Dry suit diving malfunction has me scared

[Tigerman]

Why you sink with a flooded suit really is not the important part here (you will, if youre neutral and you lose the lift from a working drysuit and dont counter it).
The important part is how to counter it.
As far as the OP goes, the important part is what to do in the opposite scenario..
Forward roll+release valve or neck seal venting is the "textbook solutions" to the 2nd case. If the inflator keeps pumping air into your suid, hose disconnect which you REALLY should be able to do with gloves. Usually when I dive dry gloves is required, just as the drysuit to keep my body temp and agility up.
1st case I guess would just remove the forward roll as I didnt read anything about being head down there.

 

[Anti-Hero]

A flooded drysuit is only going to be less buoyant relative to the SMALL amount of gas that should be in it to begin with. The suit should only have enough gas to relieve squeeze and allow a full range of mobility, which doesn't take much. With a properly balanced rig, this is not much more than an uncomfortable inconvenience. Even modern undergarments are designed to still insulate when saturated.

The flooded drysuit sinking like a rock is a wives tale.

 

[Colliam7]

I'd be grateful for any input anyone has on this situation. ... This past weekend I did the dry suit dives and I had TWO suit malfunctions. ... I really want to figure this out. I am supposed to do my advanced open water dive this weekend in a dry suit, but if that had happened any deeper I don't want to think what could have happened.

You have received quite a bit of good feedback. My thoughts to add: 1) Learning to dive a drysuit can take time for some. I had more than 20 DS dives, including the specialty dives, before I began to even feel comfortable and somewhat in control of the suit. After several hundred DS dives, I am still learning. You indicate that you did the DS specialty just last weekend, and are scheduled to do AOW in a DS this weekend. My hat is off to you. I would not have been able to do AOW in my DS after only a handful of dives. 2) Your description of your size and the fit of the suit suggests that a big part of your challenge was dealing with an ill-fitting (for you) suit, with lots of space just waiting to be filled by air (not to mention the equipment malfunction on the first dive). Possibly to help compensate for the fit, you probably ended up being at least amply weighted, and possibly a bit overweighted, which is not uncommon in newer DS users. At the surface, you need more weight to start your descent, because of the amount of residual air in the suit. Once under water, you add air to compensate for the extra weight. As a result, the size of the bubble gets bigger, and the effect of a shift in bubble position, from shoulders to feet, becomes more dramatic. More than a few DS divers actively purge their suits before a dive (squatting, and wrapping theirs arms tightly around them, to exhaust as much air as possible, or walking into the water, exhaust valve fully open, hands in the air, to let the water force the air from the suit, before even putting their weight belt and gear on), so that they enter the water feeling a bit shrink-wrapped, then add just enough air as they descend to prevent squeeze. 3) you asked a question about trim position, whether you should be horizontal or slightly angled. Ideally, you should be horizontal, just as you are when diving wet, with your knees bent (up to 90 degrees) and your feet up. If you have to stay slightly 'head up' to avoid going inverted, you may have too large a bubble in the suit. Several techniques have been mentioned to minimize the likelihood of a bubble shift, including keeping a very tight waist strap / weight belt, and using gaiters. I use gaiters, and while I do cinch my weight belt and waist strap fairly tight, I find the gaiters to be most helpful. Since it was a rental suit, you may also have been using lighter 'recreational' fins. A number of DS users find that heavier (negatively buoyant) fins like JetFins are more functional with a DS. This is not to suggest that you should employ an equipment solution to address a diving skill issue - establishing proper trim - but there are equipment choices (gaiters, heavier fins, etc.) that aid the DS diver. 4) You mentioned the difficulty of reacting to the stuck inflator because the gloves were so thick, and I can appreciate that. Over time, I have found that using thinner gloves is necessary, even if my hands end up being somewhat colder than I might otherwise prefer - of course, not so cold that they become numb and 'unusuable'. I have moved from 5mm or 3mm neoprene, to some lighter / thinner paddling gloves ('Warmers', obtained at REI). They are more flexible than 5mm, or even 3mm diving gloves, and considerably more durable. I use them comfortasbly in water down to the mid-50s, and use them less comfortably in water down to the low 40s.

Drysuits are absolutely wonderful! I dive dry 90% of the time now. But, they require patience, and a bit of trial and error, in order to learn to use them safely and comfortably.

 

[D_B]

I forgot to add something about the inflator hose disconnect and gloves ... you should be able to quickly disconnect it without fumbling.

