BCD Failure : Single Cylinder | Sidemounting.com 

There's a major flaw in this video. I strongly believe that every diver should carry a surface marker. You can use it as an emergency BCD. It may not have the same volume, but still. Also, a common mistake from divers when using such a device is to use their reg to inflate it. Why? why waste that precious O2 you need? Instead, use your exhalation to inflate it. It's air you're going to ditch anyways so why not "recycle" it and keep your O2 in the tank.

Add a D-ring to your weight belt. Clipping your DSMB line to the ring before ditching allows you to reel off the dropped belt in a controlled manner. You can also recover the belt later by just reeling it in.

You started the video stating that being overweighted would be a serious problem and could leave you stuck on the bottom, but then you didn't demonstrate this in your example. Even over weighted by 2-3 kilos you would still be able to swim to the surface, and with integrated weight pouches could even drop one pouch to assist with the ascent in a safe manner. With time, you could even remove a single weight from your belt to compensate for the pressure. You mentioned it is dangerous for misinformation to be spread, but it seems sensationalized to state serious issues, and then not show why it is, or explain that very well.

As a novice diver, I think too many training sites are not focused enough on buoyancy which is a super critical skill to know. Honestly, they just want you to get your basic certification so you can rent their equipment and go diving.

As a divemaster (working or just recreational), I always take 3-5lbs more weight. Sooo many times there is someone who doesn't have enough weight and will start floating up towards the end of a dive. So, yeah, if you are with seasoned divers, go perfect weighted for yourself, going with beginners, add some to keep your random partner from fighting the float and get more bottom time.

I learned this technique back in the 70’s because most Divers back then didn’t use BCD’s and the Divers who did, used collar style surface vests with CO2 cartridges..😄 When we where on a Deep Dive, we sometimes had weights hanging on the bottom line, so that it was easier to stay on the last Decompression stop, or else you would float up to the surface..😉

Thank you Steve for making this video available for everyone. There is so much misunderstanding in a lot of divers about this topic - not their fault... it's the training agencies fault that "train" them. I hope more people take this info as serious as it has to be treated! Thanks for sharing

When I went through training (SDI) we did a similar method of weight calculation, we were also taught to completely deflate the bc periodically as you ascend to remain neutral. I have had zero problems with ascent, good advice!

Really good video highlighting such an important topic in scuba. A lot of agencies owe people money.

Thank you so much for this! I’m not a diver just yet because I’m trying to get my health stabilized, so in the meantime I’m learning all that I can. This video is perfectly done for us ignorant folks. One step at a time, with clear reasoning behind everything. You are awesome! Will most definitely be coming back to this! 💚🙏

I dont use a Redundant Bladder but most of the time a dry suit and always two SMBs or 1 smb and a lift bag if bc has malfunction on depth. One time the iflator of a rental equipment has broken but luckily before i jumped in, so i got the chance to switch my bc. Cool video!

Well done, bro. Exactamiento. Some of us would even say that there's a worse fallacy circulated around, that the octo your friend has will been within your reach when the time comes.

Every now and again some scuba vid sticks in my mind, and that did..Thanks!

Awesome explanation of propper weighting. Thank you!

So glad I found your Chanel ! Thank you for being clear and straightforward

I'm new to diving but I knew almost immediately when they said in case of uncontrolled decent drop your wieght belt something didn't seem right. What good is that if you then immediately go into an uncontrollable accent? This video is exactly how to deal with the situation properly! I wish they would teach this right here

Yeah, Thank you for this video. I have not been shown how to correctly weight. I now know I've been diving with WAY too much weight. Thanks!

Proper weighting is absolutely imperative. Too many students are deliberately over-weighted from the get go.

i am the dive person i try watching your videos to take a lot of ideas in underwater diving thanks

What a beautiful dive spot. The bottom is so clean and the vis is so clear. Never seen anywhere like that.

One of my favorite dives in Tulum

Excellent and lifesaving information, thanks.

Great video. Thank you for spending the time to teach me

Is that Angelita? Great video btw, I will be replicating these steps at the pool. Wish I could test gear and practice like this in a cenote lol

Thanks, really good demonstration.

When I was working as an instructor and guide at a place(in Cyprus) where we used steel tanks I was always over weighted without any weights, because the 12L 300 bar steel tanks were so much heavier than the little weight I needed. With an AL80 I needed about 2.4 kg(3 800gr weights), but these steel tanks weighed about 18 kg in the water when full.

