Form during descent

[justfins]

Assuming the recommended neutral bouyancy at 10m, and the 1m per second descent rate, how deep must you be before you can stop finning, and still maintain a 1m/sec descent? When gravity takes over after 10m, can you just relax and sink and still maintain descent rate?

 

[fflupo]

this depends on your buoyancy: amount of air, suit, weight, water sea/fresh

but yes once you enter freefall (means negative buoyancy), you just maintain a relaxed and streamlined position and equalize

 

[cdavis]

The "out of the book" answer is kick hard to 10 m (neutral), kick lightly to 20 m and fall from there, but fflupo is right, each case is highly individual. Also, streamlining makes quite a difference in descent speed. Its a trade off between highly streamlined and as relaxed as possible. Being flexible helps.

Connor

 

[petej]

I think it depends a lot on your suit/weight situation like fflupo said. I wear a 7mm suit and am weighted to be neutral at about 10m, but because I have such a thick suit there is more bouyancy change than in a thinner suit. At 10m the pressure is double so my suit is only half as bouyant but I still have the same amount of lead. So in a thick suit I find that after 10m you start to sink pretty quickly and by 20m I feel like I am flying, so I usually stop kicking around 12-15m

 

[justfins]

Thanks to all for your responses. I do only shore dives and am limited to about 12m to 15m. I have been offshore only once and was down to 20m. I haven't had really had any opportunity to experience freefall. (That Guillaume Nery vid is awesome.)
I'm going spearfishing this coming week in Cozumel and I'm looking forward to experimenting with your advice. Thanks!

David

 

[cdavis]

Depth an activity radically affect the desired weighting. For spearfishing in that depth, you might want to be neutral considerably shallower than 10 m. Depends on your spearfishing style.

Have fun in Coz.


Connor