How much weight?

[dend76]

I am 6' 4" and weigh about 220lbs. I wear a 3/2mm suit, and dive usually no deeper than 15 meters. I know with scuba the goal is to be neutrally bouyant, but this is freediving. Should I aim to be negatively bouyant? What weight do you reccommend I use?

[calicojack]

I like to be neutral at 15 feet (5meters?). That way I'm not too heavy at depth and I will arrive at the surface in the event of shallow water blackout.

[donmoore]

It depends on what you are doing, your personal preferences, and your desire to live. Many speafisher men like to be heavy if they are bottom fishing so they can lay on the bottom and use the least effort going down to not scare the fish. Spearfishing is also the discipline in freediving where the most deaths occur. For safety your neutral depth should be deep enough so that if you should exhale, which would likely happened in a black out, you would still be buoyant close to the surface. This make neutral somewhere about 40 to 60 feet, 12 to 20 meters.

I prefer the lighter weight and don’t reach neutral until 40 to 60 feet. I spearfish in water that is too deep to reach the bottom anyway. Sometimes I do scare fish, but it really makes me perfect the start. You have to use good technique. I also stroke once with the hand not holding the gun to help pull my fins below the surface.
don

[donmoore]

If you are spearfishing in shallow water, you may not have much choice, but to weigh yourself heavy. Otherwise you will keep floating up making it hard to get a shot off. But in the event of a blackout and you don’t have a spotter, you will be in trouble.
don

[Fondueset]

I generally go for neutral at about 25 feet - which on my 3/2 suit only took about four pounds. It's fairly shallow where I dive, however.

[portinfer]

Hi - I'm 6'2" and about 180 pounds with a 5mm suit.
I change my weight belt depending on what I am doing.

If I go for a freedive session scooting around and know that the depth will mostly be below 6m (6m to 15m lets say - I dont go below 15m yet either and mostly only down to 10m or so) then I will use about 12 pounds of lead. For me this works well - i am about neutral at 8m.

For aspetto hunting for bass I use 500g on each ankle and about 16pounds of lead - this means I can be neutral at about 6m. THis way I dont float up too fast if I am hunting at 5m or 6m or 7m or 8m which for me is the usual place.

I used to have a weight on my float that would help me go down and mean that I would definitely float up if I released it - good if you have to go solo diving.

Recently I have been looking for flat fish and the depth has been from 3m to 6m.
for this sort of hunting you traverse at whatever depth you are neutral at - in this case about a metre above the bottom - I weight accordingly and think I had about 18pounds last time... I think.

Also the tide changes fast over here (9m tidal range...) so on some days you get at least a metre change in your session.

I have a float that I can take or deposit lead weights onto if need be - so if the circumstances change you can go heavier or lighter.

Good luck - Ed

[the seal]

i weigh 73kgs
with 2pc 2mm bottom and 3mm top i used 6lb
nuetral 8-13m
neg from 15+
i recon the less weight the better for deep diving like 30m+ but have 2 try that first!
for diving shallow i guess i would use 9lb or so.

[donmoore]

My opinion is the buoyancy of a person is very individualized and the only way to get it right is with experimentation. Weight suit thickness and fat % are larger factors than weight and height of a person.

I think the most important goal a person should strive for is positive buoyancy at the surface with a full exhale. This may not be achievable if your diving is shallow water and need to neutral to lay on the bottom, but in this case you need to recognize it and try to compensate, like don’t push your bottom time as long or try to buddy dive with competent diver that will stay with you.

What I do and know some others do too, is when we feel we have pushed it, we lay back on our backs at the surface, even if we have a spotter. It takes about 10 to 20 seconds from the first breath for the O2 to reach your brain. This means you’re lowest O2% reaching the brain is going to happen after you surface and take the first breath. Getting on the back is a precautionary measure that makes sense. A good friend lost his speargun when he passed out on his back, but kept his life. If you have a spotter it puts you in the proper position for him to hold you while you regain consciousness. If he has to turn you from a face down position, he may save your life, but the changes of breathing in water are increased, which means you may be recovering in the hospital instead of diving the next day.
don

[JimmyB]

Originally Posted by donmoore

My opinion is the buoyancy of a person is very individualized and the only way to get it right is with experimentation. Weight suit thickness and fat % are larger factors than weight and height of a person.

I think the most important goal a person should strive for is positive buoyancy at the surface with a full exhale. This may not be achievable if your diving is shallow water and need to neutral to lay on the bottom, but in this case you need to recognize it and try to compensate, like don’t push your bottom time as long or try to buddy dive with competent diver that will stay with you.

What I do and know some others do too, is when we feel we have pushed it, we lay back on our backs at the surface, even if we have a spotter. It takes about 10 to 20 seconds from the first breath for the O2 to reach your brain. This means you’re lowest O2% reaching the brain is going to happen after you surface and take the first breath. Getting on the back is a precautionary measure that makes sense. A good friend lost his speargun when he passed out on his back, but kept his life. If you have a spotter it puts you in the proper position for him to hold you while you regain consciousness. If he has to turn you from a face down position, he may save your life, but the changes of breathing in water are increased, which means you may be recovering in the hospital instead of diving the next day.
don

Hi...im quite new to spearfishing and freediving....what i dont understand is how you can be positively bouyant with a full exhale....even without weights wouldnt you be negatively buoyant with a full exhale??

[donmoore]

JimmyB,
It is possible for people with real low body fat and no wetsuit to be negatively buoyant at the surface with an exhale. That is if they exhale with no body movement, they sink. But the buoyancy in a neoprene wetsuit should be more than enough to compensate even the lowest percent of fat for a normal person.
don

[JimmyB]

Hiya Don

Thanks for that....makes sense now...i was thinking in the wrong direction!! the suit becomes negatively bouyant at depth when the neoprene compresses and not at the surface...duh!!

Thanks for your help and quick reply!!

James

[the seal]

Hey its true about the exhale thing, if i have no wettie on and i exhale i'm neg boyant, if i inhale i have to hold on to something so i don't float up!

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by dend76

I am 6' 4" and weigh about 220lbs. I wear a 3/2mm suit, and dive usually no deeper than 15 meters. I know with scuba the goal is to be neutrally bouyant, but this is freediving. Should I aim to be negatively bouyant? What weight do you reccommend I use?

You buoyancy very much depends on the volume of your rib cage (which you did not give !) and this volume can be increased through training....

An example : last year I went swimming to a swimming pool with maximum depth 4.60 m ;

at that time wearing a simple swimming suit I could lie in the bottom with full lungs...

Some months ago, I went to the same place and tried to go to the bottom with full lungs... but then my buoyancy was positive !

What did it mean ? I came to the conclusion that I had expanded my rib cage...

Then the parameters you gave are too sporadic to give you a precise answer...

It depends on many things and in particular of your "programme" underwater... how deep you want to go, how long...

Generally all beginners ar tempted to be overweighted because it is then very easy to descend... but the most important is to be able to come back to fresh air again...

You should let your weighting be controlled by a competent person each time you dive (never dive alone...)

Last summer I spent 2 weeks diving in Nice ;

In the morning I was accompanying children snorkeling ; i was diving about 5 m deep ; I then had 4 kg on my belt with a 5 mm wet suit...

In the afternoon I trained for myself in CW... (25 m) ; I then had 2 kg on my belt ; at the beginning I wanted to be more weighted and my supervisor had to persuade me to take some weight off...

The priority for you should be not to remain in the bottom of the sea... which might be the case if you are too heavily weighted which is the temptation of most beginners...

[popac]

I have some questions...let's say that you're neutraly bouyant at 8m but while searching for fish,you came upon a 5m bottom.At those 5m,you have a positive buoyancy and you can't stay on the bottom without struggle.In that case,why not try to release some air from you're lungs in order to be neutraly buoyant at that 5m bottom.Instead of a 2min. apnea with struggle to stay at the bottom,you get a 1min. apnea at neutral buoyancy,calmly ambushing the pray.
It works for me.
Any opinions about that?

[portinfer]

Hi Alexander - this is pretty common for where I spearfish - the range seems to be about 5m to 8m and maybe up to 12m on the deeper parts but most of the fish are inthe shallows.

I find that hanging onto kelp helps. I find a spot that would be good for aspetto and look for a frond of kelp in the right place and then dive for that. I hold it and although I am bouyant I do not drift up (ankle weights help but recently I have found that the legs will sink slowly if you are completely relaxed). So from this position I can stay in aspetto and when I come up I just release the kelp and depending on depth (maybe 2m to 5m to 8m) I float up at a different rate.

Like I say the fishing really ranges here from maybe 1m in the shallows to 8m. So in a 2 hour dive you need to weight for many different depths. One guy I go with (Fabio) uses a 'schenelino' (sp?) or lead backplate. He finds that most of the fish for him are in the 1m to 5m range with alot of aspetto at 2m. For this kind of shallow hunting the weight is off the hips and more balanced on the back. I keep meaning to make one but have found my kelp method to work well.

I would feel uncomfortable sinking like a stone when the diving came to 8m or so. He seems to cope but has been diving like this for 15 years or so - I am a beginner so take it more carefully.

Hope that helps - Ed