My second drysuit experience ...

[Kern]

With the drysuit or wing for buoyancy dilemma I don't think there is a proper way, just a way that you decide suits you best. In doubles, I always use the suit for warmth & the wing for buoyancy control. With a single Faber 12.2lt x 232 bar (100 cf), I start the dive with suit for warmth, & wing for buoyancy. As the dive progresses, the dynamics change & I use the wing less. Towards the end of the dive the suit is all I'm using.

I hear a lot on SB talking about how difficult it is to get into a Fusion, & I find it hard to understand. I find it effortless, & it takes a minute or 2. I put my hand inside the suit & grab the crotch. Let the torso of the suit collapse around the legs. Put my left leg in, followed by my right leg. Pull the torso up, get the crotch sitting correctly, ensure the braces aren't caught up in their guides & don them. Dress to the left. Do a couple of squats, rearrange anything thats not quite right, & go load my gear onto the boat. I find the new core even easier than the original.

I use an original tech skin. There is no squeeze from the skin, just from the water pressure, like every other shell suit. As I don't like my feet being squeezed, I do vertical in the water as little as possible.

 

[TSandM]

I really don't think you are going to find another kind of dry suit significantly "better". If you put enough air in the Fusion, it's comfortable. If you don't, it squeezes, just like any other dry suit. The compression of the Lycra is not really noticeable -- although, if you are using one of the other skins, maybe it is. I haven't tried any of them.

The Fusion, with the smooth outer skin, dives with less resistance than normal laminate or compressed neo suits. I'm basing this on scooter speeds for the same scooter with divers in different suits.

Using a dry suit for primarily buoyancy works well if the tanks are small. With larger tanks, putting the amount of gas into the suit that you need to compensate will make the suit unstable, or may not even be possible to retain in the suit. Then a BC is necessary, as it is if you have a significant dry suit leak and can't retain gas for compensation.

 

[manni-yunk]

@manni-yunk: A shell drysuit will almost always create more drag than a tight, form-fitting wetsuit. Even when the shell drysuit is compressed tightly against one's body, the folds in the material will create drag as the diver moves around underwater.

Use the method that is appropriate for the situation. There are certain situations (e.g., single tank recreational diving) in which adding enough gas to offset squeeze is just about enough to achieve neutral buoyancy at depth. For double tank diving, it probably makes more sense to use a combination of drysuit and BCD inflation to control buoyancy. In caves, divers might prefer to tolerate more squeeze and use the BCD as the primary buoyancy control device to make it easier to manage buoyancy with the forced up-and-down cave profile.

My advice would be to give the possibility of an uncontrolled feet-first ascent in a drysuit more respect. First of all, if you are horizontal (neutrally buoyant at a given depth) and then rotate quickly into a feet-up/head-down position (without dumping any gas), the gas in your legs will be higher in the water column and subject to a lower ambient pressure than your torso...which will probably get squeezed. Combined with changes in breathing due to stress, the gas in your legs could start to expand a little and the diver could find himself becoming positively buoyant.

For the record - your first quote of me - was a quote of a quote - not something I said or typed - just something I quoted from a previous post on this thread.

I know nothing about shell drysuits nad how they behave as I have never worn one and would not attempt to know how the react.

 

[iztok]

I use both DS and wing. Especially in the beginning of the dive wing is offsetting the weight of the gas in the tank and suit is offsetting the squeeze.

 

[manni-yunk]

My advice would be to give the possibility of an uncontrolled feet-first ascent in a drysuit more respect. First of all, if you are horizontal (neutrally buoyant at a given depth) and then rotate quickly into a feet-up/head-down position (without dumping any gas), the gas in your legs will be higher in the water column and subject to a lower ambient pressure than your torso...which will probably get squeezed. Combined with changes in breathing due to stress, the gas in your legs could start to expand a little and the diver could find himself becoming positively buoyant.

Good point - and i will.

 

[SeaHound]

The fusion was irritating to get into because when I pulled the suit over my legs I was pulling the outer skin and the inner shell was not moving. I realized that I have to reach deeper and grab the inner shell when pulling . My instructor was wearing a Dive Rite and since it was just one layer that he had to pull, it was an easier wrestling act with. The simplicity of a single shell made it more desirable to me. I do not know how much of a drag it would cause compared to the fusion.