Ultima Dry Glove System question

[Deep South Divers]

Dove my Ultimas with 720s today in a quarry, 9-10 degrees celsius and we did a 50 minute dive where we mostly stayed still in the water (training hovering).
Didn't use any gloves under them, just straight up nitrile awesomeness.
Did not freeze a single bit, my hands didn't even get a little bit cold or chilly.
I have the wrist seals still installed, guessing my hands would get even warmer if I were to cut them back.
Absolutely love this combo!
Next step is to cut the seals I guess, still too much of a chicken to do it though

That's awesome.

The good news is that you don't HAVE to trim the seals back. You can keep them in place all you want... Then you'll be able to dive with wet hands if you want to.

I do think, however, that once you get used to the 720/Ultima awesomeness, you won't want to anymore. Then you'll want to trim back your wrist seals just to make donning and doffing that much easier.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It took me over a year, but I was able to get Merry to begin diving with her 720s on Ultima rings shortly before our God's Pocket trip in March. She has been wearing them ever since. Two weeks ago, she tore a wrist seal. I offered to replace it but she was willing to try diving without it. She trusts the gloves enough that she has since dived a few times without the seal. I'm hoping her other seal will tear soon.

 

[Zef]

About a month or so ago I swapped out my fuzzy acrylic yellow undergloves/glove liners that came with one of the glove sets SHOWA sent me to sample to some Dakine Storm glove liners....they are similar to the bontranger gloves discussed a few post back.

I love the Dakine gloves....they seemingly offer me the same thermal capacity at half the thickness or less of the yellow glove liners...they afford me much better dexterity and comfort.

-Z

 

[Degenerate]

I'm gonna keep the seals for a bit longer.
I wouldn't be worried on a shallow rec dive as I could just ascend and get out...
But once I get to the point where I'll be doing deeper dives or dives that require deco I wouldn't want to dive without seals.
Even if the risk of dislodging a glove or getting a leak is very slim, it would not be worth the risk in cold water if you gotta hang on a deco stop with a flooded drysuit in water less than 10 degrees celsius
If **** hits the fan you can always rip the glove off and pull out the tube and stop the leak, your hand might go numb but it's better than a drysuit full of cold water

 

[Deep South Divers]

It took me over a year, but I was able to get Merry to begin diving with her 720s on Ultima rings shortly before our God's Pocket trip in March. She has been wearing them ever since. Two weeks ago, she tore a wrist seal. I offered to replace it but she was willing to try diving without it. She trusts the gloves enough that she has since dived a few times without the seal. I'm hoping her other seal will tear soon.

Bwahahahaaa!

About a month or so ago I swapped out my fuzzy acrylic yellow undergloves/glove liners that came with one of the glove sets SHOWA sent me to sample to some Dakine Storm glove liners....they are similar to the bontranger gloves discussed a few post back.

I love the Dakine gloves....they seemingly offer me the same thermal capacity at half the thickness or less of the yellow glove liners...they afford me much better dexterity and comfort.

-Z

Got a link?

I'm gonna keep the seals for a bit longer.
I wouldn't be worried on a shallow rec dive as I could just ascend and get out...
But once I get to the point where I'll be doing deeper dives or dives that require deco I wouldn't want to dive without seals.
Even if the risk of dislodging a glove or getting a leak is very slim, it would not be worth the risk in cold water if you gotta hang on a deco stop with a flooded drysuit in water less than 10 degrees celsius
If **** hits the fan you can always rip the glove off and pull out the tube and stop the leak, your hand might go numb but it's better than a drysuit full of cold water

Cool.

I haven't ever had a glove dislodge - but when you're scraping barnacles and oysters and cutting down pilings with an underwater chainsaw, EVENTUALLY a hole develops somewhere just due to wear. For me, that's right around 40 dives or so, which is about once a month. It's usually the fingertips.

When it happens, it's just due to wearing the material down. I find the 720s to last maybe twice as long as the 660s - maybe three times.

To mitigate the leak, I just press my fingers together - like an okay sign or an okay sign with my middle finger (those are the places that wear). I'll get wet up to about the second joint on that finger maybe before I notice and plug the hole.

Once I had a sharp piece of oyster shell pierce the 720 under the cosmetic ring, which was weird. I got wet around the wrist - that was about it. A wrist seal in this case might have saved me an inch or two of dampness.

...Which really says a lot. Prior to going with drygloves, I was regularly soaked up to the elbows using wrist seals only and wet gloves. Sometimes further.

That is - a catastrophic glove failure is still less wet than using wrist seals alone. At least - that's how it's been for me.

It also says a lot about my Sentry drysuit - that it's so warm and dry that I can actually tell that I'm a little damp in the wrist area. The damn thing is as dry as the desert.

Keep your wrist seals if it makes you feel good... But I found them to be pretty worthless, even in a glove failure.

Local water temp here in the winter is about 4°C y the way. I'm still wrist "sealless." 10° is positively balmy sometimes.

That said, today's water temp was almost 30°C, and I was hot in a 3 mil wetsuit with wet gloves.

 

[admikar]

It also says a lot about my Sentry drysuit - that it's so warm and dry that I can actually tell that I'm a little damp in the wrist area. The damn thing is as dry as the desert.

Sorry for thread drift, but is that a new BARE suit you promised a review long time ago?

 

[Zef]

Got a link?

I purchased mine locally. They look like the ones in the picture below but it seems that may be a discontinued design. The Storm liner gloves are still made by Dakine but they have changed the colors and pattern of the grippy stuff on the palm/fingers:

https://www.amazon.com/Dakine-Mens-Storm-Liner-Gloves-x/dp/B01M7O3JEE

-Z

 

[Degenerate]

Did a bunch of dives this weekend with my D7X and Ultimas, lots of stretching my arms in stupid ways trying to push the limits of my gloves.
Didn't even get close to popping them off no matter how I tried, absolutely rock solid seal despite them being relatively easy to doff after a dive.
Some of the credit might go to my WP suit and the way it is shaped, arms are relatively long when needed but never feels like they are excessive.
Gonna have to start using the tubes that come with them though, been pulling my thumb loop through the seals so far but as soon as I put my arms out in front of me they'll retreat back behind the seals and my hands get kind of squeezed at 15m+.
Did some 40-50 min dives in the 9-13 degrees celsius range and didn't feel cold despite not using any gloves under my 720s.
Still absolutely blown away at how good this system is, absolute joy to dive with!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

You're supposed to have the thumb loops looped around your thumbs to keep them from retracting. Once you get used to the gloves and trust them, you may want to try cutting off the seals.

 

[Deep South Divers]

Sorry for thread drift, but is that a new BARE suit you promised a review long time ago?

Yes! Here's a video on it: