Review Seaskin Nova drysuit

[eweingarden]

Will be interest to see how the kubi covers are, they’re new and I’m not sure anyone has ordered them before!

I got the Kubi covers on mine, and dived in the suit for the first time last week. I like the covers. They add protection to the rings, and didn't find them difficult to maneuver (rolling them on or off) with the dry gloves on.

 

[Bierstadt]

Seaskin Nova 3 month review:

I love my Nova and I am enjoying it. I just wanted to share a few notes about my experience with the value of certain upgrades.

-Quick Neck with Silicone seal +100%, great upgrade, absolutely love the silicone seal. No leaks, no trouble, and no discomfort.
-Sitech dump and inflator valve working flawlessly
-Kubi dry glove system +100%, two of my buddies with other systems switched to the Kubis after they saw mine. Enough said.
-Telescopic torso is great; anything that makes a drysuit easier to don and doff is worthwhile.
-Simple Warm Neck was a mistake. I should have gone with the standard. It's just too hard for me to get the back of my hood tucked into the neck when I'm geared up.
-Socks instead of integrated boots was a mistake, but a minor one. The additional time to put on a separate pair of boots is a mild annoyance. It's personal preference, but I'd get the boots next time.
-Upgraded drysuit bag doesn't seem worth it in hindsight. It just doesn't do anything a tarp doesn't do better, compared to the standard bag.
-Knee pads +100% they make kneeling down feel so much safer for the suit.
-Seaskin hood: nope, it's not particularly warm or comfortable. I am replacing mine with something better. It fit nice, but that was it.
-Seaskin 150g thinsulate undergarment: Yes, it is a great value. I kind of wish I had also got the 250g for winter diving, but that's about it. One downside is that the outer material covering the thinsulate is very fragile. I tore it on the left shoulder near the drysuit zipper when the zipper mouse caught on the material of the undergarment as I slid the drysuit off. However, a $5 nylon patch later it is fixed and toughened up, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Hope that helps someone.

 

[drk5036]

-Socks instead of integrated boots was a mistake, but a minor one. The additional time to put on a separate pair of boots is a mild annoyance. It's personal preference, but I'd get the boots next time.

I like the socks but I also felt mildly annoyed by the extra time it takes to put on the boots. I live in the far north so all year is drysuit conditions but it gets hot in the summer so we often completely remove the suit between dives. On amazon, I bought elastic shoe laces. Replacing the laces on my faux converse all-stars with them, I can basically slip the boots on, it takes two seconds. Highly recommended!

 

[bobmaggi]

Now that I have a few dives in using the suit I can say that it was a good decision to get this suit so far. The only thing changes would be to not have gotten the warm neck collar now that I am using a neoprene neck seal. The warm neck collar just seems to get in the way now. The Kubi gloves are nice but since they are just held on by friction, the gloves have slipped off the suit several times while doing things like putting my fins on. No issues while in the water with the gloves, just above water and when dipping my hands into the water. I initially used silicone lube on the gloves but have been removing most of it due to this problem. I kind of wish I had gotten the telescoping torso, it would make it easier to get into the suit. Right now I have the mobility to get into and out of the suit but it does take some effort and if you aren’t limber it might be really hard without help.
The suit cut is pretty good allowing good motion without being baggy. My legs are about the baggiest (sp?) part and can collect some air, may get gaiters if it appears to become an issue. I normally dive with just enough air to reduce the squeeze so I can really feel when the legs inflate more than expected.
I like the suit and have several of my dive buddies are now looking into Sea Skins as a replacement for their suits.

 

[Bierstadt]

@bobmaggi Just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny! I was taken aback when I read you had problems with the gloves sliding off and I thought "Just how much lube did he use?" I am guessing from your comment about removing lube the answer was a lot. I would be shocked if my Kubi gloves ever came off by themselves.

 

[stuartv]

Seaskin Nova 3 month review:

I love my Nova and I am enjoying it. I just wanted to share a few notes about my experience with the value of certain upgrades.

-Quick Neck with Silicone seal +100%, great upgrade, absolutely love the silicone seal. No leaks, no trouble, and no discomfort.
-Sitech dump and inflator valve working flawlessly
-Kubi dry glove system +100%, two of my buddies with other systems switched to the Kubis after they saw mine. Enough said.
-Telescopic torso is great; anything that makes a drysuit easier to don and doff is worthwhile.
-Simple Warm Neck was a mistake. I should have gone with the standard. It's just too hard for me to get the back of my hood tucked into the neck when I'm geared up.
-Socks instead of integrated boots was a mistake, but a minor one. The additional time to put on a separate pair of boots is a mild annoyance. It's personal preference, but I'd get the boots next time.
-Upgraded drysuit bag doesn't seem worth it in hindsight. It just doesn't do anything a tarp doesn't do better, compared to the standard bag.
-Knee pads +100% they make kneeling down feel so much safer for the suit.
-Seaskin hood: nope, it's not particularly warm or comfortable. I am replacing mine with something better. It fit nice, but that was it.
-Seaskin 150g thinsulate undergarment: Yes, it is a great value. I kind of wish I had also got the 250g for winter diving, but that's about it. One downside is that the outer material covering the thinsulate is very fragile. I tore it on the left shoulder near the drysuit zipper when the zipper mouse caught on the material of the undergarment as I slid the drysuit off. However, a $5 nylon patch later it is fixed and toughened up, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Hope that helps someone.

Awesome feedback. Thank you for posting that. I really like hearing different perspectives than my own. Especially the ones that don't "agree" with me.

