Ok so the difference between diving this suit and my old one is completely night and day!
As I said before my old suit always required me to dive heavy. I have lost count of the number of GUE instructors that have looked at my weightbelt, then at me, then at my weightbelt again, and then just shaken their heads. Notably, both Andrew Georgitsis and Gideon Liew have both attempted to lighten my load in the past - unsuccessfully. “Dude you need a new drysuit” was one response.
I dive twin steel 12's that are 9lb (4kg) negative with a stainless steel backplate that is 6.6lb (3kg) negative and still needed a 4lb (2kg) v-weight and a 12lb (5.5kg) weightbelt to be correctly weighted at 3m with <30bar.
Thus assuming zero contributions from either wing gas and cylinder gas we can see that my old suit was contributing somewhere in the order of 32lb (14.5kg) of positive buoyancy.
-4 + -3 + -2 + -5.5 + 14.5 = 0 (neutral)
After diving my new suit I was amazed to discover I could completely do away with the weightbelt 12lb (5.5kg) and still be neutral at 3m. Given the above this means my new drysuit and the Polartec 300 undersuit are only approximately 20lb (9kg) positive.
The difference is particularly noticeable at shallow depths where the new suit makes stops much easier to hold. The smaller inherent buoyancy means that control is much easier, dumping is more efficient, the suit reacts more quickly and more predictably. Less is definitely more in this case. Plus, not having a weightbelt makes the whole rig more comfortable and considerably easier to walk around in.
For comprehensive coverage of balancing your rig read:
Weighting: in search of a balanced rig & Balanced equipment: what does it mean?
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