Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Sink or Float ? Confined Water Lab

Well, this is what happens when you have instructor candidates with too much time on their hands.

we have heard all of the speculation, theory as well as some first hand knowledge concerning what would happen if you happen to totally flood your dry suit. We have speculated on every scenario from , sink like a rock to somewhat buoyant.We will be searching for the following answers for ourselves in our first CONFINED WATER LABORATORY ( the TJC pool)

we will attempt to discover the following:

1) buoyancy characteristics of a totally flooded dry suit.

2) if negative, how much lift will be required to reach the surface.

3) can you actually invert yourself and purge the water from your flooded dry suit. ( can't wait to try that one, might be ugly! )

all experiments will be conducted in a safe controlled manor with safety divers and observers present.

we will let you know the outcome.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can your Buddy unzip the flooded suit?

:)

Dean Pennington II said...

1. none, so if you are weighted for the trapped air in your undergarment, you will sink. Of note, you can no longer use the dry suit itself for buoyancy, but you will also not get suit squeeze.

2. If negative, only the amount of lift needed for your weight and the weight of the gear. Water will not come into play until you surface and try to get out. Good Luck!

3. This poses and interesting question, one with many variables. If the suit is totally flooded and will not hold air, then you will not be able to purge the suit of water. If the suit is totally flooded and will still seal and hold water, you may be able to purge some of the water from the suit, not all. At absolute best, you will have at least one arm completely full of water and whatever you have on as an undergarment will be totally saturated.

An interesting test would be to weight yourself enough that you could remain underwater with the suit totally inflated. With that weight on and suit totally flooded submerge headfirst down to the bottom of the pool. I wonder if the suit squeeze would help rid you of some of the water trapped in your undergarment?

dean