Is my Daughter scamming me?

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Cherry

Contributor
Messages
369
Reaction score
0
Location
Creston, BC,Canada
# of dives
100 - 199
Ok our youngest daughter is completeing her Instructors course while attending a Tourism Management program specializing in Scuba at Capilano University in Sechelt BC. We bought her a top notch white dry suit at the beginning of the course. She is diving everyday multiple times and its a great course. Now after 100-200 dives she is telling us her Drysuit is wearing out. Now my reaction is...you arent taking care of it for 2500 bucks it better last more than 100 dives. My only experience with a dry suit is one day which taught me that warm water and a 3 mil is way better. I would love if you folks could provide some fact checking for me. Thanks
 
Ok our youngest daughter is completeing her Instructors course while attending a Tourism Management program specializing in Scuba at Capilano University in Sechelt BC. We bought her a top notch white dry suit at the beginning of the course. She is diving everyday multiple times and its a great course. Now after 100-200 dives she is telling us her Drysuit is wearing out. Now my reaction is...you arent taking care of it for 2500 bucks it better last more than 100 dives. My only experience with a dry suit is one day which taught me that warm water and a 3 mil is way better. I would love if you folks could provide some fact checking for me. Thanks

If she takes care of it, her drysuit will last for years. Our rental inventory has some that have seen huge amounts of use and abuse for decades and are still alive and well.

That said, some parts of the drysuit are "wear items". The neck and wrist seals degrade over time (the latex becomes sticky/crunchy/cracked/etc.) and will eventually stretch enough that it leaks or will rip. These need to be replaced on an as-needed basis, although "as needed" depends a lot on how the suit was maintained and stored.

The zipper will eventually wear out and need to be replaced, but again, it's life is determined by maintenance. If the zipper is kept clean and lubricated according to the manufacturer's instructions, it will last quite a long time.

The rest of the suit is a (tri-lam?) fabric and is easily patched if it develops leaks.

In short, unless she set it on fire, there's pretty much nothing that will happen to the suit that can't be fixed by replacing the zipper, wrist and neck seals and maybe patching a few leaks.

PS. If the suit needs the wrist seals replaced, have the serivce company install "rings" (they'll know what this is). The rings allow replacing the seals with nothing more than popping an inner ring out, and installing a new seal, as well as allowing the use of dry-gloves.

Terry
 
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Thanks Terry you just answered my question. I appreciate it. As a student watching her on the day I went out with their class what I saw was young people who didnt appreciate the value of the suits and werent treating them with the care they needed. They are diving on the sunshine coast of BC which is great diving but given the volume of diving, virtually every day, and the class work, I know as a student I would have neglected some of the basic "chores". Its being a great experience for her. She was an inexperienced Dive master prior to the course and has had lots of great opportunities for practice with this class. At the same time taking management training back round that would even help her if she ever decides that taking over the family farm would be a good idea.

thanks
Bill
 
Even a carelessly treated drysuit can last a long time -- you just have to get good at patching leaks!

I get about 70 dives off a latex neck seal (that's low), but I've gotten over 200 off wrist seals, and have yet to replace a zipper.
 
The seals and zippers always need to be replaced after awhile but the rest of the suit usually is great for many years.
I watched one lady put her finger nails through brand new seals one time when she was just "trying on" someone else's drysuit! Some people are more careful than others but most people do have a neck seal tear after 100-200 dives. Latex ages and dries out even with the best care.
 
I have an Abyss 4mm semi-compressed neoprene dry suit with latex seals I bought new in August 2002. When I first began diving dry I was taught to always use zip wax and seal saver before putting my suit away after each use/rinsing. This has served me well, and the Abyss is an amazingly tough suit. I have done nothing to mine since I purchased it in 2002, and it is still ready to go diving.
 
She was an inexperienced Dive master prior to the course and has had lots of great opportunities for practice with this class. At the same time taking management training back round that would even help her if she ever decides that taking over the family farm would be a good idea.

In any case, if she doesn't like diving, you can always use the drysuit on the farm. You never know when you'll need to work around a half-frozen pond in March. :cool:

Terry
 
Wearing out after 100 to 200 dives in a $2500 drysuit. Hmmmm...

Well, how did the other kids turn out?

Tell your daughter that as part of her instructor training, she can now learn how to repair her own drysuit. I get all my seals from Kayak Academy in Issaquah, WA. and they can set her on the path of drysuit restoration.
The Kayak Academy | The Elite School For Kayakers |

Geez, I wish I had studied Tourism Management specializing in Scuba. Sounds like an expensive way to learn something that comes best from OJT, but I bet it is a lot of fun.
 

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