The most durable drysuit

[muddiver]

I will agree with DA Aquamaster on the vulcanized rubber suits. Nothing beats a Viking or a Gates Heavy Duty dry suit. I purchased a Viking Extreme, which is their trilam dry suit, and it seem pretty durable. I have even read some where on this board that it is one of the most durable trilams available. It also happens to be the least expensive.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I once ripped a hole in the butt while sitting on a rock at the point, putting on my fins. Since I had already hiked my gear there and my suit was wet I decided to dive. I was cold, but not as cold as I expected. The hardest part was walking out with water up to my waist inside the suit. I will never buy another trilam suit as long as I hope to make beach dives.

A reinforced seat is a very nice option in a trilam if it is available, as are reinforced knees/legs in addition to knee pads.

 

[romanchirva]

I've used a Poseidon rubber suit, DUI TLS 350 trilam, USIA bi-lam, two different Diving Concepts crushed neoprene and have finally settled on the Diving Concepts Duraflex. It's a heavy cordura suit, but I dive the rocky entry/exit of Marineland most of the time, and crushed neoprene can still get cut there. My DUI suit ripped just looking at the entry.
The Duraflex is heavy and difficult to don/doff, but it keeps me warm and dry, and that's all it's supposed to do, as well as hold up to the abuse of rocks and wrecks.

I wonder why I am unable to find any info about Diving Concept drysuit?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Catalog Page

http://www.underwater.com/archives/arch/021.01.shtml

 

[romanchirva]

I don't know but it seems that they are not that fancy as other brands common in our region. I saw a couple of different Bare drysuits which were trilam but had lots of reinforcements and looked really durable to me.

 

[NudeDiver]

Dive shops here use Diving Concepts suits. They look pretty nice to me. Even so, I love my Bare

 

[--tom--]

Diving Concepts' QC issues kept me from buying a drysuit for a long time (it was the preferred suit of my LDS). I went with Bare Trilam HD. A very tough suit.

 

[Deep-Thief]

I am not a real DUI fan

Through size, company might and marketing DUI has established itself as more or less the gold standard in dry suits, but if you stop looking at the patch on the shoulder and really compare suits, they are nothing special. Not bad by any means but not exceptional either. So a nice suit, but not the "best" .

Have to say, I agree with all of this. I have owned a Poseidon Unisuit(regular neoprene), a Bare shell suit, I now own a Bare compressed neoprene, and I have worn a DUI and a Viking.

The main thing I really like about the Bares, they have the tall and king sizes. This allows most people to get an off the shelf suit that is more like a custom fit. All without the custom fit price. Most of their suits seem reasonably priced. I think I paid about $1000 for my 4mm compressed neoprene suit with polartec 400 weight underwear and some polartec socks. If you look at the right places you can usually find last year models for cheap. Check Scubatoys.com, they bought the company I got mine from.

I personally like latex seals on my suits. I thought the neoprene seals on my Poseidon, sucked. They are hard to get on. Just my opinion on that one. YMMV

 

[eponym]

What brands, models and material would you advise? Any thoughts appreciated!:blinking:

As you're in Mount Vernon I'd recommend Whites, up in Vancouver. It's a small operation--you can call and discuss suit alterations and repairs with the person who will actually do the work.

I dive a Whites Nexus, a nylon bilaminate shell, purchased in 2003. I have almost three hundred dives on it, have had the seals replaced twice, still love it, still come up bone-dry. The suit itself dries in a hearbeat. I once drove home from a local lake wearing the suit, as weather topside was so bad I didn't want to try to change.

I like the laminate style because it allows me to carry less weight. I can wear just enough weight to offset the suit loft I'm going to need for the day's water conditions. In my experience crushed neo requires more weight.

-Bryan

 

[Katamuki]

I have been rolled around a bit on very sharp limestone rock here in Okinawa with my EVO 2 and it has held up fine. I dont have any other experience with another drysuit but to me it swims like a brick (but a tough brick) and I would buy it again if necessary.