Drysuit Opinions Needed

[3D diver]

FWIW: I'm kind of a diving time capsule---most of my gear dates from the '80s & '90s. I recently bought another Viking drysuit---mostly 'cause I've dove Vikings since '89---and splurged on a relief zipper. Well worth the money.

It's a little harder to get Vikings, but they are available at prices comperable to the suits mentioned and are tough, simple suits.

 

[metajames]

May I suggest that you demo a DUI Drysuit before deciding on one?

 

[TSandM]

tpylons, the thing about the Sport skin is that it does just what Whites says it does. If you swim into something jagged or anything that catches the skin of the suit, it pulls the Lycra away from the inner bag. The Lycra stretches until it finally lets go. I suppose such an encounter COULD hole the skin, although that never happened to me, but it is highly unlikely to put a hole in the inner bag. The only time something from the outside hurt my suit, I fell off a dive boat in Florida, and the bolt from my doubles caught a fold of suit which obviously was being held against the backplate by the harness, and the whole thing (skin and bag) tore. I really don't blame the suit for that, and I'm quite sure that any suit I was wearing would have been torn in that particular accident.

I honestly think the biggest plus of the Tech skin is more abrasion resistance (eg. crawling out of the water on rocks) than puncture resistance.