I think WetSuits are Safer and Better than Dry suits for the vast majority of divers

[spc751]

It seems to me that heated undergarments are an expensive, complicated answer in search of a question.

 

[boulderjohn]

My pet organizations? How about obvious alternatives to your being able to teach half the dry suit classes you like to make money from!!!
Talk about an agenda! I won't make a penny from any rush of divers to thermalutions or any other heated undergarment for wetsuits....but you and many others would stand to lose a lot of revenue if more divers saw that there was a much smarter way for them to dive than with dry suits.

No question about it. I'm making a fortune teaching 5-6 dry suit divers a year to people planning to dive in sub 60 degree water. What a piece of total scum I am! I think I am going to retreat in shame now.

 

[emoreira]

I would rather dive a wetsuit any day, as long as I can stay warm enough. Drysuits suck less than being cold though.

I used to dive dry in the south of Argentina, where water temps in Spring go from 45 to 50 °F.
Last month owing to an error in the logistics, we could not rent drysuits, so we had to go with rented wetsuits.
I rented a perfect fit 7 + 7 milimeters Farmer John + Shorty. I used besides 2 mm socks, 5 mm boots, 3 mm gloves, 3 mm hooded vest + 5 mm hood.
Perfect. No cold at all. An important fact was that outside the weather was warm, calm and sunny, so we could get warm during the surface interval.
2 dives a day. 3 days.
This opportunity meant for me that a perfect fit wet suit could be similar to dive dry in those water temps.

 

[mala]

In regards to safety in semi tropical to tropical waters---say 68 degrees to 80 degree water, it would be my contention that wetsuits are far better and safer than are drysuits for recreational divers.

Better and safer because they create far less drag, allowing the diver much better ability to propel themselves and to be as functional in the water as the conditions dictate( whereas the drysuit compromises propulsion to such a degree as to be dangerous in all but still water conditions).

Better because they cost a fraction of what drysuits cost...

And safer because drysuit use creates a need for special instruction and skills which for most divers are never attained, and in comparison, skills performed in a wetsuit are typically far better for the vast majority of recreational divers than the same skills attempted in a dry suit....

Most Divers can be much better divers( higher skilled) with a wetsuit than they can be with a dry suit, and this suggests a much smarter direction for most divers, is that of wetsuits, and of a product like the heated Thermalution suits when the water gets below 75 degrees to as cold as the 50's--or even below this.

There is no good wet suit solution for tech, but that is a tiny market I am not concerned with when discussing the needs of recreational divers.


So my agenda here, is to tell those considering a Drysuit, to consider that they cost 3 times what a good wetsuit costs, and the additional costs of poor safety, poor ability to move around with the safety margins of a wetsuit, and the attendant reduced skills makes this just another money maker for the dive industry--and something really bad for most divers.

I disagree

I would consider those people that dive dry to be far safer and more skilled than those who have only wetsuit experience.

sure they may be a bit less speedy underwater but then if you aren't freezing your nuts off why rush?

 

[flots am]

sure they may be a bit less speedy underwater but then if you aren't freezing your nuts off why rush?

I don't get the whole "rushing" thing at all.

Every time I've been on a boat, people jump into the water and take off.

Why???

If the other place is so awesome, why not just drive the boat there and then get in?

When someone asks me what my dive plan is, quite often I say "I'm going to jump off the end of the boat and not go anywhere" They give the same head-tilt response I get when I whistle at my dog.

Few people understand that if you're just quiet and still, the critters will generally show up where you already are.

flots.

 

[Nwcid]

This sounds like an informercial where people are all too dumb to do the "named simple task". You are making it sound like a dry suit is a complicated task when it is FAR from it. Yes it is different. Yes it takes some different skills. The "problems" you list for a drysuit sound like either you have never tried it or have a bias against them for some reason. If using a drysuit is "WAY too complex" for diver what does that say about SCUBA in general? The whole list of "basic" SCUBA skills are WAY more involved then drysuit skills.

Granted I only have just over 100 dives since I started 2 years ago. I find I enjoy diving dry much better then wet. From the second time I dove my drysuit I thought it was amazing. Pretty much the only time I dive wet anymore is when it impractical to dive dry.

