Dry Suit Tips

[Bubbletrubble]

Get heavy fins. Scubapro Jet Fins or Hollis F1s. They really help with the floaty feet.

@mikecotrone: Greg raises an interesting point. Heavy fins might be helpful, but they aren't necessary for everyone. So long as weight is distributed properly, one should be able to use neutral or positively buoyant fins with a drysuit. Ankle weights, tank camband weight pockets, trim weights, weight harness, and weightbelts are other tools to help with optimal weight distribution. It's important to note that subtle changes in body posture can play an important role in achieving proper horizontal trim.

Please note that a lot of factors influence horizontal trim: a diver's dimensions/inherent buoyancy characteristics, the positioning/dimensions/buoyancy characteristics of the tank, weight distribution along the rig, body posture, the magnitude/position of the drysuit bubble, magnitude/position of the BCD bubble, cut/composition of the drysuit, type of footwear, fins, etc. My drysuit has baggy legs, so gaiters provide a workable solution for me. Gaiters probably woudn't be helpful for you since the Fusion's design should be more form-fitting.

Just make sure that the foot pockets of whatever fins you use fit your rockboots. Lots of rockboots have a bulky forefoot, so drysuit divers gravitate towards fins with large foot pockets: Scubapro Jetfins, Hollis F1 fins, XS Scuba Turtle fins, certain Force fins, etc. Interestingly, my Bare Trek boots fit well inside the foot pocket of my lightweight travel fins (APS Mantaray fins).

Hope this info helps...

 

[mikecotrone]

@mikecotrone: Greg raises an interesting point. Heavy fins might be helpful, but they aren't necessary for everyone. So long as weight is distributed properly, one should be able to use neutral or positively buoyant fins with a drysuit. Ankle weights, tank camband weight pockets, trim weights, weight harness, and weightbelts are other tools to help with optimal weight distribution. It's important to note that subtle changes in body posture can play an important role in achieving proper horizontal trim.

Please note that a lot of factors influence horizontal trim: a diver's dimensions/inherent buoyancy characteristics, the positioning/dimensions/buoyancy characteristics of the tank, weight distribution along the rig, body posture, the magnitude/position of the drysuit bubble, magnitude/position of the BCD bubble, cut/composition of the drysuit, type of footwear, fins, etc. My drysuit has baggy legs, so gaiters provide a workable solution for me. Gaiters probably woudn't be helpful for you since the Fusion's design should be more form-fitting.

Just make sure that the foot pockets of whatever fins you use fit your rockboots. Lots of rockboots have a bulky forefoot, so drysuit divers gravitate towards fins with large foot pockets: Scubapro Jetfins, Hollis F1 fins, XS Scuba Turtle fins, certain Force fins, etc. Interestingly, my Bare Trek boots fit well inside the foot pocket of my lightweight travel fins (APS Mantaray fins).

Hope this info helps...

Thank you to everyone who posted, but especially you Bubbletrouble. Thankyou for taking the extra time to write very thoroughly.

 

[sambolino44]

Get an old toothbrush and keep your zipper clean. Dirt will destroy it faster than no lube will. You don't have to brush it every time, but you never know when some sand or something will get stuck in the wax, so it's a good idea to keep it handy.

Most suit makers recommend against wax with silicone in it. They usually avoid silicone lubricants altogether around anything they may have to put glue on later, like when they replace a seal. The silicone absorbs into the rubber and the glue won't stick.

I got a plastic box from a big end mill from work, and in it I keep a stick of beeswax from Trident, a toothbrush, and a lighter for getting rid of stray threads on the zipper. Don't burn your zipper! But it's better to melt the loose threads than to pull them off.

Rinse your exhaust and inflation valves in fresh water after every salt water dive.

Good luck!

 

[bs63366]

Does anyone use McNetts products of the zip tech and zip care. If not where is a good place to get zipper wax and is there any other products that you guys use to keep up your dry suits?

 

[joel231]

Does anyone use McNetts products of the zip tech and zip care. If not where is a good place to get zipper wax and is there any other products that you guys use to keep up your dry suits?

I got some of the McNetts wax with my scubapro fusion drysuit and it seems to be good, not that i use my drysuit very much.

Cheers Joel

 

[TSandM]

Congratulations on your new suit! I think the Fusion is a very easy dry suit to learn to dive, because the compression from the skin helps stabilize the air bubble. I think you'll like it a lot.

I agree with Bubbletrubble, to begin by using the BC as primary buoyancy, and putting just enough gas in the suit so that you can reach everything you need to reach. Also, and I'll probably be roundly scolded for this, weighting yourself about two pounds heavier than you need to be will make it far easier to reach the degree of emptiness you need in the suit -- it is VERY hard to squeeze every last molecule of air out while you are diving, but floating head-up and feet down, as one does for a weight check, is a great way to be totally squeezed. If you estimate your weight there, you've committed yourself to getting the suit THAT empty at the end of a dive. I have found adding about two pounds makes life MUCH easier.

As you gain facility with the suit, you can experiment with putting more gas in it, which increases your warmth and mobility. Eventually, you'd like to get to where it's simply a choice made on dive conditions, as to where you put the gas. (In a cave, where I'm likely to use "unusual attitudes", I keep the suit squeezed enormously, but in cold PNW diving, I use the suit alone for buoyancy with single tanks.)

Diving a dry suit has definitely advantages and disadvantages, and sometimes the same thing is both. Having air in the suit that you can move around with your posture can help you balance your equipment, but at the same time, having a very large area to move air around can bite you in the rear (google "dynamic instability in diving" for a good essay on this).

One specific note on the Fusion -- The inner bag may lose some of its "slipperiness" with time. If you find you are having difficulty sliding the arms and legs on over your undergarment, turn the suit inside out and wash it with a dilute detergent solution. I then spray the inside with SailKote, which is a dry lubricant. But most of the benefit is just from washing off the oil or whatever it is that accumulates on the bag.

 

[davetowz]

Does anyone use McNetts products of the zip tech and zip care. If not where is a good place to get zipper wax and is there any other products that you guys use to keep up your dry suits?

I use the Mcnetts zipper wax on all of my zippers, not just my drysuit. Makes all of them run smoother. Last fall I went to a quarry in VA and forgot my boots. After my first dive to 80' in sandals (40 degrees) some guys parked next to us offered me some boots saying the zippers where a pain. I whipped out my McNetts and zam, the zippers worked pretty good and my feet felt much better on the next 2 dives. Good product!