Rainer:
4-6 hours of classroom time? You've got to be nuts. This isn't rocket science. I must say, though, that the PADI dry suit manual was actually pretty good. I'd suggest anyone not planning to do a "formal" course take a look at this manual. If after reading it you still think you need 4-6 hours of classroom time, well...
I agree, the manual has good information. I imagine that the 4-6 hours of class-time is for people that don't read the manual (or can't envision the concepts). Likely if you know nothing of drysuits, you'll want more than self-directed studies.
The knowledge review was a bit painful for me. Four pages of questions, worded almost identically to the chapter review questions you've just completed (which are worded almost identically to the sentences the page before). It seemed like it was about the most basic test of knowledge you could create. I'd have liked to see some interesting questions in there that didn't just test your short-term memory (or page flipping) ability.
And, why draw the line at 6 drysuit materials? If you include all of coated fabric, trilaminate, neoprene, crushed neoprene, vulcanized rubber, and composite of the above, why not add semi-compressed neoprene, bilaminate, quadflex, etc, etc? I was getting bored writing the answers to these low-brow questions, and by the time I got to the "what 6 types of materials are drysuits made of" question, I wrote the 6th answer:
6. [-]Steel Wool[/-] Composite
Instructor laughed at my humourous bit of protest.
Craig
