How much weights a scuba diver needs to dive in the ocean?

Answer 1

Weight needed for scuba divingThe less overweighted you are, the more control you'll have over your buoyancy and trim. Ideally you want just enough to sink at the END of your dive - so on the surface, with a (mostly) empty tank, no air in the BCD, and no air pockets in the wetsuit you should be able and easily descend.

The fine-tuning is a judgment call. Some prefer to be able to just exhale and drop and carry an extra pound or so to do so. Others feel that not carrying the extra pound is worth possibly needing to do a surface dive to get down to a level where the wetsuit compresses enough to make you neutrally buoyant. Note that if you are too light you risk not being able to do a safety stop in shallow water with an almost empty tank. A full tank can be as much as 6 lbs heavier than an empty one.

Depending on the tank, the suit you wear, and your body type, weights could range from 0 to 40 lbs of lead. A medium build person with a 5-7mm suit diving an aluminum 80 cf tank may average 20-25 lbs of lead in salt water. The difference between lead needed for salt or fresh water can be almost 6 lbs.

Answer 2

There are a few factors that determine how much weights you will need. You body weight and size plays an important role in identifying the amount of weights to put on your Scuba weight belt. Some of your scuba gear like your wetsuit, booties etc... will make you more buoyant so you will need to compensate for this increase in buoyancy.

For example, without your wetsuit, you may require only a few pounds of scuba diving weights if any at all. On the other hand, the amount of scuba weights you need with a wetsuit will vary depending upon the type and thickness of the wetsuit you will be using. A typical approximation for a cold water wetsuit is about 10% of your body weight being slightly more if you will be using a dry suit.

If for example, you weight 70 kilograms, you will probably need about 7 kilograms of weight. However this should only be taken as an estimate as there are many factors which can affect your buoyancy underwater.

To test if you are wearing the correct amount of scuba weights, wear all your scuba gear and enter the water too deep to stand in. Completely deflate your scuba bcd and position yourself vertically motionless in the water while holding your breath. For optimal weighting you should be floating at eye level. Exhale and if you sink slowly then you should have found your correct weight.

Answer 3

For any object to sink it must be more dense than water. If an object is more dense than water it will sink regardless of its weight. This is why huge extremely heavy ships can float, they are simply less dense than water. Therefore, a diver doesn't need to have a certain amount of weight to sink.