Just a beautiful video explained everything so nicely. ❤ Thks

Excellent; thank you for sharing!

great video and excellent demonstration

Solid knowledge, kudos and thx for sharing 👌 keep it up

Great video! I’ve got a little fine tuning to do with my weighting and I’m glad you’ve got me thinking more seriously about it. I hold very close to this, but would like to be spot on. Thanks again for this great information.

Doesnt matter if your weight belt is overweighted or not, when you ditch it, your still the same weight without the belt, regardless of what was on the belt

Excellent video!!! Thanks!!!

You Dude are Awesome love you vids Hello from Newfoundland Canada

Thank you for the great video. What is it in in this case not an option to drop some of the weights? Probably because it is a source of error. And dropping all the weights would result in an uncontrolled ascent?

thanks for sharing....its a good knowledge👍👍👌👌

Perfect, well done thank you

Thats good stuff . Back to school.;;;;;;;;

You couldn’t be more right, great video!

Awesome video thank you.

Great video should be shown to new divers.

Got me thinking!!!!

I absolutely love this video. Ha. Thank you for this

Nice well explained video.

Amazing thank you soooo much!

Amazing video

Cool and thanks for sharing

Excellent!

great video - well articulated and explained; very clear and easy to understand

Fantastic video

When I was still diving, my instructor told me about this. After talking about depths, ascend rates and weight belts, she told me that when this happens you'd better hope you remembered a small plastic bag so you can make your own float from it.

Nice video! Air weighs 1.29 g/l, so it is far easier to calculate the weight loss of used air than weigh your system again when at 50 bar. I use 10 bar btw. I like to be able to use my reserve.

Good video , thanks

Correct weighting is so important.

You're neutral buoyancy rocks, I took my OWD and my buoyancy sucks, need to practise a lot to control, neutral/positive/negative, I struggle with the weights, because I tend to change a lot on my wetsuit. sometimes I just use the bcd on top of my skin, others, I have just a simple jacket of 3 mm and others a full wetsuit of 5.5 mm, of course when I dive "naked" without any wetsuit most of my problems with weights disappear, but it's tough to control the belt.. and it hurts. Thank you for your clean explanation, will measure and take action on my weights.

Awesome video

Fair play . Great expectations from weighting ,all that time doing fin pivots , I had 8 kgs thrown at me on a dive boat once I only like 4 with jet fins . Ps people overtightening mask straps could be your next .

I have a question. Is there a way to add permanent buoyancy other than a thicker suit, or lighter tanks? My empty tank water weight plus regs is 9.5kg. That is already considerably more than i need in my 7mm wetsuit. It might be ok with my second 7mm half suit with hood on top, but i really hate wearing that when not absolutely required. Is there a form of noncompressible buoyancy that can be added into a bcd? Or neoprene tank sleeves perhaps? Or is a lighter tank setup the only option?

Thank You...

nice info, thanks

Hence why GUE strongly recommends you to use a drysuit where possible.

Thanks for making this video. I switched to an XDEEP ZEN and need to re-weight myself! I noticed it needs much less weight than I am used to with a regular jacket or a regular back inflated BCD.

Great!

Control his flotability (your weight) is absolutely the best way to dive safely (and instructions there is perfect), not only in case of failure, but also for better dive experience, better breath, better resistance to cold and current. Let me add that get your weight on a belt (an elastic kind of "marseillaise" belt) is also a best way to hold added required weight (if need), not only because you will have this weight close to your G point body, but also in case of scaphander "quit" to go in a little hole or any other reason you have to experience it. As a commercial diver, i can not pretend to practice so much this kind of best technic at work depend of the job to do (sometimes we have 40 extend Kg to stay stable on a rope to be able to weld in wave conditions in shallow water... the helmet is also heavy and more weight can be more power to work on seabed for rock destruction or any other works that require human power to be efficient, but if we can dive with "tourist" scaphander (or sometimes with rebreather to stay long time or deeper) for long range inspection (2000m long to go between 20m to 70m depth with a camera, for exemple), we always choose to be perfectly equilibrate underwater in reference to the decompression higher point with empty tanks (we are using double steel tank 10 or 12L without jaket, but aluminium if rebreather for safety tanks). When you can do it, best flotability will make your life way better and you consume of gas as low as you can too, increase your decompression point the safest way. Do not hesitate to experience things in shallow water as a game with weights before to experiment something deeper... shallow water is always more difficult technicaly for flotability management, but the best school before to go deeper, because you will have low time to no time to thinking under 50m depth (and you will thinking wrong most of the time due to narcoleptic reasons). The best school by experience to learn to control and share good experiences, best practices from other "old" divers is cave diving school (better than commercial diver for technical points, most of the time). Stay safe, don't go to search record but enjoy elements, sensations and underwater life and reliefs (or wreck). Stick the timing, check material closer, be clean with yourself and be quiet in all conditions will help you to be lucky sometime.

