Drysuit suggestions for moderate to warm-water diving

[Xaman Ha]

Thanks again for your help, ginti, jale and RainPilot

Another thing, are you buying a trilaminate just because "GUE says so"? Or did you try to challenge the GUE guidelines before to decide on a trilaminate?

No, not at all. I subscribe to the concept of the thinking diver In addition to the points I mentioned above I also figured that neoprene drysuits may accomodate a smaller range of temperatures, and that they offer less flexibility in the long run (e.g. wanting to go for T1).

My mind is not fully settled on this and the main reason I started this thread is to gather all the valuable feedback from more experienced divers. I definitely don't blindly follow equipment (or any other) prescriptions.

 

[Xaman Ha]

If you need a light suit for travel-don't forget Frogman Travel (and travel lady). They are great super light suit on the budget. Well, I'd say they are great suits, period. A bit of cost cutting when compared to Frogman Tech but they are super light suits at a fantastic price point.

Thanks for this suggestion! I've been reading your Frogman First Impressions thread and that suit looks really good. The Tech would also be within my budget.

 

[ginti]

You can do the T1 in wetsuit.

Trilam doesn't compress, in other words it doesn't change buoyancy and thermal isolation properties at depth... but I am not sure whether this is a thing at T1 depths, you may want to check it

 

[RainPilot]

You can do the T1 in wetsuit.

Trilam doesn't compress, in other words it doesn't change buoyancy and thermal isolation properties at depth... but I am not sure whether this is a thing at T1 depths, you may want to check it

Yes, but....
It depends on the wetsuit buoyancy swing and if you can have a balanced rig. Anything more than 5mm on a deep dive especially a tech dive and I am overweight at the bottom. I do tech dives in shorts and rash guard occasionally and in 3mm when needed, afte that I go dry regardless.
YMMV

 

[ginti]

Yes, but....
It depends on the wetsuit buoyancy swing and if you can have a balanced rig. Anything more than 5mm on a deep dive especially a tech dive and I am overweight at the bottom. I do tech dives in shorts and rash guard occasionally and in 3mm when needed, afte that I go dry regardless.
YMMV

When you say deep/tech dives, do you mean even at 40/50m depths?

NOTE: in the last ten years I used a neoprene suit only twice, once at 7m and the other time at 15m... and before, I was doing very simple rec dives - so I know that this issue exists, but I really don't have any idea about how to manage it

 

[RainPilot]

When you say deep/tech dives, do you mean even at 40/50m depths?

NOTE: in the last ten years I used a neoprene suit only twice, once at 7m and the other time at 15m... and before, I was doing very simple rec dives - so I know that this issue exists, but I really don't have any idea about how to manage it

We are lucky to have very warm water here in summer, so I have done a fair number of 60m dives in shorts and rash vest:

Not to derail the thread, but regarding the wetsuit at depth thing (all numbers are wrong but principle is true):

Let's say you have a 3mm wetsuit with 4 lbs of buoyancy. At depth, it will be 80 % compressed so it will have around a pound of residual buoyancy. If you are weighted for safety stop neutral, then you will be 3 pounds overweight on the bottom. Easily manageable if all your other weighting is correct.

Doing the same sums with a 5mm wetsuit with 10 lbs of surface float, less 80% at depth, gives you 8lbs overweight. Manageable but really not super ideal if you have a serious BCD failure.

Do those sums with a 7mm suit with 25-30 lbs of surface buoyancy, and now you end up 20-25 lbs overweight and that REALLY sucks to swim up, so now you need redundant BCD solutions (twin bladder, second wing, lift bag, etc etc)

Drysuit gives you constant buoyancy as well as redundant buoyancy so it is nice even in warm water depths, given a suitable selection of undergarments. I have even used standard gym wicking layer alone on deeper/longer dives where thermally I needed a pair of shorts and a t shirt but I was looking for the redundant lift because of multiple stages etc etc.

