Keep freezing or spent the $ to buy a Whites Fusion (or other) drysuit?

[Scuba Christine]

Thanks everyone,
I took your advice and called DRIS, Debbie was incredibly helpful. Next weekend I do my first dry dive! I am sooooo excited!

Would not have made the leap with out your help, many, many many thanks!

I have one question left (don't have to decide till monday) keep the latex seals or upgrade to the user replaceable wrist and neck seals. If you have any thoughts on that, you know I appriciate your advice.

 

[TSandM]

I have used both the standard seals and the user-replaceable ones. The UR ones work as advertised -- the seals can be swapped out in about five minutes. The neck seal requires a moderate degree of profanity, the wrist seals need a tool, but they both work. If you plan on doing a lot of traveling to dive, being able to change a seal is awfully nice, because unlike a wetsuit, a dry suit with a torn seal is useless. Many places you might dive may not even have dive shops that sell or service dry suits, so a torn seal could kill an entire week of diving. (I had a zipper go in MX, and had my former cave instructor not lent me a suit, I would have been beached for the entire week!)

However, there are three downsides to the UR system. One is that the neck ring does limit arm mobility, especially if you are small-framed. Since one of the utter delights of the Fusion is mobility, it's hard to give that up. With my full rig on and my thick undergarments, I have a little trouble reaching my dump valve, and trouble clipping things to the left front d-ring. I've learned to finesse it, but it's definitely more difficult. This is not a huge issue for single tank divers, but it's a safety issue for people using doubles.

Second, you will have the wrist rings on all the time, and they are bulky and annoying to get in and out of your BC. A small item, but it's real.

Third, if you want to use dry gloves, you will be limited to systems that are compatible with the UR seal setup. To my knowledge, that comes down to the two SiTech systems. The Glove Lock is VERY large and bulky, and requires purchase of an additional part to make it compatible with the wrists. The other system I have used and don't care for at all.

At this point, I have the neck ring on both of my suits, because they came with it and I haven't had it removed. I would probably keep it for my warm water/travel suit, for convenience, but it's the home suit that gets the most use and requires neck seal changes most often I have the wrist rings on the travel suit, but not on the home suit, because it's never used without dry gloves, and I don't have to replace wrist seals that often.

 

[Scuba Christine]

Once again, thank you for your stellar advice.

I talked it over with my instructor too -- he doesn't use them but is familiar some of the issues you noted. Knowing all the downsides I have decided to go for the SLT seals for one reason -- not having to send my suit away every time I break a seal.

This is because of my severe allergy (corn, it's in everything). The fewer times over the lifetime of the suit that it has to leave my control and have any chemical agents applied to it, the better for me. I won't have to try to decontaminate it all over again the first time I make a mistake.

(Also, I can swear like a sailor in a few languages, so I'm ready for the neck seal replacement. :cheeky

Many thanks for the well thought out advice -- it is good to know what I'm getting into with it when it comes time for doubles.

Im so excited to get the suit, I can't wait to get in the water!

-C

 

[Divealpha]

Congrats with diving Whites Fusion! Shopped around in Europe to find ours(both me & my wife needed drysuits for cold water diving). Currently we're both using 4E Arctic + MK0 during winter/spring/autumn( down to 4C water), and only the Arctic during summer(a bit warm though).
I also dived mine in Egypt, because the weather was windy, so my teeth clattered when I got topside in a 5mm wetsuit.. Wore only baselayer, water was 23-24C.
We're both extremely happy with our Fusion Tech suits, a dream to dive with! Have the standard seals, and several Diving Guides have commented on the mobility and easy donning(when u get used to it...) Would also recommend DRIS, by the way. Since the Drysuit weighs little, it will be in my luggage when we're diving Malta later this year, together with a wetsuit, just in case....