Tech dives in wetsuits in warm water?

[sea_ledford]

Curious - Why not use a QD hose with the dual bladder wing in this case?

The primary argument against dual bladder wings is having to deal with an inflator failure, specifically a small leak into the backup wing. To solve that you don't hook up the inflator hose. But then you have to fumble with connecting the hose to use it, plus have the additional hose in the first place and the failure points that introduces. In the time you reconnect the QD, you could have just orally inflated.

I would personally just use the backup to arrest decent, then get an SMB up as soon as practical, so I wouldn't be using the wing for fine tuning anyway. Oral inflation seems to be the simplest overall method.

 

[LFMarm]

Oral inflation seems to be the simplest overall method.

Not super pleasant when on CC but doable. I use inflator hoses 99% of the time to avoid closing the loop with risk of getting water in.

 

[sea_ledford]

Not super pleasant when on CC but doable.

Agreed. It isn't the easiest, just the simplest. We also practice regularly. With a BOV it is relatively painless. I don't think I would run this way with a DSV.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I have done many 240-foot-deep dives on the Wilkes-Barre in a 3 mil shorty. Also on the Northern light, 185 fsw and the Vitric 300 fsw.

 

[happy-diver]

Here's one of my tropical short deco tech rigs, gets a bit fresh if you have to wait to be picked up

 

[clownfishsydney]

I see many videos of divers doing tech dives wearing drysuits in tropical waters. When the water is 30.5 C (87 F), I don't want to be in a drysuit at all. A 3 mm shorty or less sounds good to me.

How common are 50 m (165 ft) tech dives in wetsuits?

All the time, have done probably 100 deeper than 50 metres over the years in places like Solomons, Chuuk, Vanuatu and PNG, all with 3 mm shorty.