One suit I haven't seen any discussion about is the one from Dive Rite. Last week I was visiting one of my favorite charities to see what they had going on for their fall sale. Not planning on getting anything I noticed that they had a couple of Dive Rite 905 drysuits for a price that would be great even for a POS (acronym for a not politically correct phrase) drysuit. After a bit of researching I picked one up.
Doing the research led me to a company in Finland called Polar Safety that makes a Polarsuit 905. Dive Rite appears to have a modified version of that suit. On a side note, Polar Safety also makes the Dacor Extreme drysuit, also a variant of the Polarsuit 905.
The suit comes with some features that are not on the Extreme or the 905. It has a flap that covers the back zipper, larger coated areas in the shins and the seat to cut down on abrasion, and pockets on boths legs (one larger bellows that is removable and one flat). It does not have a hood, but it does have a warm collar for tucking in a drysuit hoot. It is a back zip suit, but I don't have a problem with that. I don't dive solo so having someone do the zip is no big deal.
The big marketing deal with the suit is that it is not sewn at the seams, the butyl is HF welded. Therefore there are no locations for water to seep into the seams. The valves are SI Tech and the inflator connector has wings that make attaching the hose a little easier with thick gloves.
Enough of the technical stuff. I was out this morning taking it for a spin. Going from my neoprene drysuit to this was a big change. I dumped 6 pounds from my belt. I was wearing sweats and polypropylene long underwear. The water temp was 46F and we were in for 46 minutes. It was great. It is easy to get into and easy to get out of. I stood on my head a couple of times to look under things and see how the air shifts. No problems. To be on the safe side I took a pair of knife leg straps and put one at the top of each boot to minimize the air shift in the feet. My feet were less floaty than my neoprene suit. They aren't real floaty anyway since I wear IDI Turtle fins. Another point about trilams is that in the early sping I stopped wearing my neoprene suit and went wet due to overheating when out of the water in such a heavy suit. I doubt that I will do that next spring.
All in all, it is a good suit, especially given the price I paid for it. The only buyer's regret I have is that the next day I was in the shop and noticed that they had a used DUI CLX-450 with rockboots in my size for a few hundred more. If anyone else has any comments on the suit I would like to hear them.
JoelW
Doing the research led me to a company in Finland called Polar Safety that makes a Polarsuit 905. Dive Rite appears to have a modified version of that suit. On a side note, Polar Safety also makes the Dacor Extreme drysuit, also a variant of the Polarsuit 905.
The suit comes with some features that are not on the Extreme or the 905. It has a flap that covers the back zipper, larger coated areas in the shins and the seat to cut down on abrasion, and pockets on boths legs (one larger bellows that is removable and one flat). It does not have a hood, but it does have a warm collar for tucking in a drysuit hoot. It is a back zip suit, but I don't have a problem with that. I don't dive solo so having someone do the zip is no big deal.
The big marketing deal with the suit is that it is not sewn at the seams, the butyl is HF welded. Therefore there are no locations for water to seep into the seams. The valves are SI Tech and the inflator connector has wings that make attaching the hose a little easier with thick gloves.
Enough of the technical stuff. I was out this morning taking it for a spin. Going from my neoprene drysuit to this was a big change. I dumped 6 pounds from my belt. I was wearing sweats and polypropylene long underwear. The water temp was 46F and we were in for 46 minutes. It was great. It is easy to get into and easy to get out of. I stood on my head a couple of times to look under things and see how the air shifts. No problems. To be on the safe side I took a pair of knife leg straps and put one at the top of each boot to minimize the air shift in the feet. My feet were less floaty than my neoprene suit. They aren't real floaty anyway since I wear IDI Turtle fins. Another point about trilams is that in the early sping I stopped wearing my neoprene suit and went wet due to overheating when out of the water in such a heavy suit. I doubt that I will do that next spring.
All in all, it is a good suit, especially given the price I paid for it. The only buyer's regret I have is that the next day I was in the shop and noticed that they had a used DUI CLX-450 with rockboots in my size for a few hundred more. If anyone else has any comments on the suit I would like to hear them.
JoelW
