Drysuit for new young diver???

[Suggsrd]

My son age 16 and his cousin age 14 got open water cert today. Puget Sound WA. The LDS was encoraging him to jump straight into a dry suit. I am not certain that having a new diver who is not yet familiar with diving equipment also learn to manage the drysuit. My experience leads me to belive he would be safer using the simpler wetsuit for a while to get his skills up. We are an active family so we will plobably make less than 25 dives per year. During the cert dives (two per day) my son was not uncomfotably cold. Stating he was only a little cold when they were stationary and waiting his turn to go thru the drills. His cousin is somewhat smaller stature and also very cold during the dives.

I was a very experinced diver at one time. I was not into the typical recreational diver scene as a diver and it has been 6 years since I have been diving. So my knowledge of how divers are trained, especialy youth divers is no existent.

What would you advise these two boys to do?

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

I think that he has to train in either one. Puget Sound? Brrrrrrrr. I would go ahead and let him train it, if you have the funds to buy drysuits that may be outgrown quickly.

 

[SubMariner]

My son age 16 and his cousin age 14 got open water cert today. Puget Sound WA. The LDS was encoraging him to jump straight into a dry suit. I am not certain that having a new diver who is not yet familiar with diving equipment also learn to manage the drysuit. My experience leads me to belive he would be safer using the simpler wetsuit for a while to get his skills up. We are an active family so we will plobably make less than 25 dives per year. During the cert dives (two per day) my son was not uncomfotably cold. Stating he was only a little cold when they were stationary and waiting his turn to go thru the drills. His cousin is somewhat smaller stature and also very cold during the dives.

I was a very experinced diver at one time. I was not into the typical recreational diver scene as a diver and it has been 6 years since I have been diving. So my knowledge of how divers are trained, especialy youth divers is no existent.

What would you advise these two boys to do?

Given that you have already stated that these youngsters were cold during their local dives, you may have no choice but to go dry if they are going to spend any appreciable time diving locally. Nothing takes the fun out of a dive or puts unnecessary stress on you more than being cold while underwater.

While there is additional training to be done to use a drysuit safely & effectively, it shouldn't be too difficult to add that into their current learning curve. That being said, each youngster needs to be evaluated on their own merits as to whether or not they can handle learning to dive dry. I know you said that your local LDS was trying to steer them into drysuits, but might I suggest consulting with their Instructor one-on-one to see what he/she thinks?

Bonne chance,

 

[jashaw]

The only dives that were in a wetsuit for me were in the pool. I knew that i wanted to do great lakes shipwrecks diving a lot. But they are younger in age and still have a lot of time to physically grow, so a new drysuit wont be out of the equation for both of them.

Like SubMariner said, their is some additional training, but it is worth the time and money if they want to dive locally.

 

[TSandM]

I got certified in a dry suit. I agree that it's additional task loading, but it's manageable. (If I, the just about least talented diving student in history, could do it, most anybody can.)

We are going into winter here, and the conditions for the next six months will be the most difficult for wetsuit divers, with low air temperatures, rain, and low water temperatures. It will make getting out and practicing their newly acquired skills much less stressful if the guys are doing it dry.

However, given their ages, you do have the issue of growth -- for this reason, I would recommend looking at the Fusion dry suit for them. Although a big change in height might still make a change of suit necessary, you'll get more time off a Fusion (especially if you buy the largest size that works for them) than you will any other sort of non-flexible suit.

On the other hand, if the virtually all of the 25 dives a year you guys do are all on vacation in the tropics, just waiting and having them do a refresher before a trip might be a reasonable option.