Left post problem

[TSandM]

In preparation for the class next weekend, I have been attempting valve drill after valve drill. In addition to general problems with reaching and turning valves, I've run into one I'm really having trouble solving. I need a fair amount of gas in my drysuit to have the mobility to get my valves, and when I reach up to turn the left post, I lose the gas in the suit and sink. I've tried to keep my head down, but if I go too head down I'm unstable, and the same goes for trying to do the drill left shoulder down -- if I'm not careful, the tanks want to turtle me. I can shut the dry suit valve, but that seems silly -- If I had a left post failure in a cave, I wouldn't want to say, "Hey, wait a minute, I need to close my dry suit valve before I shut this post . . . "

Anybody else run into this problem, and if so, how did you solve it?

 

[do it easy]

Less gas in the suit and more gas in the wing? If you reach up and "purge" the drysuit, then establish neutral buoyancy with the wing, then, in a perfect world, you should be able to reach up again without purging the suit. Hopefully, you'll still be able to reach the valve with less gas in the suit. Or maybe I don't understand the problem correctly...

 

[Nailer99]

Valve drills are tough for me, but I can do them- I don't know if this will help, but:

What works best for me is to reach down and hike up my rig as high as I can, hook two fingers of one hand under the manifold to hold it there, and then I can reach my valves fairly easilly. I do dive the same hog harness as you, but maybe a bit loose- not real sure how tight you folks wear them, but mine has a little play.

 

[JimC]

Don't run your suit full of gas and you won't have a problem. Failing that you could crank down your exhaust valve for the drill, but thats not going to help much in a true emergency. The real answer is to fix your dry suit problems that require you to have lots of gas in it.

 

[TSandM]

Yeah, well, having spent now over $3500 getting this dry suit (it's a long story) which is just tight enough that I need some air in it to reach valves, I'm not really in the mood to replace it in a hurry.

What I'm hearing at least you three say is that, as long as I need the suit loose, I'm screwed.

 

[mdb]

Yeah, well, having spent now over $3500 getting this dry suit (it's a long story) which is just tight enough that I need some air in it to reach valves, I'm not really in the mood to replace it in a hurry. What I'm hearing at least you three say is that, as long as I need the suit loose, I'm screwed.

TS&M: you continue to challenge yourself. You are, most likely, way more skilled than most of us. If you spent $3500.00 on your neoprene drysuit you were, as you said, "screwed".

A good fit on a compressed or micro cell neoprene suit should result in less weight, good warmth, and a nice slim dive profile with less drag. Hope you get it all worked out.

 

[Nailer99]

My first drysuit was baggy, but it had a problem with the undergarment that was supplied with it- the undergarment would practically weld itself to the drysuit, and adding air didn't help much, especially in the legs. I went to a one piece fleece-type u.g., and all of a sudden, I could move. The difference was like night and day. Don't know what you're wearing, but.....what little I know about the valve drills is that they're easy for some people, and exceedingly difficult for others. People need to find the thing that works for them. I know one guy, a vet with some wounds that limit certain mobility functions,who learned to undo his harness at the waist buckle, and hike his rig up REAL HIGH in order to do the isolation and left side valves. He can do this faster than I can do mine without nerve damage and muscle loss.

 

[Clare]

Hi there. You should not need to put that much gas in the suit - and if you are mobile in it at the surface you probably don't need to. You seem convinced that it is a suit issue so I will concentrate advice on that.

When dressing, make sure that any excess undersuit is pulled up properly rather than bagging at the bottom of your torso. When you enter the water, stretch out to allow any excess material in the suit to ride up into the chest area - allowing full movement.

Make sure that you equalize your suit throughout the descent - not just on the bottom. This means that the suit remains able to move over the undersuit - and retains it's movement and flexibility. You don't need gas over and above ambient to maintain this so the gas should not come out as you move.

You will know to keep your trim as you seek to reach the valve. make sure as well that your arm is moving with your shoulder joint rather than against it - akin to combing your hair back over your ears rather than saluting. Save any salutes for your friendly GUE instructor

 

[TSandM]

Thank you, Clare.

I've been working on this for a while. I've dropped the tanks a bunch. They're as low in the bands as they can go, and as low on the plate as they'll go. They still seem high, and I may try loosening the harness even a bit more to drop them, although at this point, I need the crotch strap pretty tight to keep them from shifting with the slack in the harness that I currently have.

I can reach the right post with almost no difficulty at all. The left arm of the suit is significantly less flexible because of the presence of the exhaust valve. My buddies looked at things on land today and agreed with me that that appears to be the problem. However, with the suit on and loose on land, I can just reach back to where my valves will be when I am diving. However, as the suit compresses, it loses just enough slack so that I can't QUITE get my fingers around the valve. Maybe dropping the tanks some more will solve it, and hopefully without creating new problems with instability in the rig.

The $3400 dry suit is because the first one had some design problems for my purposes, but the company would not take it back. So I had to pay for a second one to be made, and I have yet to sell the first one. Thus the $3400 dry suit

 

[Rick Inman]

Lynn,

I have the exact same problem. Mainly in the winter when I'm all layered up. I need lots of air in the suit to keep things loose enough to reach the valve, but then it purges out as I start to turn the knob. And truthfully, I don't like adding air into the suit to do the drill, because that's not how I usually dive, so the the drill's not real world.

But here's what my instructor said. If I can reach the valve with the suit inflated, then the suit is big enough to reach the valve. It's not impossible to pull the compressed fabric, just difficult.

What I finally learned to do is get one finger enough around the valve to give my arm a good pull and stretch the tight suit fabric out, and then I can get my entire hand around the valve. It took some practice, but I can do it now regularly.

BTW, I'm writing this post from the airport in Honolulu, waiting for my connection to Kona, where I can't wait to reach right back (dressed in that WWW 5mm wetsuit) and do the drill without even trying.