Ultima Dry Glove System question

[Leto]

From what I've seen Kubi's are similar to the Ultima system but are a bit more popular here in Europe/The Netherlands. They also have to be pulled off one side at a time, I use the edge of a finger spool to wedge them open.

I dive with my dumpvalve all the way open, minimal gas in the suit and my trim/buoyancy is good so I expect no issues there. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, not many people have 1000+ hours experience diving drygloves without wrist seals.

 

[Zef]

From what I've seen Kubi's are similar to the Ultima system but are a bit more popular here in Europe/The Netherlands.

Kubi hit the market in Europe before the Ultima DGS and marketed their product as a general purpose dryglove system.

The Ultima DGS, despite being owned/made/marketed by a Swedish company, Waterproof, they have a smaller market share in Europe as they came out with their product a little later and are primarily marketed as a direct fit for suits that have the Si-Tech QCS oval wrist system....even though they can be installed on other suits the same way Kubi rings can be installed.

Also, since the Ultima DGS is a Waterproof product, shops that do not carry the Waterproof line may not know of its existence or may be less inclined to carry it....particularly if they already carry the Kubi product.

The most prevalent dryglove system models that I have seen here in Belgium and Northern France seem to be Kubi and Rolock. Next in popularity is folks just diving in thick neoprene wet gloves. Santi and Si-tech have a small share of the market, and Waterproof Ultima DGS has an even smaller share....that may be different in other countries across Europe though.

The idea of Si-Tech's user replaceable system has been slow to catch on here in Belgium and northern France. A lot of the divers with drysuits that I have interacted with are happy with latex wrist seals and seem to be happy with their lifespan and are not very interested in forking out the expense to install a wrist seal system...their mentality is typically that their wrist seals are 2 years old and don't need to be changed so why fix what isn't broke, and when they eventually tear a seal it is not too expensive to have a shop replace it. This mentality further impacts the market share of the Waterproof Ultima DGS due to its affiliation as a direct fit product for the Si-Tech QCS oval system as mentioned above.

-Z

 

[Deep South Divers]

From what I've seen Kubi's are similar to the Ultima system but are a bit more popular here in Europe/The Netherlands. They also have to be pulled off one side at a time, I use the edge of a finger spool to wedge them open.

View attachment 534456

I dive with my dumpvalve all the way open, minimal gas in the suit and my trim/buoyancy is good so I expect no issues there. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, not many people have 1000+ hours experience diving drygloves without wrist seals.

I stole the idea from Maxbottomtime, who is a contributor on this thread. In fact, I may have stolen his idea FROM this thread.

I'm not sure which of us has more hours with the system, but since I dive mine every day for work, it may be me. On the other hand, I'm only diving my drysuit in the wintertime here - yesterday's water was 86 degrees F, and I was in a 3mm wetsuit with wet gloves. I think he's on the West Coast and gets more consistent water temperatures and so may be diving his drysuits year-round. I won't be back in my drysuits until late September probably, when the water finally falls below 74 degrees or so. For what it's worth - out wintertime water temps are typically mid-30s.

Other than Max and maybe a couple of other guys here on this thread, I don't know anyone diving their drysuits "sealless."

I wish I could dive dry year-round... I'd have a lot more hours.

 

[Zef]

Other than Max and maybe a couple of other guys here on this thread, I don't know anyone diving their drysuits "sealless."

My balls are not brassy enough yet to dive without my seals. I will wait for the hopefully not too soon unfortunate occasion when one of my wrist seals tears while donning my suit...I will use that as an opportunity to test out diving seal-less.

Currently, I am switching between diving on a 7mm semi-dry that I recently purchased from a SB member and my 5.5mm wetsuit...depending on where I am diving and how bad the thermocline is for that site, so my drysuit is hanging with seals intact in the garage.

I dust my seals with plenty of talc prior to donning which makes slipping my hands through really easy, so it may be a bit before one tears. {knocking on wood}

-Z

 

[Deep South Divers]

Lol... I was an early adopter, since I only have one ball. Lost one in a fight with cancer. I kicked it's ass, though, so all's good.

...But if you're wearing your seals on your balls, you're doing it wrong.

Since you're diving with rings, I'm assuming that you're diving silicone wrist seals? May be a while until they split. Latex, not so much - the stuff rots on the hanger. I can't get more than a year or two out of latex seals before they go brown, get gummy, or split... Which is probably my favorite reason for diving a silicone neck seal. I hear a lot of people complain about the silicone neck seals being more "fragile" than latex... But I've found the opposite to be true.