Thanks for vid

6:44 Controlled ascent, not descent, I assumed. Thanks for your videos!

thank you

My wife appreciated this video, I can now dive safely 😜

1. carry the plastic grocery that your morning breakfast burrito came in. 2. Breathe into said grocery bag. 3. Ascend as needed. 😂

I had an opposite issue with my dive partner having a run away BCD. It fully inflated at 30 m underwater. Luckily we had just started our dive, and I was close enough to them to help control thier accent. But up until then everyone (including the course material) talked about BCD failures as if would only ever be loss of air in the system.

I was taught to always empty your bcd before ascending which I always do. I never had a problem ascending. Not sure what you are referring to

Is having no air in bcd and being neutral at 10 feet. Then descend needing to add air in bcd to stay neutral. What's wrong doing it that way?

Gives a good piece of mind as a bcd failure is realistically one of my worst fears (think yuri lipski) I’ve been properly weighting but it’s nice to see that it’s not a big issue (yuri was extremely overweighted and over equipped)

When I did my Open Water in April I was wearing 12 kilos as instructed by my instructor. It was next to impossible for me to keep off of the floor (12L aluminum cylinder)

wow i am confused- i thought you said that "dropping weight wont allow you to ascend if bcd fails" all you did is prove the fact you said was wrong- as if youd be stuck under water. im so lost

I'm just a enthusiasts with AOWD. Thanks for your tips! You can always mention that in places with high risk / possibility of up currents like Komodo it maybe better to have a little more weight. Do you agree :)?

I have had two BCD incidents in the last few Dives. One was a power inflator that was leaking so my BC was filling slowly during the dive. The Simple Solution to that was to disconnect the power inflator and use it the old fashioned way. The second incident I had the power inflator hose somehow got loose where it connects to the BC itself on the shoulder. Neither incident really was much to write home about I dealt with it I signaled my partner that I had a problem and return to the boat no fuss no muss. When I got to the boat I examined the connection and tightened it up. No life-threatening situation just deal with it.

A correctly weighted diver in a 5mm wetsuit won't even need to use their BCD down to at least 20-30m. I've been to 55m and back and not put air in my BCD.

Excellent video. With a twinset and 2 stages that are all full though, thats approximately 6kg of weight in the air that is in the cylinders. This means in order to be able to hold a stop with everything empty you need to initially be relatively 6kg overweighted compared to the end of a (emergency situation) dive scenario. Is it possible to counter these 6kg of weight with an average person's lung volume and kicking upwards?

Hi have you ever seen somebody dives with carbon fiber aluminum cilinders? I received a buoyancy table from carbondive, Austria and I'm thinking about to dive with this tuxing 6.8L China cilinder. We dive maximum 15 m. Normally 5 to 10

Hi Steve. Thank you for this video and I like the way you demonstrate the concept of not over-weighting. However, I have a question: in your video, your lung can support at max 4.8kg of weight at the surface, which is 1.5kg more than the weight of your full tank + empty BCD (3.3kg). However, at the end of dive, suppose you have reserved amount of air in the tank (-1.3kg), and you breathe normally underwater (which means your lung presents +3.3kg positive buoyancy), in order to avoid ascending to the surface unexpectedly due to underweight, you will need to carry extra 3.3kg - 1.3kg = 2 kg of lead weights to be neutral buoyant underwater. This means you will start your dive with 3.3kg (full tank+empty BCD) + 2kg (lead weight) = 5.2kg, which exceeds the max weight your lung can support. What if you have failed BCD with full tank in this situation? You will need hard kick to avoid from sinking, won't you? Is this a contradict between the max weight you can overweight in case of BCD failure, and the min weight you need to avoid unexpected ascent at the end of dive?

I tend to jump in, sink to the bottom, dive the wreck, if I find something interesting, then suck the pony dry then go back to the main cylinder to about 20 bar then make my way to the surface. Simples! But, in all seriousness, this is a very good educational video for doing it the *correct* way.

