henderson gold core 7mm, jumpsuit or 2 piece?

[Davee]

hey, ive decided to take the plung and upgrade my wetsuit, i lost a little weight and my current suit no longer fits good, so im gonna buy the henderson gold core, i have already been using the gold core 5mm hooded vest and i love it, ive been diving for 7 years and ive only used a 2 piece open water cert, and since ive used a jumpsuit, ive heard good reviews on the henderson gold core 2 piece, how does it compare to the jumpsuit?
thankyou
dave

 

[mike_s]

the 7mm two peice will give you 14mm of thickness over your core body. that's a lot of thickness and will be fun getting bouyancy trimmed on. just my thoughts.


most folks when they need more than 7mm total, the next step will be a drysuit.

 

[spectrum]

What's you bottom line water temperature?

 

[Davee]

im in so cal, and the lowest i get is maybe 50, and with my current 7mm, i dont get cold at the bottom, maybe a little chilli, but also my current suit is way to big on my, its an xl, and i needed a large.

 

[DiverBuoy]

hey, ive decided to take the plung and upgrade my wetsuit, i lost a little weight and my current suit no longer fits good, so im gonna buy the henderson gold core, i have already been using the gold core 5mm hooded vest and i love it, ive been diving for 7 years and ive only used a 2 piece open water cert, and since ive used a jumpsuit, ive heard good reviews on the henderson gold core 2 piece, how does it compare to the jumpsuit?
thankyou
dave

I own a 7mm Henderson Gold core full suit (integrated hood) ... I like to refer to these front loading suits with integrated hood as 'semi-dry' because whatever you put into them while you are in the water is what you are wearing after you get out (word to the wise). These suits are fantastic for reducing the wicking effect. However, don't wear one of those rash-guard or dive skins underneath you just ruin the whole point of the gold-core design. Oh I should add, I dove many winters in california waters in gold core. I think I'm on my 3rd suit at least, like any neoprene the cells just collapse after enough use.

 

[spectrum]

If you will bottom out at 50 you can probably do just fine diving wet. I prefer to have a full suit as a base since it provides a single membrane. To that I add a vest. In milder summer waters I wear a 3/5 hooded vest (3mm skin inside torso, 5mm head) under the suit. As the water cools I a switch to a 7mm hooded step-in vest. This provides the full 7+7 on the torso and groin areas. I also have 5mm and 3mm full suits to round out my flexibility.

I ended my wet season with back to back dives in 50F water and came out perfectly comfortable.

The big things about either vest is they mute any zipper seepage and second they essentially take the neck opening out of the wetsuit out of the leakage equation.

My wet suits and vests are all Bare items.

I didn't spring for the Goldcore of Bare's SGS suit since I was planning to add a drysuit. From what I have seen the skin in material does do a nice job of sealing to you and stalling water movement. Remember that fit is everything. Also as mentioned don't add a dive skin or any fabric (except trunks) between you and the skin in materials, they are your friends.

Pete