CAPTAIN SINBAD
Contributor
After testing a whole load of drysuits in the pool and in the quarry and making notes on a lot of brands, I will tell you what I have honestly come to believe. This will not be a popular opinion so be prepared.
I find absolutely no correlation between price and quality when it comes to drysuits. The notion "You get what you pay for" just does not apply to drysuits because some of these "uber-expensive" drysuits were so much hell to dive in compared to lower end models that it was mind boggling.
My present suit (left) is a custom measured 3mm Dragonhide. This picture was taken recently in the middle of "polar vortex" when the lakes were almost freezing over. I dove this in sub 40s and the only thing I am wearing underneath is a polartec jersey I picked up from Walmart. I felt no cold whatsoever. People in hyper expensive suits were abandoning the dive on this particular day and they were experiencing cold water shock and all that and I was in the tropics. We had finished this dive when the picture was taken and look at the expression on my face and look at the expression on my buddies face. Which one of us looks like they just came out of Bonaire waters?
As you can see this suit is meant to hug my body very much like a wetsuit would. It does not have any space for an "air pocket" so you can dive it like a wetsuit. In fact I am confident that you should be able to put a diver with no formal drysuit training/experience into this suit and he or she would be able to dive it like a wetsuit. The floating feet scenario and venting drills that we learn in drysuit training do not even apply here because the suit has no air pocket to cause floaty feet! I tried to be upside down in this suit and no air fills my leg area because the suit is stitched to have no air pocket.
Here is the interesting part:
I used to dive a USIA suit which was a shell suit. I checked my log book to see how much lead I wore to dive in 41 degrees and my log book tells me 18 lbs. In this dive I was wearing 16 lbs and I believe I should have worn 14 to trim out better. I must say that not all neoprene suits need as less lead as this particular one. In order to fully enjoy the benefits of a neoprene suit it has to be built on your body to fit very closely. If it is a "stock-size" neoprene suit then it may need more lead to sink.
The funniest thing is that you can get this suit fully customized to your body for 1000 USD
