Review Seaskin Nova drysuit

[stuartv]

I have the neoprene socks, warm neck, and the Kevlar knee pads for the reason Stuart pointed out. Didn’t see the need for more reinforcements and don’t miss it so far. I use a hanger with a computer fan on it, so drying goes really quick without the need to turn things “inside out”.

I have had 2 suits in the past with attached boots. I have an Underwater Kinetics suit dryer hanger. It has a fan in the middle of the hanger that blows down into the suit. It is GREAT for drying out my wetsuits. But, when I have gotten water inside my drysuit boots, I have not found any way to use that fan/hanger to get the boots dried out in less than a few days. There is no outlet from the boots, so air doesn't really circulate through them. The fan/hanger dries out the rest of the inside of the my drysuit just fine, but I found it almost useless for the inside of the boots.

I finally bought a set of boot dryer inserts that you would use on any ordinary shoes or boots. They get a little warm and have small fans. They will dry out drysuit boots overnight (or close to it). But, those boot dryers are not something I'd want to try and take with me on a trip.

Of course, one simple solution to this would be "don't flood your boots".... Drying them out from just the normal dampness of sweat and condensation is no big deal.

I really only flooded mine twice. Once, in my drysuit training, when my instructor required a partial suit flood as the last pool exercise, so that was on purpose. And once, when I hit my leg on something sharp inside a wreck and got a very small hole in my suit. So, maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of "drying the inside of the boots" than is REALLY warranted. Obviously, they should not get flooded very often. But I still prefer socks on the suit...

 

[Fabiandelete]

Good information everywhere
But another question. Metal or plastic zip? Most threads I can find are either a few years old and cover tizip and noth the ykk aquaseal that seaskin offers. If companies like bare use it on their top of the line suits it should be good. Right?

 

[lexvil]

Good information everywhere
But another question. Metal or plastic zip? Most threads I can find are either a few years old and cover tizip and noth the ykk aquaseal that seaskin offers. If companies like bare use it on their top of the line suits it should be good. Right?

I had a plastic zipper put in my shell suit after the brass one failed, love it (tizip)

 

[stuartv]

I’ve had plastic in all 3 of the suits I’ve owned (Bare, Waterproof, and Seaskin). No complaints. They are much easier to open/close than metal.

But, like I said earlier, I only have 21 dives on my Seaskin, so far. I think less than 100 total drysuit dives. So, I am not a good one to say how they hold up over the long term.

 

[StefinSB]

I like metal zippers.

 

[admikar]

Re. drying boots on your suit. I made a simple suit dryer from a cable conduit, duct tape, one PVC t-piece and a hairdryer. Heat molded one piece of conduit to match hair dryer, to t-piece and stick conduits in each boot. Dryer is on cold (gets slightly warm by itself). Leave suit on the room floor or hang it upside down on drysuit hanger and voila!, boots get dry in about 90 minutes. I don't fly with my suit (yet) but it is not too bulky and besides people with hair usually use hairdryer anyway (not me).

 

[taimen]

There is always the TriDri for drying soaked drysuit boots. Portable but obviously not something to fly with.

 

[mwerle]

G'day,

About to order my first drysuit and based on my instructors' recommendation, looking at Seaskin. Sounds like the consensus is that they are alright.

Following is my configuration, anything you'd change, if so why? (Boots excepting, I'd prefer them integrated).

One big question is the pockets - unfortunately their site doesn't really show the different positions for them just saying "outside seam" or "front facing". I -might- dive this with a sidemount harness, so thinking the pockets on the sides could interfere. OTOH, I don't want them to be completely forward either depending on what they actually mean by that. Does anybody have any pics of the "front-facing" option? (I haven't been able to find any).

Alternatively, might be better to forego the pockets and get separate "pockets-shorts" to pull over it?

Spoiler

 

[JohnnyC]

G'day,

About to order my first drysuit and based on my instructors' recommendation, looking at Seaskin. Sounds like the consensus is that they are alright.

Following is my configuration, anything you'd change, if so why? (Boots excepting, I'd prefer them integrated).

One big question is the pockets - unfortunately their site doesn't really show the different positions for them just saying "outside seam" or "front facing". I -might- dive this with a sidemount harness, so thinking the pockets on the sides could interfere. OTOH, I don't want them to be completely forward either depending on what they actually mean by that. Does anybody have any pics of the "front-facing" option? (I haven't been able to find any).

Alternatively, might be better to forego the pockets and get separate "pockets-shorts" to pull over it?

View attachment 530504

Get the pockets on the outside. If you're diving sidemount, put your stuff in a butt pouch and leave the pockets empty. Front-mounted pockets on sidemount are silly. The only things I keep in my thigh pockets when diving sidemount are things that I would almost never use, but would be really unfortunate to be without in an overhead environment.

 

[mwerle]

Get the pockets on the outside.

Thanks. Found some more pics (Seaskin could really improve that part of their site!) and the zippered pockets look really bulky. The velcro'd ones look like the fold down a lot more. Thoughts?