Dry suit top three pieces of advice

[Storker]

The sodium acetate ones burn at the same temperature regardless of depth.

Nitpick: sodium acetate hand warmers don't burn. They release stored heat by solidifying. After use, you recharge them by putting them in boiling water for a little while.

No combustion, no oxidation, only the release of heat stored as chemical energy.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Remove "going head down" from your diving maneuver tool box.

Not necessarily ... many of those who dive drysuit regularly can "go head down" at will. You just have to manage the air in your suit ... which usually means not using your drysuit for buoyancy control, and only keeping adequate air in the suit to loft the undergarment. With some practice you can orient yourself in any position you choose to in a drysuit without difficulty.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[stuartv]

Not necessarily ... many of those who dive drysuit regularly can "go head down" at will. You just have to manage the air in your suit ... which usually means not using your drysuit for buoyancy control, and only keeping adequate air in the suit to loft the undergarment. With some practice you can orient yourself in any position you choose to in a drysuit without difficulty.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

My thought was directed at someone who is about to dive dry for the first time.

 

[Peter Boyd]

My first vote would be for user replacable seals if available,. you'll love them the first (or second ) time you tear a seal !!

 

[Diver0001]

Not necessarily ... many of those who dive drysuit regularly can "go head down" at will. You just have to manage the air in your suit ... which usually means not using your drysuit for buoyancy control, and only keeping adequate air in the suit to loft the undergarment. With some practice you can orient yourself in any position you choose to in a drysuit without difficulty.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

A friend of mine showed this very aptly on a dive we did a couple of years ago. He is an incredibly creative person... One of those people who makes comments you never expect but that hit the nail right on the head..... one of those people who sees the world the way it is, not the way you want it to be. He's not a rule follower (duh) which makes him a good buddy for me because he shows me boundaries that, as a slightly autistic control freak, I don't dare to test.

So we were diving in a Belgian quarry and there was a pipe stood end-up on the bottom from about 20 to about 8 metres. It was intended for a swim through. There was a hole in the bottom. Sven (that's his name) signed to me, "watch this" and he went into the pipe upside down and backwards (feet first) at the deep end in a drysuit. I figured he would come out the top of it bloated and out of control so I went up the outside of the pipe to the top to catch him. He did come out of the top of the pipe bloated with "elephant" legs but the moment his head cleared the pipe he rolled and vented and only ascended about another metre or so before he stopped and ended horizontal and in control.

That's an inverted ascent over 12 meters that he stopped within 1 meter of depth.

As an aside, a little later in the dive I lost him. I swum under a platform that was hung well over the bottom at 5m depth. I looked left and right and didn't see him so I looked over my head and saw him upside down doing a Michael Jackson "moon walk" across the under side of the platform.

As another aside, he was a hard-core DIR diver who eventually turned his back to DIR. This puzzled me because I am a hard core DIR curious technical diver who has never been able to let go of the fact that I am not 100% DIR. What he said to me says a lot about him, but also about me and about DIR. He said, "I got tired of talking intelligently about diving, and just wanted to go diving".

That said, there is a reason why he was able to stop a 12m inverted ascent so quickly.....

R..

 

[Storker]

many of those who dive drysuit regularly can "go head down" at will.

I don't have a problem with going heads down in my neo DS which I use with only a thin layer of wool underwear. I'm a bit more reluctant to do it in my trilam, which has room for a nice, thick undersuit plus ample space in the legs...

 

[Diver0001]

I don't have a problem with going heads down in my neo DS which I use with only a thin layer of wool underwear. I'm a bit more reluctant to do it in my trilam, which has room for a nice, thick undersuit plus ample space in the legs...

As a matter of fact, I teach my drysuit students in the pool using "hand stands" with legs inverted and full so that they learn and understand how to get those legs back down and under their body without making an uncontrolled ascent.

This is done, as you might not expect, using body position (arching the back and "windmilling" arms) as opposed to the silly somersaults they ask us to teach. I teach somersaults because it is required and then teach them how to get any legs down, no matter how full, efficiently after that.

R..

 

[Lorenzoid]

Do not cut corners on this. Get measured by somone who does this a lot and will stand behind you when the manufacturer sends you a suit that doesn't fit. Which happens with depressing regularity.

This. In getting my suit's problems resolved, I dealt with my dealer, the dealer's distributor, and the manufacturer, each of whom did their best to avoid taking responsibility, each implicitly blaming the other. Emails were exchanged for more than six months before a compromise was reached. Use a trusted dealer who will stand behind you 100%, even if it costs more initially. Some fly-by-night "shop" that offers the best price may be no bargain in the end, after you have had to pay additional money to get what you believed you had ordered.

 

[Storker]

As a matter of fact, I teach my drysuit students in the pool using "hand stands" with legs inverted and full so that they learn and understand how to get those legs back down and under their body without making an uncontrolled ascent.

This is done, as you might not expect, using body position (arching the back and "windmilling" arms) as opposed to the silly somersaults they ask us to teach. I teach somersaults because it is required and then teach them how to get any legs down, no matter how full, efficiently after that.

Being able to go horizontal after inadvertently going feet up is - of course - an important skill which should be mastered. Voluntarily standing on my head in my trilam for some time, with the amount of air I need in my undersuit to properly loft it for cold water is something I try to avoid because it usually leads to an embarrassing amount of flailing before I'm good again. In the neo suit, I don't have a problem being upside down for the time I need to get the shot I'm trying for

 

[Marie13]

I believe there is some wisdom in buying a suit made in the country you live in. For the US, that means DUI and USIA. If any others are made here, I'm don't know which they are.

Also, don't go cheap on the suit and figure out any options you want (such as pockets). USIA, for example, includes two pockets (one on each thigh, zipper or velcro fastening) on the Techniflex. DUI doesn't include pockets on the suit I priced out (TLS something). Get everything you can on the suit done at the factory - user replaceable seals, P-valve, etc.

If you need a custom suit, get one. My custom Techniflex cost only $150 extra for the custom cut, over the stock size price.

To give you an idea of the cost of options: $50 extra for neoprene socks (I wanted separate boots I can lace), $250 extra for replaceable wrist and neck seals. The boots I got set me back about $80, but some folks are happy using Chuck Taylors/Converse sneakers.