25lb wing with Drysuit?

[SpyrosDives]

Hi All,

I have one of the BP/W sets from DGX with a 25lb wing (for reference, it's the Dive Rite travel wing). I'm trying to get an understanding of whether I will need a new wing if I want to start diving with a drysuit.

Wearing just a Fourth Element Thermocline (which is neutrally buoyant), and an Aluminum backplate, I use around 4lb of weight with an AL80 tank. How positive can I expect a drysuit to be? I understand that my question sounds like "how positive is a wetsuit?", but I'm hoping that I can get a ballpark estimate.

For reference, I did dive this setup with 16lb of lead in a 7mm wetsuit, a shortie on top of it, a vest, two hoods, gloves etc.

I'm not planning anything extreme. Temperatures down to 10C/50F.

Cheers,
Spyros

 

[JohnnyC]

Depends on the drysuit and the undergarments. Neoprene? Trilam? Crushed neoprene? How much air do you want in it? Etc.

Easiest is to put it on and get in a pool with a bunch of weight and sort it out.

 

[chrisch]

If you are correctly weighted the wing is to lift the scuba unit. The exposure suit shouldn't matter. For a drysuit (I never dive anything else) with steel doubles or a steel single I use a #30 wing.

 

[decompression]

A very rough estimate is that the wing should be fine as you'll be very close in lead from the wetsuit to the drysuit (16 lbs). Both your wing and the drysuit will give you enough buoyancy if either one fails.