 

[victorzamora]

HOLY CRAP!!!! Those "heated wetsuit" things cost $500-$900 dollars, and they're just supposed to go UNDER your wetsuit!?!?! That, plus a high-quality wetsuit (which they're plenty happy to sell). At the worst end of it, their "red grade" plus a nice semi-dry wetsuit runs over $1500. You can get a Fusion One package (including some undergarments and boots) for $1000. Those things are absolutely the most absurd product on the market. Anybody purchasing those should simply send me a check instead, as they seem to have more money than sense.

Having said that, I don't think that a drysuit is that difficult of a thing to dive. If you have a diver who dives 4 dives every other year when he goes to the Keys with a few buddies in mid-August when the water temperature is over 80F and the dives are shallower than 30ft.....sure, the wetsuit is CLEARLY better. My wife gets cold in her 7mm semidry in 72F water. You really want her to buy a $1000 wetsuit heater to dive the Keys year-round? No, that's crazy. A good trilam suit would allow diving in water below about 78°. Above that, I'm in my 2mm shorty.

A drysuit is a redundant buoyancy device, it increases comfort, and reduces overweighting at depth due to neoprene compression. A drysuit typically enables better trim to be maintained, reducing drag. Some drysuits (neoprene or "Fusion") have similar parasite drag characteristics to a wetsuit, completely nullifying that argument. Not only that, a drysuit can be much comfier.

When I refer to comfort, this is what I mean: in college, we would drive 11 hours starting Friday afternoon to Vortex, dive all day Saturday, dive Sunday morning, and then drive back all Sunday afternoon/night. Saturday was fine, except after lunch. Having to put my cold wetsuit back on was miserable....even in the hot FL weather. The next morning, putting my cold wetsuit was INTOLERABLE. After the dive (which made me shiver), I got out at the same time as a drysuit diver. I got out of my wetsuit, found a place to change into dry(ish) undies, changed over, and then started packing my gear. By the time I started packing my gear, he was fully packed and in completely dry clothes, drinking a Gatorade and eating a Snickers. I then had to pack all of my crap while freezing cold and stickey/wet from the dive. We then had an 11 hour drive home, where I was still sticky and nasty from Morrisson Springs, and he was happy and dry.

Long story short, if I'm not in my shorty I'm diving dry. My wife is a relatively new, underexperienced rec-only diver and is picking up drysuit diving now because of the reasons I've described.

One thing to mention/clarify: If you mean "majority" and are referring to the diverst that dive in the warm/clear water annually, then I tend to agree. If you're talking about the divers that would be considering a drysuit, I disagree whole-heartedly.

 

[danvolker]

And,how much do these heated undergarments cost? I'm betting they cost a pretty penny. What do you use for a backup buoyancy system on your 5-6 hour dives? I seem to remember GUE encourages the use of a drysuit, partially because it provides backup buoyancy in the event your BC fails.
The other great thing about a drysuit- it allows divers to dive locally when a 3 ml wetsuit normally won't. Which diver is more proficient? The local quarry diver or the once a year vacation diver?

With my 3.5 mil wetsuit, I could use the heated shirt concept, to dive in 65 degree water quite comfortably for recreational ocean dives. It would use a 19 pound wing, my cannister light and bp as weight, and would never need to use the wing at all for getting back to the surface....it would be only to hit perfect neutral buoyancy---at the bottom I would weigh about 3 or 4 pounds.. Which is nothing to swim up. If I was using a 5 mil suit--which I don't own now, but have used before, I'd need to add maybe 6 pounds of lead....and again, there would be zero issue to swim this kit to the surface from 100 or 130 feet. The GUE concept is not to have redundant buoyancy, it is to have a balnced rig you can swim up from depth, in the event of a wing failure.
Cost of these heated suits....is around $350 I think....far less than the cost of a dry suit, and for people who already own a good wet suit, a nice way to extend their investment--make it better.

And Sandra is the one doing 5 and 6 hour dives, not me...these are macro dives at the BHB Marine park....depth between 8 and 18 feet mostly.....