Tobin at Deep Sea Supply has a "hose hat" that makes the coupler easy to pull even with gloves on ... https://www.deepseasupply.com/index.php?product=45
PM him here on the Board and I'm sure he'll send you one ... cool_hardware52

 

[Buoyant1]

You two aren't actually weighted much differently. If Heidi is in a regular jacket BC, she does not have the benefit of the natural negative buoyancy of your backplate, and may in fact need a couple of extra pounds to displace the positive buoyancy of the BC. Also, if she's using an AL80, that's another 4-6lb to add. She's in Seattle so you know she has thick undergarments too. I'm also 140 and the buoyancy of my drysuit/undergarments is ~27lb, which is not at all uncommon for cold water.



You don't sink in water, at least not by much. A fully flooded ds/underwear is probably a couple of pounds negative (throw an open DS and undergarment into the pool and it'll slowly float to the bottom), and further a DS failure is not always a total and catastrophic flood that eliminates all buoyancy of the suit.

You will lose buoyancy because that 20-27lb of loft goes away, but you're still wearing all that lead (backplate, STAs, weight belt, etc.) you put on to displace that loft. If you have a balanced rig, your BC should have sufficient lift to account for a total drysuit failure (and typically with single tanks, a ~30 capacity should be enough). It won't help you walk out of the water or get back on the boat with a suit full of water though.

We may not be weighted much differently, but I'm twice her weight. That's why I'm curious about her weighting...I was in 41 degree water on my last dive and have a decent amount of padding to stay warm as well. I'd still be concerned that she's over weighted...may be part of the issue. Unless she's wrapped in a down comforter underneath it to stay warm, that seems like a lot of lead to me...

As far as the rest of it..that's what I figured...It didn't sounds right otherwise..

 

[Buoyant1]

I forgot to add something about the inflator hose disconnect and gloves ... you should be able to quickly disconnect it without fumbling.

Tobin at Deep Sea Supply has a "hose hat" that makes the coupler easy to pull even with gloves on ... https://www.deepseasupply.com/index.php?product=45
PM him here on the Board and I'm sure he'll send you one ... cool_hardware52

One of the first things the guys I dive with had me do on the platform was disconnect and re-connect the hose a few times with my gloves.

 

[sschlesi]

If your wing is not capable of lifting a suit full of water you will be negative. I have been there but I had that covered with a classic wing. If you have a seal fail and your suit floods totally you will sink like a brick.

Filling a suit with water will not make it negative. The suit itself is made of rubber/neoprene and likely a little (most shells) to a lot (thick neoprene) positive. And the water in the suit is the same as the water around the suit and therefore neutral, making the whole system a little to a lot positive.

Much of the lead a dry suit diver wears is to counteract the insulating air in the undergarment. So if all (unlikely but possible) the air in a suit is lost, much of the lift required to balance the lead is lost. A fully flooded suit PLUS lead will almost certainly be substantially negative. Your wing needs to be capable of lifting the excess lead.

Once out of the water, all the water in a flooded suit is no longer neutralized by the surrounding water, and will be very heavy. Exiting the water with all the extra weight may be an issue, consider handing off lead before climbing on to a boat or making a difficult shore exit.


Note: The above assumes the diver and wet insulating garments are neutral. They are likely a little positive, but may be a little negative. Either way the effect is small compared to the weight of lead/lost air.

 

[mikerault]

I have to add like 6 extra pounds when going from my Bare nexGen with the 100 gram thermals to a DUI trilam with 200 gram thermals. Believe it or not, the Bare kept me warmer with the 100 grams than the DUI did, mostly due to compression of the thermals on my arm and legs caused by the DUI not fitting loose enough.

I have seen from other posts and my own experience that the drysuit manufacturer will make quite a bit of difference to the needed weight.

Mike

 

[Tom Winters]

Heidi - if you're still alive after reading all this, there are two women drysuit divers over there who can answer any questions for you.
Lynne who is "TSandM" on this board and is over in Woodinville.

Laura in Seattle who is now marketing the "she-p"
Representing a giant step forward in the world of continence aids for women!

This ladies will resolve any ish-ee-yews you have with diving.

 

[mintaka]

I just started drysuit diving myself and have 10 OW dives in a White's Fusion. I was taught, via PADI, to use only my suit for buoyancy during the dive and only my BC at the surface. To keep buoyant and trim at depth, I had to close my exhaust valve by several clicks and then remember to open it for the ascent. I was getting comfortable with this routine. Then last weekend I did a 100' wall dive (300' bottom) and during the descent I realized my inflator valve was not delivering air to the suit and I started descending very fast with a lot of squeeze. I quickly figured out that my hose wasnt really clicked in (i'll never again forget to check this pre-dive), so I fixed it and all was well (except for my racing heart). After the dive my tech-diver friends asked what happened and when I told them they said..."dont use your suit for buoyancy...use your BC.. only put enough air in your suit to compensate for the squeeze". The rest of the weekend I dove like that and found things much easier, since I could now leave my exhaust valve open all the way and not worry about it. I really have to question why PADI teaches the suit-only buoyancy for recreational diving when it seems that in practice, most people dont do this.