What hood are you using? I have a few different hoods and none of them reach down far enough to tuck into the warm neck. The one I usually wear is a Bare Ultrawarmth drysuit hood. They all come down far enough to overlap the neck seal itself and that is all I want. Especially with using a replaceable neoprene neck seal.

7/5mm Ultrawarmth Dry Hood - BARE Sports

On the bag, there are definitely times it is really of no benefit. But, there are times I have found where I don't have a tarp or even really the ability to use a tarp. Those times, I have enjoyed use of the bag. For example, on a boat with a wet deck, where I want to put the bag down to have a clean, dry spot for my feet. Or at Lake Phoenix scuba park, when I get a pavilion. The pavilions are on concrete pads. I don't want to spread out a tarp, so having the bag to put down on top of the dirty concrete is nice.

I also have a bite mark in my Thinsulate undersuit from getting caught in the zipper one time. LOL

@bobmaggi Just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny! I was taken aback when I read you had problems with the gloves sliding off and I thought "Just how much lube did he use?" I am guessing from your comment about removing lube the answer was a lot. I would be shocked if my Kubi gloves ever came off by themselves.

I have had my Kubi rings come apart on accident. 2 times now(? I think). Always before I got in the water. Generally, with a lot of undergarments on and really extending my arm to reach something.

 

[bobmaggi]

@bobmaggi Just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny! I was taken aback when I read you had problems with the gloves sliding off and I thought "Just how much lube did he use?" I am guessing from your comment about removing lube the answer was a lot. I would be shocked if my Kubi gloves ever came off by themselves.

I used just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny (I also have underwater camera housings and a rebreather so I have a lot of experience lubricating o-rings). It seems that even that was too much for this system. I removed as much of the lube from the o-rings (no longer shiny) for the last dive and they still slid off while reaching around to put my fins on.

The Kubi’s are nice but my favorite dry glove system was the Diving Concepts rings (I believe they have been rebranded as Ultima now) which I used on both a DC suit and 4th Element Kevlar suit. Least favorite rings were the Antares oval rings (original on the 4th Element suit) as I got wet hands 75% of the dives I made using them. I also had pretty good luck with Si-tech rings on a Whites dry suit which was similar to the Kubis where it has a sliding o-ring (and a big screw to push the glove back off, interesting design but it worked). So I have a fair amount of experience with different styles of dry gloves over lots of dives.

At this point I believe the problem is due to the suit’s arm length is such that when I am having to stretch and reach out this puts extra pressure on the glove ring that causes the glove to pull out. I’m going to replace the 720 gloves with a new pair of gloves and allow extra length on the glove cuff so there won’t be any ‘pulling’ pressure that wants to pull the glove off even when I have to fully extend my arm.

 

[lexvil]

I used just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny (I also have underwater camera housings and a rebreather so I have a lot of experience lubricating o-rings). It seems that even that was too much for this system. I removed as much of the lube from the o-rings (no longer shiny) for the last dive and they still slid off while reaching around to put my fins on.

The Kubi’s are nice but my favorite dry glove system was the Diving Concepts rings (I believe they have been rebranded as Ultima now) which I used on both a DC suit and 4th Element Kevlar suit. Least favorite rings were the Antares oval rings (original on the 4th Element suit) as I got wet hands 75% of the dives I made using them. I also had pretty good luck with Si-tech rings on a Whites dry suit which was similar to the Kubis where it has a sliding o-ring (and a big screw to push the glove back off, interesting design but it worked). So I have a fair amount of experience with different styles of dry gloves over lots of dives.

At this point I believe the problem is due to the suit’s arm length is such that when I am having to stretch and reach out this puts extra pressure on the glove ring that causes the glove to pull out. I’m going to replace the 720 gloves with a new pair of gloves and allow extra length on the glove cuff so there won’t be any ‘pulling’ pressure that wants to pull the glove off even when I have to fully extend my arm.

I think you’ve got your solution by adding more length to the glove.

 

[Bierstadt]

I used just enough lube to make the o-ring shiny (I also have underwater camera housings and a rebreather so I have a lot of experience lubricating o-rings). It seems that even that was too much for this system. I removed as much of the lube from the o-rings (no longer shiny) for the last dive and they still slid off while reaching around to put my fins on.

The Kubi’s are nice but my favorite dry glove system was the Diving Concepts rings (I believe they have been rebranded as Ultima now) which I used on both a DC suit and 4th Element Kevlar suit. Least favorite rings were the Antares oval rings (original on the 4th Element suit) as I got wet hands 75% of the dives I made using them. I also had pretty good luck with Si-tech rings on a Whites dry suit which was similar to the Kubis where it has a sliding o-ring (and a big screw to push the glove back off, interesting design but it worked). So I have a fair amount of experience with different styles of dry gloves over lots of dives.

At this point I believe the problem is due to the suit’s arm length is such that when I am having to stretch and reach out this puts extra pressure on the glove ring that causes the glove to pull out. I’m going to replace the 720 gloves with a new pair of gloves and allow extra length on the glove cuff so there won’t be any ‘pulling’ pressure that wants to pull the glove off even when I have to fully extend my arm.

Agreed. I leave plenty of glove wrist slack and my suit arms are not an issue for reaching. I hope more glove slack will solve your problem. I think it will, and you can go back to shiny orings. It is certainly harder to mount the Kubis if the rings lose their lube. So much of this is personal fit, but that's one of the reasons we talk so much about it.

 

[umhlangan]

Does anyone know if the diving concepts ring system can be used with the QCS Oval cuff ring system that Seaskin offers as an option?