tank has less air. You said in your second to last sentence that for a DIR diver that an AL80(-3#) with a -12# SS backplate was a good choice, total -15#. If I switched to that setup over my HP100 -8# nuetral bc, I would need to drop 7 pounds of lead and dive with 14# ditchable instead of 21#. I must be missing the benefits here? Clue me in.
Steve