Dry Suit Thoughts and Experiences?

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Is there some advantage using both dry suit and wing for buoyancy at the same time? You could argue that you always use both but I mean adding air to dry suit for buoyancy. Apart from more air = more warmth. ?

Ok, thanks. I use wing for buoyancy as it is easier for me. I am over weighted with steel cylinder without any lead. Is there any theoretical/practical reasons why to use both for buoyancy? Things like if you rupture your wing bladder you have some buoyancy left in suit...

Advanced techniques...

When I'm dropping down the shot line (that's the rope with grapnel anchor thrown in on to the wreck with a large buoy to mark the dive site). At the surface I'll dump the contents of the BCD and fall down the shot line, possibly hand-over-hand in the current, pausing periodically to inject some air into the drysuit to relive the squeeze. This can get quite severe if you're slow! The main thing is to get down as quick as possible. As I start to arrive at the target depth, I'll blow in some gas into the BCD to start slowing down the descent. Also the drysuit, but not too much.

When arriving on the bottom, I'll settle everything down, blow some gas into the drysuit to loosen it and "shake it up", often the legs need pulling up and the body moved around. Then I'll use my BCD (called a wing) for coarse buoyancy control. The wing effectively offsets the additional weight I need to dive with which can be lost or consumed during the dive (i.e. gas from my cylinders, my heavy reel and SMB, etc.) which will need a good 3kg/7lbs of gas in the wing (3 litres multiplied by the depth in atmospheres).

I can then use the drysuit for fine control of buoyancy. With a rebreather, which I dive, you can't control your buoyancy with your lungs as you can when you're using open circuit (blowing bubbles). The drysuit inflation is fed from a separate cylinder of air, so is cheap compared with using the expensive helium mix used in deeper dives (which the wing is fed from).

Also the drysuit is far easier to dump gas from: simply raise your left shoulder slightly. The wing needs you to move your left arm (which holds the torch) around to your hip to dump from. This is important as it's a lot easier to adjust with your shoulder dump than your hip dump.

All of the above is during the bottom phase of the dive.

When ascending, you need to take a considerable time in doing your decompression stops which can easily be a long time, certainly well over an hour. On these stops, just as anyone doing a 3mins at 5m/18' safety stop knows, time passes slowly as you're not moving. This means you get cold, so you need will add more air to your drysuit to help keep you warmer than being shrink-wrapped.


This is what I mean by being far more nuanced than an Open Water instructor dogmatically explaining how you must do it. However, when you start, it's a lot easier to simply get rid of the squeeze and use the BCD and your lungs for buoyancy control. The rest you'll work out over a few dozen dives.
 
I left my original shop partly because of this. They would not get the items I wanted or needed for the type of diving I was getting into.
My "local shops" became Leisure Pro, ScubaToys, Tech Diving Limited, and Piranha Dive Mfg. I still get items from some of them even though I am a dealer for a couple of brands. Why? because my brands don't always have what I want for myself or my students want something different than what I carry.
Rather than try to get them to substitute, I go outside the box and get them what they want and take the loss of profit or I send them directly to the other source.
This BS about trusting the LDS to have your best interests at hand is an ideal that I do try to live up to (and so have no issues with referring people to my "competitors") but others do not. Why should I trust anyone who assumes I haven't done the research and know what I want and why?
Many times certain shops base their recommendations on their bottom line. Not necessarily what is in the best interest of the diver. This seems to be more true in some cases where the shop is locked into a certain high priced brand that has restrictive dealer policies. Or those where the staff have little to no experience with anything other than what the shop sells.
Like my original shop that tried to tell me I didn't need a BPW for doubles, a long hose, or a slung pony. Only because he didn't use those things or do the types of dives I wanted to do. Nothing to do with my best interests.


I'm running into a similar problem with dry suit fitting and availability. Because of my size, I am limited to a Bare Aqua-Trek 1 Pro Dry size 3xl, honestly, I don't know if it is the best choice for me. but it's the one the dive shop claims fits me.
At the end of my training I offered to purchase the suit at a $269.99 discount, after taxes my cost is $1,166.36. As a package deal I also bought a TULSA Paragon mask with prescription lenses, $45.00 discount, TULSA SOLA fins $14.00 discount and Hollis Canvas Overboot $14.25 discount. $74.23 savings altogether.

I'm leery of purchasing the dry suit they have for me without any other dry suits to compare it to.
 
You must really hate shops that make recommendations and attempt to help you. The internet is awful for that.

There’s an element of use 'em or loose 'em with dive shops. Then where are you going to get your gas and training?
I don't hate dive shops, but selection is sparse and 2 hours round trip. Most shops nearby are partially open with very little inventory to sell.
 
I'm running into a similar problem with dry suit fitting and availability. Because of my size, I am limited to a Bare Aqua-Trek 1 Pro Dry size 3xl, honestly, I don't know if it is the best choice for me. but it's the one the dive shop claims fits me.
At the end of my training I offered to purchase the suit at a $269.99 discount, after taxes my cost is $1,166.36. As a package deal I also bought a TULSA Paragon mask with prescription lenses, $45.00 discount, TULSA SOLA fins $14.00 discount and Hollis Canvas Overboot $14.25 discount. $74.23 savings altogether.

