What is a semi-dry suit?

[stichrunner]

cool I'm looking at a scuba-pro semi-dry 7mil with a "build in hood"i think and it sipped across the front of ur chest, at a local shop they have it for $224.00 brand new. i will use it in the springs in Florida and the gulf of Mexico off of Louisiana or Florida i don't think the water get that cold around here like up north. i used a 3/2 with a insulated skin last year in like 65 degree water and i was a cold but not to cold. So i think this suit should do the trick. i also tried on a tiloes farmer john 6.5 and i did not like how restricted my upper body felt it limited my movement with my arms and torso a lot.

 

[evil_xander]

Dry suit allows no water to enter the suit (under ideal circumstances ) helping you to reduce the heat loss. Especially if you wear warm clothing underneath it.

Actually, unless you use a neoprene drysuit, it just keeps you dry, not warm at all (trilam has 0 insulation capabilities). Keeping warm is the function of undergarments & volume of gas in the suit.

 

[tfsails]

In my experience (I own a 7mm semi-dry) a semi dry suit is neither.

 

[Kern]

I bought a Mares Isotherm last year and it has a drysuit zipper along with neoprene seals on the ankles, wrists, and neck. It doesn't leak at all and kept me warm in 40 degree water during my Deep Diver training. I didn't experience any squeeze at 105 feet. .

A little more than 4 ATAs & no squeeze. So, what sort of magic do you use to void the laws of physics?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have noted with neoprene dry suits that any squeeze that occurs is much less than with a trilam or vulcanized rubber suit. It is snug feeling but does not have that biting quality to it and will tolerate a lot more depth change with no gas addiiton than a trilam.

That said, neoprene dry suits do squeeze, and so would any semi-dry that is in fact totally dry and has any airpsace at all in it. I suspect that either some minimal leakage is occurring and is just being written off as perspiration, or that the suit fits in such a way that there is basically no airpsace in it to compress and cause a squeeze. More likely it is a combination of a very good fit and a minimum level of leakage.

 

[Kern]

A material with some stretch may ameliorate the squeeze to some, very small degree. The suit may fit like a glove, my Ice certainly does, the Isotherms I'v dived did too. But none of it really matters, if no water is getting in, there is an air pocket, no matter how small. At 30mts that air pocket will be 4 times smaller than it was at the surface, there will be squeeze & if your a boy, your nuts will be in a vice.

I do agree that many will write off suit inundation as perspiration. I'v heard this sort of thing for years now & often ask people on charters who say this to play the wet "T" shirt game. If they'll play, their "T's" always come out of the water soaking wet & almost everyone who played still insist it's sweat. Even when I stretch their ankle seals & water flows out, many will still persist with, "it's perspiration, my semi is dry".

Lets face it, if a semi kept us dry, warm & unsqueezed at 30mts in 40^oF water who'd bother with a dry suit.

 

[THart]

I will have one soon for sale....check the board. good deal