Wetsuit as Drysuit Undergarment

[FishDiver]

Has anyone tried a shorty wetsuit worn over light fleece? I am considering using my 2 or 3mm suit as a core warmer.

It seems like a low bulk combo and would provide a safety margin if the suit leaks.

Before someone posts that the neoprene will compress and lose warmth at depth, It ain't so. The air pressure in the drysuit will allow the neo to maintain the thickness it has on the surface.

 

[Kern]

Before someone posts that the neoprene will compress and lose warmth at depth, It ain't so. The air pressure in the drysuit will allow the neo to maintain the thickness it has on the surface.

hmm, are you sure about that?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The pressure inside the suit is equal to the pressure outside the suit. So regardless of whether the wet suit is surrounded by air inside the dry suit or water, it is still under greater pressure and will still compress.

It is after all a dry suit not a submarine.

 

[RJP]

Has anyone tried a shorty wetsuit worn over light fleece? I am considering using my 2 or 3mm suit as a core warmer.

It seems like a low bulk combo and would provide a safety margin if the suit leaks.

Before someone posts that the neoprene will compress and lose warmth at depth, It ain't so. The air pressure in the drysuit will allow the neo to maintain the thickness it has on the surface.

Uh, yeah, but the wetsuit will compress the fleece, reducing the ability of the fleece to provide warmth. (Further, if the shorty fits over the fleece, it means that your shorty is the wrong size for you, unless you want to by a larger shorty for the expressed purpose wearing it with a dry suit in order to reduce the insulating value of your fleece.)

I'm a big believer in testing the boundaries of the "no such thing as a dumb question" rule, even if only to prove that it isn't true.



Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[do it easy]

Has anyone tried a shorty wetsuit worn over light fleece? I am considering using my 2 or 3mm suit as a core warmer.

It seems like a low bulk combo and would provide a safety margin if the suit leaks.

Before someone posts that the neoprene will compress and lose warmth at depth, It ain't so. The air pressure in the drysuit will allow the neo to maintain the thickness it has on the surface.

I think that neoprene is closed cell isulation- all the air pockets in it are essentially sealed. So if the ambient pressure increases, those closed cells will shrink accordingly. It all Boyle's down to physics.

If you wore a shorty made out of a sponge or fleece, which has open spaces in it, then they would fluff up when you added air to the drysuit.

 

[Tigerman]

Unless you get suit squeeze, not having the wetsuit compress sounds reasonable to me right now.. But I AM tired..
However in my 4am haze it also appear to me that a wetsuit over garments would somewhat compress the undergarments, removing air from it and the air is what insulate in the drysuit?
I wouldnt think its not accidental that undergarments is cloth and not neoprene suits?

 

[jackass]

It is after all a dry suit not a submarine.

But what if it were a submarine, how cool would that be!

 

[Tigerman]

But what if it were a submarine, how cool would that be!

Now if I could just get hold of a plate armor and seal it somehow... I think id need a badass BCD tho...

 

[Belmont]

Now if I could just get hold of a plate armor and seal it somehow... I think id need a badass BCD tho...

It's called a Newt Suit.

Submersible Suits - The Newt Suit

 

[fdog]

<snip>Before someone posts that the neoprene will compress and lose warmth at depth, It ain't so. The air pressure in the drysuit will allow the neo to maintain the thickness it has on the surface.

I've done quite a few hyperbaric chamber dives, where I would demonstrate wet suit compression with a piece of wet suit that would squish flat the deeper we got.

I am certain that whoever told you this was mistaken.


All the best, James