Your preferred women's drysuit

[Nikki Anderson]

Hello all! First post here!
I'm recently doing more drysuit diving. I've spent a majority of today reading about thermals and drysuits. There are so many features to think about!

First, I'm quite petite. I'm 5ft 3inches tall...typically a size 0 in jeans, size small overall. So I was thinking perhaps the drysuits specific for women would fit me better than a garbage bag? (or perhaps I need custom-made). I tend to chill fairly easily, but I want to dive cold waters such as the Great Lakes, Iceland, Kelp forests, etc.

So I need to be comfortable in high-30s / low-40s F water.

I like suits where one can switch out their neck seal in minutes. I like the same for the wrist seals or to be able to easily change it to dry gloves.
The parts I'm unsure about are hood and feet/boots. Do you prefer built in boots or just the footies?
At what part does a drysuit need a dry hood?

I have looked at the Agualung Fusion Fit, but unsure what I think about the two-layer approach to that suit. It also doesn't seem to have changeable features for wrist/neck seals that I saw at least.

I also looked at the Santi brand, which seems like a good possibility.
Thank you for your thoughts on brands, models, and features to look into!

 

[Marie13]

I have the Fusion Fit. It does have the user-changeable neck/wrist seals. However, the hard plastic ring for the neck seals is not meant for narrow shouldered people. I'm in the midst of my tech class and in order to reach behind my head to do valve drills on doubles, I had to get rid of the neck ring and have a latex seal glued on.

I even had trouble reaching across my body to touch my suit dump valve out of the water. That neck seal really restricted my movement. I'm 5'5" and you're even smaller than I am. The neck ring covered most of my shoulders.

Are you thinking of going tech in the future?

See this thread about the neck ring issue:
Those stiff drysuit neck rings

There have been issues with the Fusion inner core leaking from seams and sock issues. Those appear to have been caused from production problems when AquaLung moved manufacturing from Canada to Mexico in 2017 or 2018. Many of us had inner cores replaced under warranty. I have no issues with the replacement. I'm dry.

Fusion socks leaking - multiple reports

I'm a hard core cold water diver. Great Lakes or one of the regional quarries. I don't do warm water.

Suggest you contact Dive Right in Scuba in the Chicago area for more Fusion info. They are my local dive shop, but they also sell a large number of Fusions online.

 

[Bald Wookie]

Have you considered a neoprene suit?
Better thermal qualities than a bag suit. You can get these in a thin 2mm neoprene suit (eg: here) if that is more of interest. We find anyone diving cold water in Newfoundland can do one dive in a bag suit, but even with great thermals, gets cold, and two dives are often off the table or people come out super cold.

Typically for suits we like the replaceable wrist rings, but the neck can be a bit more of a pain as Marie outlined for smaller persons.

Don't forget to get good gloves and a hood!

 

[Marie13]

Good gloves? Need dry gloves!

 

[Bald Wookie]

Absolutely!

 

[rduquesnoy]

I use a Santi (E-lite plus) with a BZ400. Both are custom made which means a certain number of ajustments are done for free. Love the movement you have in this suit and for a drysuit I think they do look nice.

I have been using the BZ400 in water temperatures as cold as 40F. Only downside was that, especially in the beginning, I needed quite a bit of extra lead.

Wrist seals I can replace myself, but as my dry gloves are now directly attached to my suit there is no need to.
Changing neck seals yourself is an option but especially with petite people the guy in the shop didn't recommend having this option installed. The ring needed for this might cause some inconvenience.

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

I agree, go with a compressed neoprene drysuit, you will be much happier. I would look at a Bare drysuit as they have a women's cut suit. XCS2 PRO DRY - BARE Sports

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Merry loves her Waterproof D7 Pro ISS. I have the same suit. I can replace the neck and wrist seals in less than two minutes. I wear mine without wrist seals and dry gloves.

 

[divingx]

My girlfriend has a made to measure Santi Emotion+ Ladies first. I have a Emotion+. She has quick neck and smart seal system which will allow us to change both the neck seal and wrist seals in minutes. We use the Smart gloves system, which works really good on our suits. We haven’t have any leak problem. We’re both about 5’5 so the rings do cover a lot of shoulder areas. I don’t have problem reaching my valve on doubles. It’s a bit hard to do it with Halo but I’m okay with it. My girlfriend uses sidemount. She doesn’t have any movability issue.

 

[Zef]

I wear mine with drygloves but without wrist seals.

Fixed it for ya.

Cheers,
-Z