 

[Dr. Lecter]

HOLY CRAP!!!! Those "heated wetsuit" things cost $500-$900 dollars, and they're just supposed to go UNDER your wetsuit!?!?! That, plus a high-quality wetsuit (which they're plenty happy to sell). At the worst end of it, their "red grade" plus a nice semi-dry wetsuit runs over $1500. You can get a Fusion One package (including some undergarments and boots) for $1000. Those things are absolutely the most absurd product on the market. Anybody purchasing those should simply send me a check instead, as they seem to have more money than sense.

I looked at these when I saw them in DEMA photos, and was interested because they look like they offer a good alternative to being fine on the bottom in a lavacore shirt and trunks but cold during two hour deco hangs in anything less than a drysuit. However, the poor english used on the site makes me think this is a Chinese company, so you can more or less forget about support and a corporate philosophy of making sure every unit is 100% before being sold is not exactly what they're known for.

Moreover, their description of the heating element as a microwave with awesome health benefits is not something I'm excited about strapping to my back:

TheralTek® also generates Far Infrared Ray which are beneficial to the human body in a number of ways including: - Heat penetrates deep into your core
- Provides warmth, and relieves joint pain and stiffness
- Accelerates metabolism
- Improves blood circulation
- Stimulates cell growth
More about Far Infrared Ray

Far Infrared ray (FIR) is a spectrum of natural sunlight with a wavelength of 4-1000 microns. It is invisible to the human eyes.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) pointed out that FIR with wavelength between 6-14 microns is capable of penetrating deep into the human body where they gingerly elevate the body temperature and generate resonance. It can accelerate metabolism, improve circulation and provide warmth. Testing of Petatech® International Co., Ltd. products, performed by Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, demonstrates that all of Petatech's products generate the desired FIR with wavelength of between 6-14 microns.

 

[danvolker]

No question about it. I'm making a fortune teaching 5-6 dry suit divers a year to people planning to dive in sub 60 degree water. What a piece of total scum I am! I think I am going to retreat in shame now.

John, everyone here knows you are a good guy, and not in this to make a fortune off divers.....but even knowing this, it is not a free pass for you to insinuate that I was making an infomercial.

Every single diver I have ever dove with --that wears a dry suit on one of our dives, with us in wet suits, is always lagging behind...this would be true for all of the readers here as well....dry suits are high drag....You guys that HAVE to dive cold water, make the best of it, and there is a tendancy to "rationalize"..... I am sick of this, and of the lies in the dive industry.....

I swear, you guys could all be walking for all land transportation, because there was no such thing as cars or bikes.... I could come up to you and attempt to introduce you to the BICYCLE or to the MOTOR POWERED CAR...and you would attack this as un-needed, or as a foolish expense, or as evil.

MY post was NOT aimed at divers in the PNW or Canada, or the Arctic Circle....It was aimed at tropical and semi tropical--you know--where most of the diving in the world takes place.
And in places where some of the worst divers are going to be found, the ones that would be the most challenged and skills compromised by drysuits.

Sorry to have been rude to you....I am not the best at turning the other cheek....Sorry.

---------- Post added November 12th, 2013 at 03:50 PM ----------

This sounds like an informercial where people are all too dumb to do the "named simple task". You are making it sound like a dry suit is a complicated task when it is FAR from it. Yes it is different. Yes it takes some different skills. The "problems" you list for a drysuit sound like either you have never tried it or have a bias against them for some reason. If using a drysuit is "WAY too complex" for diver what does that say about SCUBA in general? The whole list of "basic" SCUBA skills are WAY more involved then drysuit skills.

Granted I only have just over 100 dives since I started 2 years ago. I find I enjoy diving dry much better then wet. From the second time I dove my drysuit I thought it was amazing. Pretty much the only time I dive wet anymore is when it impractical to dive dry.

When I talk about skills in a dry suit....I mean real skills, like perfect trim, and ascents in horizontal trim.....most divers we see on charter boats in the winter time, wearing dry suits, are diving head up, feet down, and they have crappy skills for sending up an SMB from 20 feet...they tend to be vertically challenged in trying to do this.....

I think it is very easy to dive in a drysuit with too much weight, and bad trim.....You just don't see many people trained to dive dry suits with the small amount of weighting they should have...and these are almost exclusively GUE divers.