1st Dive in Dry Suit

[skeet]

Made my first dives in my new dry suit, I borrowed one for D.S. speciality class. The undergarment must be made of cork, had 28 pounds of weight and used my PST 130 steel tank and I still could'nt stay down much less add any air to relieve the mild squeeze. So I ended up taking off the underwear and put my genes and t-shirt, that lasted about 1 minute before pain were the suit was touching my bare skin caused me to abort, water temp was 48 degrees. Happen to have a set of long johns in my work bag in the car, put them on under the genes and t-shirt, much better but only lasted 30 min. on the dive. Can you divers tell me about your D.S. u.g. solutions or suggestions, I was also burning up in that 1st u.g. I mentioned. Ran out of weight, it will probably take 36-40 pounds with the heavy u.g.

 

[ERP]

What sort of dryduit was it, some of the neoprene ones are very floaty.

What sort of UG you neeed is dependant on a lot of things, what sort of DS, how much you feel the cold, whether you dive with gas in your suit etc etc.

I just splashed out on the DUI 400g thinsulate, a bit restrictive, but I'm fed up being cold after an hour in the water. I know people who dive fleece in colder water with no issues so it depends a lot on the person.

Basically your going to need the underwaear yo need and your going to need the lead it takes to sink it <shrug>

 

[skeet]

Its a BARE trilam lite, I took my class in a neoprene, very floaty but it was to big for me. My UG is from DUI, it is fleece inside and out with some sort of dense pad like insulation in between the two layers. I was sweaty after the first dive.

 

[ERP]

It could be the fit of the suit, I need more weight in my USIA than in my DUI just because the suits are cut differently. Unless you're very floaty I'd have guessed in the 25-30lb range, but everyone is different.

The only other thing to note is that squeeze is relative, a good excercise (shown to me by someone on this board) is to open your exaust valve walk into the water get out as much air as possible, walk back out. That is about the amount of squeeze I generally dive with.

Find underwear that keeps you warm and get properly weighted, is really all the advice I can give.

 

[skeet]

I appreciate yor help ERP, I'm going to find the weight amount needed for this UG and also get another thats not so warm and buoyant.

 

[kazinvan]

I'm 200 pounds and when I dive with a neoprene suit and fleece thermals I need 44 pounds of lead (single tank). When using a bag suit and more layers of insulation, I need about 40 pounds of lead.

Hope that helps,
Mike

 

[skeet]

It helps.

 

[skeet]

Dove with the new dry suit again today, went much better. The other day I ran out of weight at 28 lbs, today I added 10 lbs with the heavy undergarment and it seemed to work good. I do think I could drop 5 of those lbs but plan on making more adjustments slowly in a process of getting used to whole dry suit thing so I'm not jumping back and forth. I really like this dry suit diving, will take some getting used to, but its great.

 

[matt_unique]

Dove with the new dry suit again today, went much better. The other day I ran out of weight at 28 lbs, today I added 10 lbs with the heavy undergarment and it seemed to work good. I do think I could drop 5 of those lbs but plan on making more adjustments slowly in a process of getting used to whole dry suit thing so I'm not jumping back and forth. I really like this dry suit diving, will take some getting used to, but its great.

Dry is a great thing. Don't be afraid to add weight - you need what you need. You will eventually figure out exactly what you need based on your gear (gear for the particular dive), thermals (winter vs summer), etc.

--Matt

 

[skeet]

I read your thread about using your new dry gloves today, sure wish I had them today and my water temp was only 48 F.