I'm contemplating my first dry suit purchase. Have lived in Florida for 35+ years, but will be relocating to the Pacific NW when I retire next year. Will want a dry suit that I can travel with, sometimes by air. Pretty overwhelmed by all the choices. Is there a place where I can find "first drysuit for dummies information:"
1. Choices/alternatives about seals;
2. Choices/alternatives about dry glove systems;
3. Choices/alternatives about socks/boot systems?
There is a drysuit roundtable thread that might help, here in this subforum.
I will just give you a couple of things to file away in your mind, based on what you said.
- If you're going to fly with it, a trilam suit with attached socks will dry faster, be lighter, and pack easier and smaller than any kind of neoprene suit and any suit with attached boots.
- attached boots prevent you turning the suit inside out, which makes them take a lot longer to dry on the inside, for the occasions when you do get some water in there.
- Attached boots also make it where, if they fit well for really cold water dives (i.e. with 2 layers of thick socks), then they will be a bit loose for warmer water (i.e. maybe only 1 thin sock). Attached socks are a bit stretchy and the right size sock will be snug in all conditions.
- neck and wrist seals can be latex, neoprene, or silicone. Latex and neoprene can be glued right onto the suit. Silicone seals cannot be glued on. Silicone seals require some kind of ring system to be glued to the suit and then that system holds the seal. Silicone seals are a bit more fragile than the others, so you wouldn't want them permanently glued on anyway.
- Ring systems that will hold silicone seals will also hold latex seals. I don't know of any kind of system that holds a neoprene seal to make the neoprene seal quickly changeable. OTOH, neoprene seals are generally more robust than the others, and you can repair some types of neoprene seal damage using Aquaseal and possibly a neoprene patch.
- I'm no expert, but the dry glove systems I know of boil down to 3 basic types: Zipseal style, as sold by DUI. Ring systems that have rings on the suit and rings on the gloves. Ring systems where there is just a ring clamped onto the suit and the a rubber glove is simply pulled over the ring and it just holds on and seals via friction and the tightness of the glove around the ring.
- As far as I know, Zipseal neck seals are way more expensive to replace than if you have, for example, a Si Tech Quick Neck system and need to replace the neck seal in that. I pay around $20 for a replacement silicone neck seal for my suit. A Zipseal silicone neck seal is $148 on the DUI website.
- Similarly, if you have Zipseals at the wrists, the gloves that mate to them are way more expensive to replace than, for example, the $2/pair rubber gloves I use on my dry glove rings. A pair of Zipseal gloves is $178 on the DUI website. But, they do come with liner gloves... Also, I think (could be wrong) that with Zip gloves, you cannot also have wrist seals installed. So, if you cut a glove, you will have water coming into the suit. Ring systems will generally allow you to have your wrist seal installed even when you are also using your dry gloves. So, a cut glove will only let water into your hand, but not your suit sleeve. Lastly, it is also my understanding that with Zip gloves, you have to attach them to your suit before you don the top of the suit. Again, I could be wrong about that. With ring systems, you can wait and put your dry gloves on as the last thing before you splash.
- Among ring systems, you can get rings that will clamp onto an existing, glued-on latex seal, and you can get rings that replace the existing seal and the ring itself is glued onto the suit. The clamp-on type have the advantage of being easily installed on any existing latex seal and easily removed. They have the disadvantage that if the latex seal gets damaged in the area between the ring and the suit sleeve, you can only fix it by replacing the latex seal (i.e. remove the seal and glue on a new one). Permanent rings don't have the risk of a damaged seal ruining their effectiveness. But, they have the disadvantage that their bulk is always their, even when you don't need dry gloves.
Okay, sorry. That was a lot longer than I intended. Hope it helps.
