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

[tridacna]

I'm certain of one thing: This thread has to turn into a DV "mine vs yours" fin challenge at some point.

 

[danvolker]

I'm certain of one thing: This thread has to turn into a DV "mine vs yours" fin challenge at some point.

So now you are using child psychology on me.....No Fair!!!!

 

[00wabbit]

I would lag behind too - drysuit or not because I want to see what's going on and conserve air.

Maybe the drysuit divers you are taking understand this and are just taking in the sights because they are in fact more experienced with diving.

You have to also understand you are in a vacation destination which means vacation divers. I've seen countless videos of vacation divers in wetsuits swimming near vertically while finning the coral. I kept horizontal trim and frog kicked over the coral in West Palm Beach and they asked me what caves I dove in as if good diving skill is only for cave divers.

 

[dfx]

I think not diving is safer than diving for the majority of divers

 

[boulderjohn]

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

Dan, perhaps I came on too strong as well, but it certainly did seem like an infomercial.

And as far as training goes, when you said...

...if it was a GUE style drysuit diver, with absolute minimum weight on, then little force works to push air out the opv, and only a small addition in bouyancy will cause tyhe drysuit to begin ascent without the diver wishing it....with the advanced skills of a GUE diver, this never becomes an issue, but without this advanced training, most divers need heavy weighting and a head up and feet down posture, in order to facilitate unwanted air build-up in the suit during ascent. Absence of this advanced skill has sent many less skilled drysuit divers feet first toward the surface --like an upside down polaris missile.

...well, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I know that you and your history are very close to Halcyon and GUE, but some of us really get tired of being told how superior they are to everything else. Those of us who instruct for other agencies get tired of being told how incompetent we are, and how none of our students have any skill at all. When we hear it yet again, sometimes we get a little high strung. I know it is silly. I know I should not mind when you tell everyone at every opportunity that I am a crap instructor because I am not GUE. I know I should not mind when you tell the people who are considering taking a class form me that they are taking their lives in their hands if they do. It is silly and childish of me to be offended by comments like that, and I apologize for my reaction.

 

[danvolker]

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.

Just looked at the pricing...the ones I was discussing run either at $390 or at $499.....Since most of the Diving Universe already has a wetsuit ( and this is the WHO that I am talking to), then $390 or $500 is alot better than $3500 for a TLS 350 by DUI, or even one of the junky $1500 drysuit brands I saw for sale last year, that are all saggy now


I don't think any of us should need redundant buoyancy.....You should not need a BC to get to the surface from the bottom....it is only for perfect neutral buoyancy and optimal trim with optimal propulsion....

---------- Post added November 12th, 2013 at 04:13 PM ----------

<snip>... that I am a crap instructor because I am not GUE. I know I should not mind when you tell the people who are considering taking a class form me that they are taking their lives in their hands if they do. It is silly and childish of me to be offended by comments like that, and I apologize for my reaction.

Man, I have no idea where this came from..... There have been many posts where I have referred to YOU, John Adsit, as an excellent instructor, and you have dived with several friends of mine, so I can say this with confidence.
I was certainly NOT aiming this thread at you.....I was just not turning the other cheek

This is one of my new rants......so that I have something to rant about other than fins..... Now I really want to show Drysuits to be a huge mistake for Florida, Caribbean, or other tropical diving--even in Winter.
Those of you in the Great White North, or the lesser Norths......Please just avoid reading this thread

---------- Post added November 12th, 2013 at 04:32 PM ----------

I would lag behind too - drysuit or not because I want to see what's going on and conserve air.

Maybe the drysuit divers you are taking understand this and are just taking in the sights because they are in fact more experienced with diving.

I actually have never seen one such as you describe

You have to also understand you are in a vacation destination which means vacation divers. I've seen countless videos of vacation divers in wetsuits swimming near vertically while finning the coral. I kept horizontal trim and frog kicked over the coral in West Palm Beach and they asked me what caves I dove in as if good diving skill is only for cave divers.

