Drysuit Specialty course tips?

[RobPNW]

Not saying you don’t need a BC, just need it a lot less.

 

[Nosmosis]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. This is a wonderful piece of information that will help us through our course, and we will take extra care to get the weights right. As mentioned initially, we have actually had two dives already (confined dives in sea) so we are not totally unfamiliar with drysuits. At the point it was too much to handle, but we feel a lot more confident and ready to take on the challenge. We've already suspected it will take time to handle a drysuit properly, and we will go diving as much as we can to get practice. Does anyone fail this course for any reason?

If a student cannot complete the skills required in the class, they don’t fail but they may need more dives to complete the requirements for successful completion and for me to issue a certification. That might take more time, require another day of training and ultimately might cost them more money.

The only time I would fail someone is if they were being reckless, disregarding instructions as it relates to my safety, their safety or safety of the other students. For example, if I ask how much gas a student has and they were to lie and say they had 1000 psi when they have 500psi…we would have a harsh conversation.

I have never had to fail anyone but have had to have people do additional dives to complete classes - albeit not with the drysuit course.

 

[Imla]

Haven't read all answers, but two things come to mind:
The biggest reason for using the BCD for what it is, a buoyancy compensator is that if something goes wrong (in worst case an out of air situation), and you have only used the suit for buoyancy, a head first ascent will lead you in a fast ascent, with most/all air escaping the suit the second you lift your arms to the surface. If your bcd is empty, and you are out of air, you WILL depend on your ability to kick and stay up whilst being significantly negative, whilst manually inflating your bcd. This is complicated in the best scenarios, and usually quite impossible in most realistic scenarios.
If you use your bcd to stay neutral, the air in your bcd will stay in your bcd. It will expand as you ascent, and will be a part of established positive buoyancy at the surface. If you are unable to kick, unconscious, or otherwise injured, this may help save your life.
USE your wing for buoyancy!

Tip two: as always... Go slow. When you think you are slow, go even slower.
When you want to ascend. Plan ahead. Dump gas from the suit first. Inhale to compensate if you need. Then ascend. Stop. Stabilise. Find a sweet spot. Alternate Suit/BCD in small increments.
Find a nice slope to practice this. (Sjøstrand, Storsand and Pumpehuset i Drøbak are excellent sites to do this)

And remember, of course you can do this!

 

[DCN]

Haven't read all answers, but two things come to mind:
The biggest reason for using the BCD for what it is, a buoyancy compensator is that if something goes wrong (in worst case an out of air situation), and you have only used the suit for buoyancy, a head first ascent will lead you in a fast ascent, with most/all air escaping the suit the second you lift your arms to the surface. If your bcd is empty, and you are out of air, you WILL depend on your ability to kick and stay up whilst being significantly negative, whilst manually inflating your bcd. This is complicated in the best scenarios, and usually quite impossible in most realistic scenarios.
If you use your bcd to stay neutral, the air in your bcd will stay in your bcd. It will expand as you ascent, and will be a part of established positive buoyancy at the surface. If you are unable to kick, unconscious, or otherwise injured, this may help save your life.
USE your wing for buoyancy!

Tip two: as always... Go slow. When you think you are slow, go even slower.
When you want to ascend. Plan ahead. Dump gas from the suit first. Inhale to compensate if you need. Then ascend. Stop. Stabilise. Find a sweet spot. Alternate Suit/BCD in small increments.
Find a nice slope to practice this. (Sjøstrand, Storsand and Pumpehuset i Drøbak are excellent sites to do this)

And remember, of course you can do this!

Thanks @Imla, very good and valid point about the safety aspect if injured, unconscious or otherwise not able to sustain buoyancy.

We'll be using jacket bc's for the course, and after the course (when we have received our bpw's) we'll start practicing. Also, thanks for pointing out good spots!

 

[WillieJustice]

First off, I have much less experience in a dry suit than many people here. With that said, I did the dry suit class. I was not outright encouraged to use the suit as a buoyancy tool but it basically ended up being one anyway. During the open water dives, I may have used the BC twice. The reason was obvious. If properly weighted, as you descend and compress and get negative, and then add air to the suit to relieve the squeeze, you basically neutralize buoyancy at the same time.

That has been my experience so far. With one exception that was my fault for putting in too much air. I have a grand total of 10 drysuit dives so far, meaning that there is still a whole lot of practice and analysis before I know what I am really doing.

 

[happy-diver]

When I first put on a dry suit I idiot proofed myself with weight, so as not to be surprised
I will never understand why people strive for a weight too light due to what's fashionable

Like all the times I've found other peoples weight belts, systems, and other heavy objects
and then strap them to me very firmly, and continue the dive as I'm doing any other dive

wetsuit or drysuit

But this without the benefit, of doing a drysuit course

Those half a harness weight packs can be quite heavy


Strapping or carrying heavy junk from the sea to yourself and compensating for buoyancy

CAN LEAD TO SURPRISING UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES

 

[Seaweed Doc]

and as you become great and can think about everything less you can also learn to use the bc

in case a crab bites a hole in your drysuit

Does the converse hold? Learn to use the suit in case a crab bites a hole in your BCD?

 

[happy-diver]

Sharks!

 

[DCN]

A little update, the course is done. Skills were easier than expected, and we learned a few things that are going to be useful going forward. We also realise we need to work more on our buoyancy control in a drysuit, and will try to practice as much as we can, but we guess that's pretty standard for everyone.

Time to start looking for our own gear and think about doing our aow.

 

[DCN]

We did our first solo drysuit dive today, had an amazing time! We expected a shitshow, but to be honest, it went very well. Our new bpw's were awesome to dive with, so stable and easy to handle.