Water neutrally buoyant?

[John C. Ratliff]

I used to dive an Aquala "dry" suit (it never was completely dry) over a wet suit's farmer John pants. That is quite a good combination, and I stayed warm when others did not in wet suits.

Today's dry suits are of two types. Some require that underware (if a trilaminate) be worn, as they are just a waterproof shell. Others, made of foam neoprene, are buoyant themselves, and excluding the water provides some of the insulation. Adding underware to the foam suits increases the amount of insulation, and therefore the buoyancy. You can loose that buoyancy on either of these suits if the underware is soaked with water. But all you need to do to get back to neutral is to drop the weights you carry. The water inside won't affect your negative buoyancy, but displaces the air, which is quite positively buoyant, as stated by others above.

SeaRat

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hasn't anyone here done this during dry suit training?

 

[Codyjp]

so what kind of drysuit did your dive shop owner want to sell you?

 

[onfloat]

On personal note, I have torn a hole in my drysuit at 100 ft and it filled with water. I did not sink like a rock, I only got wet and cold, climbing back on the boat afterwords was a trick.

 

[spectrum]

On personal note, I have torn a hole in my drysuit at 100 ft and it filled with water. I did not sink like a rock, I only got wet and cold, climbing back on the boat afterwords was a trick.

Was this in HI? What kind of suit and garments?

 

[Gary D.]

A flooded dry suit, other than getting cold is no big deal.

If your undergarment gets wet it will be negative buoyant by the weight of the garment only. That will cause you to sink like a rock, a very small volcanic rock.

Getting up is no big deal as it will take just a bit more air to compensate for the undergarment and a few pounds that was trapped in the suit. I don’t care how much the suit squeezes it will still have some air in it.

There is no need to cut the suit to get back into the boat unless you’re in an old MK-5 style rig. Other than that the type of suit doesn’t matter.

Once at the surface you can hand off your weights, toss them into the boat or just dump them if you want. Then put the hole in the suit at the lowest point and hit the inflator. If it’s a neck seal you will be upside down but they drain real fast. It may take a couple of minutes for other areas but the air will force out the water and you can walk right up the ladder with no more damage to the suit.

If you have an arm related failure, put the hole as low as you can and add some air to counteract the water. Keep it low on the way back up. The same goes for any other area of the suit.

Try it someday, it is an easy solution to a minor problem. My team will be doing it at our next pool training scession.

Gary D.