Drysuit Specialty course tips?

[DCN]

On top of all this wisdom you have a choice of neo or trilam suit, latex or neo seals and potentially rock boots and dry gloves. Personally I go with a trilam suit so I can adjust my undergarments to the temperature or duration. In this vein I also go with latex wrist seals for summer and kubi dry gloves for winter. I think a neo neck seal is more comfy and durable. Because I often have an equipment carry over rocky terrain I opt for rock boots.

Not so visible in the video we posted above, but we both have trilaminate suits and good undergarments, she uses an Ursuit Softdura with a Kwark Navy undersuit, and he has a Waterproof D1 with a Santi Kango undersuit. We both use a couple of good quality merino wool base layers, merino wool socks + thick wool socks, merino wool liner gloves and wool gloves underneath our Nordic Blue drygloves. Might seem a bit excessive for many, but this keeps us quite warm and toasty in the less than favourable conditions we dive in.

We add air to our suits only to stay warm and relieve squeeze. We're not terribly advanced yet, but we feel pretty comfortable diving dry now since we've been practicing almost every weekend since we got our drysuit cert. Both our drysuits were bought used, and while they work very nicely, we can't wait until we get our own made to fit!

 

[ScottishTapWater]

No, you need another 2+ liters (AL80/11L tank) or 3+ liters (HP100/13L tank) at the beginning of the dive to compensate for the gas you've yet to breath.

Leveraging the auto-dump makes it easy to achieve consistent suit buoyancy and trim throughout the dive, with the BC handling the remainder of buoyancy needs.

Obviously, preferences vary on the matter. For those new to drysuit, I'd encourage you to try both approaches.

I suppose it depends how big you are. I'm 6'4", so it takes a decent amount of air to take off the squeeze. Not to mention it's a matter of personal preference exactly how inflated your suit is before you consider the squeeze having been taken off. Probably a function of the material your suit is made of and what else you're wearing too.

 

[inquis]

Not to mention it's a matter of personal preference exactly how inflated your suit is before you consider the squeeze having been taken off

When you said "properly weighted", I took that to mean neutral at dive end (nearly empty tank & wing) and with the squeeze removed (i.e., layers lofted). That means something has to compensate for the gas weight before you use it. Whatever that is (suit or wing) needs another 3L of air, assuming a 13L cylinder.

Now, if you're suggesting to weight yourself to be neutral at the beginning of the dive when the squeeze is just off, that's a bad plan. You have to increase the squeeze throughout the dive, which yields dangerous off-gassing dynamics.

 

[grantmac]

BCD to compensate for gas weight than run a consistent suit gas quantity. I'm generally run a little more suit gas if I'm scooting or being stationary which means taking just a little extra weight.