Drop Weights

["Marsee Skidmore" <heyred@email.msn.com>]

Fellow Boaters,

In all this discussion of ballast tankage, I haven't seen much mention of
Drop Weights. Is anybody using any form of expendable ballast? This is one
option available to us as pleasure boaters that's not available to the
average SSBN, since we can go back home between dives. A Drop Weight allows
you to dive with a bubble in the ballast tank (or under your canopy), and
save that much compressed air to get home. Multiple independently releasable
Drop Weights allow you to take home big payloads of Gold Doubloons. As Al
says, though, it requires some fine tuning, and a good idea of how deep
you're going before you start. The task is a bit easier if you're clever
enough to come up with a shot hopper sort of device that dribbles out bits
of weight. :-o Joe