For that reason, I recommend using silicone wrist seals and then trimming them back for "sealless" wrists rather than using latex ones.

Here's to hoping you bust a wrist seal soon.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

My balls are not brassy enough yet to dive without my seals. I will wait for the hopefully not too soon unfortunate occasion when one of my wrist seals tears while donning my suit...I will use that as an opportunity to test out diving seal-less.

That's what I did with Merry. She was reluctant to even try dry gloves, let alone without a wrist seal. Once I got her to try the gloves, she loved them. When she tore a seal, she went without for that hand. I'm waiting for the other seal to give out so she can go nekkid...wrist-wise anyway. With my luck, she'll get a flood and blame me.

 

[taimen]

Other than Max and maybe a couple of other guys here on this thread, I don't know anyone diving their drysuits "sealless."

My balls are not brassy enough yet to dive without my seals. I will wait for the hopefully not too soon unfortunate occasion when one of my wrist seals tears while donning my suit...I will use that as an opportunity to test out diving seal-less.

I can tell you that diving seal-less is common (and well proven) in scandinavian tech and specifically mine diving circles. Ultima rings don't have a huge presence here but most people I know dive with cut back wrist seals with other ring systems or no seals at all. It is fairly common to see people rigging gloves directly to Sitech ovals instead of seals or have gloves directly glued to the drysuit. The biggest benefit is warmth and comfort in extremely cold conditions. Doing that with removable rings requires a reliable system, but at least Kubi, Santi, Bts/nordic and apparently Ultima are good enough.

 

[Zef]

I can tell you that diving seal-less is common (and well proven) in scandinavian tech and specifically mine diving circles. Ultima rings don't have a huge presence here but most people I know dive with cut back wrist seals with other ring systems or no seals at all. It is fairly common to see people rigging gloves directly to Sitech ovals instead of seals or have gloves directly glued to the drysuit. The biggest benefit is warmth and comfort in extremely cold conditions. Doing that with removable rings requires a reliable system, but at least Kubi, Santi, Bts/nordic and apparently Ultima are good enough.

I don't disagree with the notion you present.

For me, though, I purchased my drysuit specifically with the si-tech wrist and neck seal systems because of the benefits I perceived about the systems, and the systems have lived up to my expectations. I find it easy to don my suit and comfortable to wear. My dives are typically within 45 minutes to 1 hour in length and after that time frame my dive partners are either cold, running low on air, or I am just generally becoming bored and want to change my scenery to something less wet even if that is for only a couple of hours surface interval.

I do not find my gloves to be uncomfortable at all for the duration that is the dives I do, especially if I use the little spaghetti tubes to equalize the gloves with my suit. I have no compelling reason to destroy my seals to gain increase ease or comfort even though I consider my Ultimas to be a very reliable system.

Perhaps if my dives were longer or I was having issues that could potentially be solved by cutting the seals back I would be more inclined to do it.

Perhaps I am just a cheap bastard and want to get the most out of every part of the product I purchased before changing it in irreversible way.

Or perhaps I am just scared of the possibility of flooding my suit on a cold winter's dive, however remote that might be.

The decision to cut one's seals back is very personal choice, and there are lots of personal reasons one might choose to do it, there are also plenty of reasons to not.

Seals cut, seals intact....happy diving everyone!!!

-Z

 

[Storker]

The decision to cut one's seals back is very personal choice, and there are lots of personal reasons one might choose to do it, there are also plenty of reasons to not.

I chose not to. Both due to thinking about what would happen if one of my gloves ripped, and to be able to use wetgloves when the water is warm(ish).

Since I'm always losing small stuff that isn't clipped off (like those spaghetti tubes when I'm not wearing them), I just stuff a small length of bungee cord under the seal. Works well enough for me, and in case of a glove ripping and flooding, I can doff the glove, pull out the bungee piece and don the glove again. My hand will be soaking wet, but my arm, shoulder and torso won't.

And I always have a piece of bungee cord in my saveadive-kit, so no problem replacing those small pieces I lose

 

[taimen]

The decision to cut one's seals back is very personal choice, and there are lots of personal reasons one might choose to do it, there are also plenty of reasons to not.

Seals cut, seals intact....happy diving everyone!!!

Didn't mean to tell what you should or should not do. But for anyone hesitating seal-less diving because apparently no-one dares to do that it may be nice to know that there are communities where it is common and tried thing to do.