No question there are a ton of bad vacation divers....in fact, that is a big part of my point...this is the masses. And they can barely handle themselves in a wet suit, lot less a dry suit.
And even when you are talking about the regular local divers, the norm is still to dive head up and feet down....which obviously I would like to see changed. And that is more about who trained them, and and when, and how many classes they took. Many just took the single OW course cert, and then dove alot.....and were never taught the more precise buoyancy and trim skills, or how to kick properly.

Add a dry suit, and there is even less biofeedback due to the extra drag.....have someone glide along freediving, and they can feel a lot more of what is right, and what is wrong.

 

[Wookie]

Snip...This is one of my new rants......so that I have something to rant about other than fins..... Now I really want to show Drysuits to be a huge mistake for Florida, Caribbean, or other tropical diving--even in Winter.
Those of you in the Great White North, or the lesser Norths......Please just avoid reading this thread

So, a drysuit is never the right tool for diving in Florida, the Caribbean, or other tropical locales, even in winter? You reject a tool out of hand like that?

You are a silly boy.

 

[victorzamora]

Just looked at the pricing...the ones I was discussing run either at $390 or at $499.....Since most of the Diving Universe already has a wetsuit ( and this is the WHO that I am talking to), then $390 or $500 is alot better than $3500 for a TLS 350 by DUI, or even one of the junky $1500 drysuit brands I saw for sale last year, that are all saggy now

1) From your link, the cheapest one rated for diving was $499. $390 was for surfing, and had warning labels to NOT go deep with it.
2) $3500 for a DUI is crazy. I found a DUI TLS350 with zip seals, two pockets, a hood, and boots.....all for $2500, shipped. Brand new from a dealer.
3) Are you saying a White's Fusion is a "junky" suit? How about a Pinnacle Black Ice? Hollis FX100? USIA shell suits? All of those suits can be had for under $1500.
4) The "WHO" that you're talking about is "most of the diving universe".....correct? So, "Diving universe" can be defined as everybody with a cert, right? What percentage of certified divers are active enough to need their own gear? Of those, how many of them are active enough to need their own wetsuits? Of those, how many are active enough that they need a $1000 solution to exposure protection? I was a fairly active diver for 8 years (>250 dives) and owned nothing more than my mask and fins.

Any diver that dives often enough and locally enough to merit considering an $800 wetsuit and heated-wetsuit combo should consider a drysuit as that diver will be diving often enough, and in a drysuit often enough, that the drysuit would be worth it. A diver that lives in Roatan and occasionally travels to PA may not need a drysuit, and may not get enough practice in a drysuit....but that is a rare case. A diver that buys a drysuit and only dives it 2-4 times a year is VERY rare.

I don't think any of us should need redundant buoyancy

None of us? That's an awfully bold statement. I appreciate the redundancy when I've got my Worthy HP100s in SM and I'm a quarter mile back in a cave. How about when I've got my Worthys and I'm in Lake Jocassee and the floor below me is >300ffw and I'm on EAN32? If my wing fails and I'm diving wet, what then?

This is one of my new rants......so that I have something to rant about other than fins..... Now I really want to show Drysuits to be a huge mistake for Florida, Caribbean, or other tropical diving--even in Winter.

Firstly, you must obviously NOT be talking about the cave divers. So, let's refer only to the rec divers. When the water in and around that area drops to the low 70s, you think a drysuit isn't a good option? For the people that live there and dive there frequently, you build up an intolerance to the cold that only a drysuit can solve. For those travelling there annually, maybe renting exposure protection of any kind is a better option.

 

[TSandM]

I think this is a good example of how one's personal diving environment shapes one's perception of diving.

Dan writes often about using a wetsuit and freediving fins to get around rapidly in the sometimes high current environment off the East Coast of Florida. He's posted video of keeping up with dolphins, which is an amazing thing for a scuba diver. If my imperatives were to move very fast, without a scooter, in warm water, I probably wouldn't want a laminate-type dry suit, either. However, not all dry suits massively increase drag. Full neoprene dry suits can be as slick as a wetsuit, and the Fusion, with its smooth outer skin, comes close.

All dry suits DO require a bit more skill, and if you are a person who does just a handful of dives a year, they may not be the best tool for relatively warm water. But I'm living proof that even a klutzy diver can learn to use a dry suit, if that person dives often enough and wants to gain the skill.

