Source
r/freediving•
stutterr

Weight belt question

Relatively new to freediving/spearfishing and am a bit confused with the different information conveyed online regarding weight belts and how much lead weight I should be using. I know the best way is just to go into the water and experiment, however I want to have a somewhat accurate estimation so I can buy weight accordingly.

I recently bought a 5mm 2pc open cell wet suit. I weigh roughly 73kg/161lbs and using this calculator (http://www.divebuddy.com/calculator/weight.aspx) (Selecting Experience: Novice/No Tank - Freediving/Salt water), it tells me to use 9.5kg/21lbs of weight. Other rules of thumb say to use 1kg for every mm of wetsuit + ~1-2kg, which is approx 7kg/15lbs.

This may be a silly question but do the estimations mean your entire belt should weigh that much? I ask because I only just realised my weight belt itself weighs roughly 1.4kg/3lbs!

Also I've read a lot of different forum threads etc, people tend to use between 10-15lbs or so. Is my estimation of 9.5kg/21lbs overkill? I shore dive depths down to 5-8m/15-25ft and I know I should be neutrally bouyant at these depths. My current belt weighs 6.9kg/15lbs in total, I have 8x1.5lbs lead weights. I'd need another 6 more weights to get to 21lbs (or 4 weights if you count the belt weight)

Any help or advice is appreciated! Thanks

Posted Aug 15, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

15
thornza•

I never really add the weight of my belt in - although it is a rubber one so I can't see it weighing very much. Like you say - it is best to just experiment - not everyone who weighs the same as you will use the same weight. You might have more fat or more muscle and your weighting will differ accordingly. If you are diving so shallow in salt water you will tend to go in heavy though. What I do is load my belt up with a base weight - say 5kgs with 1kg weights that slide onto the belt. Then I have a number of 1/2kg weights that clip onto the belt and are removable when the belt is on. If I feel too heavy then I unclip a few and clip them to my float or put them on the boat. You can also bring a few extra ones with you and add them to the belt as well.

1
samkz•

Sounds overkill for your weight. Not sure I trust that calculator. Generally people aim to be naturally buoyant at 10 metres. To do that with a normal breath you want to be at eye level in the water.

Do a Buoyancy check. Plenty of videos on how that's done.

1
iSquishy•

At 5-10m you are positively buoyant nearly the whole way down, I'm your exact weight in a 7mm two piece suit and I use 10.2kgs, works pretty good for me

1
sk3pt1cCNF•

You're diving shallow but 10kg of weights is pretty suicidal :/

1
effortDeeDNF•

it will depend entirely on what depth you want to be neutrally buoyant at. I'm similar weight to you and wear 7kg of weight with a 5mm 2piece open cell wetsuit on if I want to be neutrally buoyant at about 5m deep. This means if I know i'll be diving between 4-6m deep (shallow) I can lie on the bottom. If I were to use 6kg or less, I would never be able to stay at the bottom unless I grabbed a rock or something...

If you want to dive deeper, say 10-15m, you can get away with less weight, maybe 5 or 6kg and you will be neutrally buoyant at about 10m deep, which means you ahve that safety measure of being positive above 10m incase anything happens, but you can still dive down without too much effort and after 10m deep be neutral, negative a little.

It all depends on what depths you'll be diving and where you want to be neutrally buoyant. Remember to always have positive buoyancy for the majority of the depth as a safety fallback and just test around with what you are happy with.

We can't actually give you the answer here.

1