Simon Campbell

Buoyancy workshop: What’s it all about?

The Buoyancy and Trim workshop consists of theory and practical sessions, the latter taking place in sheltered water. It is intended for any level of diver, but will be indispensable for Ocean and Sport divers who really want to enjoy the feeling that comes from great buoyancy and trim.

The Buoyancy and Trim workshop has been developed in response to evidence that many divers’ buoyancy control is not as good as it should be.

Statistics show that buoyancy problems are a frequent cause of incidents, with over-weighting being a major contributor. Perfecting buoyancy control is a major step towards safe, comfortable diving, where the diver can relax and move gracefully in the underwater environment.

Few skills can do as much as buoyancy control to improve one’s diving: it affects all that we do underwater. It saves breathing gas, saves energy, builds confidence in one’s ability to dive safely and makes for more fun. Not only that, it helps us to avoid damage to the underwater environment and at the same time, it makes us look and feel good as divers. The solution is simple: adopt a disciplined approach to buoyancy and apply it to all your diving.

Correct buoyancy will allow many diving skills to be performed effortlessly: ascending, hovering, descending, and deploying Delayed Surface Marker Buoys (DSMB’s) are just a few that are easier when correctly weighted.

Buoyancy itself is largely down to correct weighting. Too often, divers use weights that are unchanged from early in their diving career. Many carry too much lead, resulting in problems with drag, body position and stirring up silt, and in using more gas.

Correct trim (adjusting diving equipment to attain correct balance and attitude in the water) also contributes to easier control of body position, more relaxed and comfortable diving, and reduced gas and energy consumption.

The Buoyancy and Trim workshop consists of theory and practical sessions, the latter taking place in sheltered water. It is intended for any level of diver, but will be indispensable for Ocean and Sport divers who really want to enjoy the feeling that comes from great buoyancy and trim.

To find out more visit the BSAC website or just contact me.

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“Buoyancy workshop”

Chapters

• What’s it all about?

The British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC), as governing body of the sport in the UK, maintain annual, diving related incident reports for all recreational diving activity. From these it became clear that poor buoyancy has been the cause of an increasing number of incidents.

Around 12 mouths ago, Sean Gribbon, BSAC National Diving Officer, asked the Diver Training Group of the National Diving Committee to develop a Buoyancy Workshop.

Alan Jeffery (Diver Training Chief), Richard Scarsbrook (Diver Training Technical Editor) and myself as Diver Training Development Leader, took up the challenge to write a course and on August 01, 2008 the workshop was released.