Hooded Vest

[mahjong]

Before I started diving dry, I found the hooded vest was the key to warmth in a wetsuit in temperate to cold waters. It's much more than a hood plus an added torso layer. The key is that because the torso and hood are one piece, your wetsuit will not get flushed out in the torso via the neck collar. With every flush, your body temperature drops and has to work harder to reraise it. With an open neck collar, even when wearing a standard wetsuit hood, your wetsuit will flush through the neck--water will enter and exit when moving around, sometimes all-too freely--except perhaps in the very best of semi-dry wetsuits. A properly fitting hooded vest keeps that warm layer of water around your torso inside the suit--and toward this end I think it is generally better to wear the hooded vest over the top of the wetsuit (though I've seen people also opt to wear them underneath). Except in the tropics, I wouldn't dive a wetsuit without one. Mahjong

 

[RJP]

A: "Unless you place your hood over your mask strap..."

B: "I've never had air enter my hood from the second stage."

A+B=?

I'd submit that if you put the hood over the mask strap you WILL know what it's like to get air in your hood; as well as plenty of water!