PROPER WEIGHTING by Stefano Bianchelli

When I started diving I was 17, I had a lot of passion and few resources. The course I followed didn't contemplate the use of the jacket. I used a single 18-litres cylinder with only a back plate, a 5mm two-piece suit and 2 kgs weights. In apnoea I had a 4 kgs ballast and the calculations balanced. The arrival of the jacket was followed by some funny but also dangerous interpretations, and you could see people with 8-10 kgs on a belt with the excuse that "there was the jacket to hold them". From that moment I started my battles demonstrating my reasons with facts. When new friends divers come on board of our inflatable, the first things they notice are the belts with an average weight of 3 kgs and they start showing a little perplexity. And when, at the end of their holiday they go back home with 4 or 5 kgs less and they tell their friend, they obtain comments that should be written in a book of jokes, like: "for sure they had rusty cylinders and they were heavier" or "it is the kind of salty water, for sure less salty" or again "who taught you that, has heavy bones" and the last and the worst comment "it is very dangerous because you can blow up without any control". The problem is exactly this: too many chats, too few dives and very little knowledge of physics. But in our diving we continue this battle and we also have many satisfactions!

   
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