 

[ginti]

We are lucky to have very warm water here in summer, so I have done a fair number of 60m dives in shorts and rash vest:
View attachment 645188

Not to derail the thread, but regarding the wetsuit at depth thing (all numbers are wrong but principle is true):

Let's say you have a 3mm wetsuit with 4 lbs of buoyancy. At depth, it will be 80 % compressed so it will have around a pound of residual buoyancy. If you are weighted for safety stop neutral, then you will be 3 pounds overweight on the bottom. Easily manageable if all your other weighting is correct.

Doing the same sums with a 5mm wetsuit with 10 lbs of surface float, less 80% at depth, gives you 8lbs overweight. Manageable but really not super ideal if you have a serious BCD failure.

Do those sums with a 7mm suit with 25-30 lbs of surface buoyancy, and now you end up 20-25 lbs overweight and that REALLY sucks to swim up, so now you need redundant BCD solutions (twin bladder, second wing, lift bag, etc etc)

Drysuit gives you constant buoyancy as well as redundant buoyancy so it is nice even in warm water depths, given a suitable selection of undergarments. I have even used standard gym wicking layer alone on deeper/longer dives where thermally I needed a pair of shorts and a t shirt but I was looking for the redundant lift because of multiple stages etc etc.

Thanks for the answer! I do not think that the thread is derailing, since @Xaman Ha said he is looking for information and he is open to better understand all the principles behind the "right" choice of a trilam/neoprene drysuit/wetsuit.

First of all, I should come diving in the UAE, too beautiful diving in shorts at 50+m!

Coming back to the thread, it seems to me that you @RainPilot are considering the neoprene as a gas. Also @tbone1004 made this assumption in this thread, post #7: Neoprene compression at depth?

[EDIT: In the following, I am assuming constant temperature; a 15°C drop would be consistent with a 5% drop in volume, but let's neglect it. In fact, I believe that such a difference is possible only at "hypoxic" depths in temperate climates - please correct me if I am wrong.]

The gas inside neoprene compresses at this rate:

This is consistent with what you said. However, neoprene is not only gas, it also has a solid part, which does not compress, right? Now, assuming that, at the surface, the solid incompressible part is 20% of neoprene, the previous table changes like this:

Here the key variable is the "total volume". Numbers change a lot, and I am considering only 20% for the solid component!

Do you have any idea of how much solid there is inside neoprene? I might try to make a table (it's super quick) that can help us newbies to better understand the principle

Thanks!

 

[ginti]

...

To be more precise, assuming the solid component doesn't change its volume (as I did), it wouldn't participate in buoyancy changes. It is probably more interesting to estimate air volume in absolute terms because that would be strongly related to the absolute change in buoyancy...

 

[formernuke]

Drysuit is a matter of fit and preference. For example both myself and @Marie13 have issues reaching our valves with the si-tech neck ring system. That means that we had to with glued in or DUI zip seals for our neck. I choose zip as I wanted user changeable seals.

In contrast my GF likes glued in seals, simply her preference.

Make sure the fit is right, I badly fit drysuit can be dangerous, if you need to go custom in order to get proper fit it will add cost but is worth it.

You might want to re-think the pee valve if diving that warm conditions. Granted I'm mostly a cold water guy so my body is more adjusted to new england temps but.......

I'm in Key Largo and just finished my MSDT prep course one of the specialtys I choose was drysuit, underneath the suit I was wearing just hiking base layer to wick sweat and not have the suit rubbing on my skin. As soon I zipped up I started sweating a lot and actually was dumping ice water on my head to regulate body temp as I was in line to jump in. Knowing that I would be hot on the surface I drank 120 ounces of fluids from the time I got up till the 830 am splash time.... you better believe I had to pee during the dive. But thats better then dehydration.

 

[vladodessit]

Seaskin Nova is a fantastic suit for the money. I do love my Frogman Tech for few hundred bucks more. Talking from experience of owning both. I will these take over other suits on your list outside of Santi (that is way more money than either of these 2).