UTD Diving and Drysuits

[conallmeehan44]

Anyone who dives within the UTD agency or anyone else knowledgable on drysuits. Why do they recommend to put a bit of air in your lower legs/feet?

 

[boulderjohn]

Anyone who dives within the UTD agency or anyone else knowledgable on drysuits. Why do they recommend to put a bit of air in your lower legs/feet?

I don't understand the question.

When you wear a drysuit, you need to have a small layer of air between your body and the suit. That air goes everywhere, including the legs. Some people do things to limit the amount of air in the lower legs by wearing things like gaiters that squeeze that area, but most people don't. Drysuits themselves are designed not be too spacious in the legs.

I used to be a UTD diver, and I don't recall that as an agency they had anything special to say about this.

 

[crofrog]

Anyone who dives within the UTD agency or anyone else knowledgable on drysuits. Why do they recommend to put a bit of air in your lower legs/feet?

I'm not a UTD diver, but I listen to their podcast from time to time.

I think the gist of it was if you dive super shrink wrapped any air you add is going to end up in your feet because that was the highest point, which is going to shift your center of buoyancy to your feet. Where as if you add more gas in general you'll have some up in your shoulders in some in your feet and you're center of buoyancy stays more in the middle and it's easier to move around in your suit.

So learn to move around the bubble so that you always find yourself comfortable and flat in the water without sculling continuously.

 

[Caversluis]

I also heard a UTD Podcast where their Course Director, Ben Bos, talks about this. A bit of air in the feet and a bit of air in the shoulders keeps you balanced in the water. In the podcast he calls this “laying in his hammock”.

 

[Badger7]

Anyone who dives within the UTD agency or anyone else knowledgable on drysuits. Why do they recommend to put a bit of air in your lower legs/feet?

I can't imagine that is a universal recommendation for anyone, but there are cases I can see (and have used personally) for putting a little extra air in the suit and going head down for a moment to get some extra in the calves. If the configuration I'm diving results in trim that is a little more head up (foot heavy) than desired, you can easily balance things out and fight the trim a little less adding some air around the calves. This might be especially helpful in a single tank configuration with heavier fins.

If you're head heavy though, going out of your way to put any extra air in your legs would be totally counterproductive, which is why I doubt that is a universal recommendation, probably more of a "have you considered?"

If you're diving a very stiff set of fins, they are probably also negatively buoyant, especially in freshwater, so getting a little extra air around your socks can help offset that as well.

If I'm carrying any lead, I would probably shift that placement first to fine tune trim, but moving a little air into or out of your legs is something you can do on the fly during a dive to influence trim without needing any help from the team or getting out of the water.

 

[rjack321]

I also heard a UTD Podcast where their Course Director, Ben Bos, talks about this. A bit of air in the feet and a bit of air in the shoulders keeps you balanced in the water. In the podcast he calls this “laying in his hammock”.

Yeah I have never heard of the "put air in the feet" thing but I would guess that it was said in the context of not diving shrink wrapped and being more nuanced about having some air in your suit to move around and balance yourself out with

 

[JoeTPhilly]

Skip to 7:55 of the video:

 

[nadwidny]

Skip to 7:55 of the video:

I wanted to hate this video but it is actually OK.

 

[happy-diver]

He's a good guy with some great videos even when they're in Dutch