Correct weight is important but we should never dive alone, this guy should not encourage people to dive alone and using lung as bcd... This happened to my buddy (exhaust valve failed) and I could able to fix it in 38m.. If couldn't fix it.. I could take him out using my BCD safely... Using lungs as BCD is very dangerous and what this video says is the last option and if you are alone...

as a master cert diver, privately trained by a NAVY SEAL and not from a (joke) dive shop, I was trained how to dive with and WITHOUT a BCD and lean how to control my weight and dive "neutral". So I never have to have this type of issue. I havent used a BCD in over 200 dives, spear fishing,, most at around 75- 100ft. Yes, I did have a BCD for my double 90 set up, but only needed 8 lbs of weight. cant count the times I have watched other (civy) divers have problems that could of been avoided.

I have been diving since before BCDs were around. There weren't any underwater pressure gauges either. The most important lessons that I have learned are: learn to control your breathing so that you never exhale more than half your lung capacity; never dive below 60 feet without a pony bottle.

Nice video, thanks for share . One question . the wetsuit you wear is a 7 mm, 5mm or 3 mm ?

I wish I had the time to teach this to my students. I have been working as an instructor for 7 years. One off The reason i stopped teaching is because i always found the course were rushed and when i certified students I just about managed to tik the boxes. (Also the pay isn't so great) It's not nessacerelly the instructors fault. It's a combination of the instructor/agency/dive shop and above all the whole industy. I never found an employer who wanted to pay me to teach a OW course in more then 3 days. And tbh most students wouldn't pay the money that such a course would cost. If you learned it into this depth (really learned: understand, practice and master) on your OW course and your course was 3 days or less i can assure you, you missed out on other also important skills!

This is great theory to know and it's something people should strive towards, however as with everything, reality is a little different. I can get to perfect buoyancy with a single for my rec dives, but with doubles..... no way. Dual HP100's full is -17lbs and that's before accounting for manifold/regs and all the other gear. I've even bought a carbon fiber backplate to reduce weight as much as possible. My doubles wing is a dual bladder for redundancy. In much the same way as in theoretically electronics (computers) also rarely if ever fail and yet I take a second Perdix AI, just in case the primary fails. Theory vs. reality.

I was down 100 feet when my some of my weights fell out of the BCD. It was on my first open water dive (in Belize) the bottom was only approximately 15 feet below but even with an empty BCD I couldn't descend to retrieve them. I was never able to get my dive buddy's attention ( banged on my tank) but he just swam away. I tried to slow my assent by kicking downward but that was futual . Luckily I had only been at depth a short time and didn't suffer any I'll effect but being as it was my first dive it did scare me because of my lack of experience.

what if you diving in salt water, you have bigger weight reserve you can carry ?

Where was this filmed? Looks like a spring somewhere in Florida.

this is pretty good but i think you will run into some issues when you start carrying large quantitys of gas say a twin 12 steel with two aluminunum stages you will propabaly not be able to do that with full tanks

Just don’t dive alone. That way if your BCD fails you just hold on to your dive buddy.

Could someone tell me what that dive computer is called? Looks clean and easy to read

@DIVETALK would love to hear your input

Warm water divers might find themselves surprised if they go diving in cold water with the necessarily thicker wetsuit. The more foam neoprene the diver wears, the more buoyancy will be lost during the descent. That can make it more difficult or impossible to swim up from depth without ditching weight.

I just separate my weights so ankles & 1 kg can be removed independently of my belt. Also have a lift bag & 2x Dsmb so I can use them clipped to my belt as a buoyancy control..mine have dump valves & I make sure I can invert or detach it easily..once your on twins with 2kg torch batteries & drysuit etc etc your breathing is much less effective as a control..

Never been diving. But this video is super interesting! Thanks. This saves lives!

Would love to hear why double bladder is a bad idea???? Agree with being correctly weighted but also I feel like you are either diving in a 3 or maybe 5mm wetsuit. 7mm wetsuit or semidry buoyancy loss at 30m might be a bit different i think...

When I did may perfect buoyancy course, we started with 8kg and removed until 6kg, which was a little bit over weight but I guess this was still better then too less. I understand too much can be dangerous, but in my case I felt more comfotable, to use 6kg then 4kg which was far too less, secoundly i don't think 5 or 6 makes such a different. But I wonder what you think, I thought it was okay to be over weight when you start your dive so it would be perfect at the end of the dive when your tank gets empty. But I would love to know what a pro think about.