I'm leery of purchasing the dry suit they have for me without any other dry suits to compare it to.

Doesn't Bare do made to measure suits? If you're an odd size, it is a very good idea to go made to measure/custom.
 
I'm running into a similar problem with dry suit fitting and availability. Because of my size, I am limited to a Bare Aqua-Trek 1 Pro Dry size 3xl, honestly, I don't know if it is the best choice for me. but it's the one the dive shop claims fits me.
At the end of my training I offered to purchase the suit at a $269.99 discount, after taxes my cost is $1,166.36. As a package deal I also bought a TULSA Paragon mask with prescription lenses, $45.00 discount, TULSA SOLA fins $14.00 discount and Hollis Canvas Overboot $14.25 discount. $74.23 savings altogether.

I'm leery of purchasing the dry suit they have for me without any other dry suits to compare it to.
Seaskin
 
I don't hate dive shops, but selection is sparse and 2 hours round trip. Most shops nearby are partially open with very little inventory to sell.
Dive shops do sometimes make it very hard to love them as they push their old stock on to unsuspecting customers. It’s a fine line they tread.
 
Only enough air to take the squeeze off and for warmth IS what SDI teaches. Drysuit for buoyancy seems to be PADI.
PADI teaches that the degree to which a diver uses the drysuit and/or the BCD for buoyancy depends upon a number of factors, and it goes over the different options. It does not say that only the drysuit should be used in all situations.

Here is a quote from Page 94 of the book Dry Suit Diving: A Guide to Diving Dry, 4th edition. The authors (Barsky, Long, and Stinton) were at that time the leadership of DUI, so this is essentially a DUI publication.

from the subsection Proper Dry Suit Trim for Sport Diving
Once you reach the bottom, adjust your buoyancy using only your dry suit so that you are neutral. Do not add air to your buoyancy compensator to adjust your buoyancy. It is very difficult to control your buoyancy when you have air in two separate compartments at the same time, i.e., the B.C. and your suit. Controlling both air compartments is an advanced dry suit diving skill and is not recommended for the novice dry suit diver.
The title of that section uses the phrase "sport diving," which is commonly used when referring to the typical single tank diving done by the vast majority of divers. If a "sport diver" is properly weighted, then the little bit of air added to the suit for comfort should be enough to provide buoyancy. If you are diving like that and find you need an appreciable amount of air in your BCD in addition to the air in the drysuit, you might want to check to see if you aren't a tad overweighted.
 
I’m diving steels SM and with an added deco bottle often now (to get more used to it). Definitely have to use my wing. I run my suit very lean. Always have.
 
PADI teaches that the degree to which a diver uses the drysuit and/or the BCD for buoyancy depends upon a number of factors, and it goes over the different options. It does not say that only the drysuit should be used in all situations.

Here is a quote from Page 94 of the book Dry Suit Diving: A Guide to Diving Dry, 4th edition. The authors (Barsky, Long, and Stinton) were at that time the leadership of DUI, so this is essentially a DUI publication.

from the subsection Proper Dry Suit Trim for Sport Diving
Once you reach the bottom, adjust your buoyancy using only your dry suit so that you are neutral. Do not add air to your buoyancy compensator to adjust your buoyancy. It is very difficult to control your buoyancy when you have air in two separate compartments at the same time, i.e., the B.C. and your suit. Controlling both air compartments is an advanced dry suit diving skill and is not recommended for the novice dry suit diver.
The title of that section uses the phrase "sport diving," which is commonly used when referring to the typical single tank diving done by the vast majority of divers. If a "sport diver" is properly weighted, then the little bit of air added to the suit for comfort should be enough to provide buoyancy. If you are diving like that and find you need an appreciable amount of air in your BCD in addition to the air in the drysuit, you might want to check to see if you aren't a tad overweighted.

Little wonder this thread topic runs and runs given the confused and conflicting advice to divers over the years.

IMHO that’s simplistic dogmatic nonsense (which they wrote — not you John).

What is the purpose of the Buoyancy Control Device? What is the purpose of the dry exposure suit? To which we add the other questions: why does ones displacement and weight vary during a dive; what differences are there between phases of the dive (descent, bottom, ascent); what type of drysuit are you using (membrane or neoprene); what are the dive conditions (cold, warm, thermoclines); what trim and skills do you have (affects of the gas bubble moving around the drysuit, how you dump); what additional removable equipment are you carrying; how frequently you dive dry; what would be the consequences of a catastrophic drysuit flood; do you frequently change trim (horizontal, vertical)…?

All of which answers have a massive bearing on how you dive with your drysuit. Their text also assumes you’re perfectly weighted— Goldilocks weighting with no reserve weight.

Over 94 pages…. Were they paid by the word?
 
Only enough air to take the squeeze off and for warmth IS what SDI teaches. Drysuit for buoyancy seems to be PADI.

My recent(11/20) dry suit class taught me to use my dry suit for bouyency. It was through an SDI instructor.
 

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