Personally, I'm with flots am; I very, very rarely want to go anywhere in a hurry underwater (and when I do, I use a scooter). Because I spend a tremendous amount of time hovering and not moving around much at all, I get cold very fast. I prefer a dry suit for ALL diving, but I wouldn't presume to tell everyone diving in the tropics that they needed to buy one.

Heated undergarments may have some significant risks associated with them. It was very clear from Neal Pollock's presentation at DEMA that, if you use a heated UG from the beginning of your dive and run out of battery before you ascend, you will have significantly increased your DCS risk.

 

[joe8mofo]

Let's review some of the problems with the drysuit being used by the diver just using it a couple of months a year in winter, and maybe only a total of 3 to 5 times per year....

One common solution for this large group, is to use huge weighting, so that it is easy to get down, and then on the bottom, on putting gas in it, they have so much weight on that as soon as they begin ascending, the air gets blown out of the OVP on the shoulder easily, because the pressure gets high in the suit....if it was a GUE style drysuit diver, with absolute minimum weight on, then little force works to push air out the opv, and only a small addition in bouyancy will cause tyhe drysuit to begin ascent without the diver wishing it....with the advanced skills of a GUE diver, this never becomes an issue, but without this advanced training, most divers need heavy weighting and a head up and feet down posture, in order to facilitate unwanted air build-up in the suit during ascent. Absence of this advanced skill has sent many less skilled drysuit divers feet first toward the surface --like an upside down polaris missile. Not safe!

Even with intermediate skills for low weight on the dry suit ( diver desires the perfection in buoyancy control and trim that is only feasible with minimal dry suit weighting) , many divers find they need to dive the dry suit all year long, or lose the reflexes and skills required.....few are willing to wear the drysuit in 80 degree summer heat, or hotter. Few should!

As of this last DEMA Show, and the advent of a technology for heated undergarments for wetsuits, your favorite dry suit may well get you happy in water 10 or 20 degrees colder than you ever considered using it in. Thermalution has both electrically heated undergarment shirts, and now full body suits....you put them under the 3.5, or 5 mil, or 7 mil suit, and DRASTICALLY extend it's range.....My wife Sandra has tried the shirt version at the BHB Marine Park on 5 and 6 hour long dives....and would turn the shirt on around 2.5 hours into the dive, for it's 2.5 to 3 hour run time to keep her warm when she would otherwise be cooling down. There is a battery on each side of the bottom of the shirt, about the size of a tiny cell phone....it could be swapped out between 2 dives, if you were doing 2 or more big profiles in a day....and you can crank it if cold when sitting up on the boat.
We are talking a fraction of the cost of a Dry suit, and none of the stupid high drag of a drysuit, and none of the big skill defectiveness caused by the dry suit.

Right now I know of www.HeatedWetsuits.Com for this, but if enough people try this and like it, I think this would be like Halcyon in the late 90's, and it would spawn a flood of additional companies working to come up with similar nich based solutions ( Halcyon spawned new bp/wing companies like Oxycheque, Hog, and a half dozen others). I just think that for most divers that already have a good quality wetsuit, this is a much better solution....and it leaves money left over ( compared to the drysuit cost) for Dive Trips!!!

View attachment 170790Sandra at DEMA point at the heated undershirt she has.....

I dont see how a $400-$700 heated shirt plus wetsuit or even heated wetsuit itself is cheaper than a used drysuit, and for a little bit more you can have a Fusion One for $999. I bought my first drysuit for $130, I have purchased wetsuits for more than that. Also I don't see any additional drag from a fusion one when compared to a wetsuit.

So:
-your cost argument is flawed, drysuits are not more expensive when you consider what it takes to make diving wet "warm" (heater,wetsuit,boots,gloves,hooded vest,hood)
-Your "increased drag" argument is flawed when you factor in a decently designed drysuit such as the Fusion line of suits
-I agree with you on the training/experience aspect and a drysuit being potentially dangerous in the hands of those who don't dive a drysuit often enough to gain the proper muscle memory as well as those who don't receive proper training.