Dry Suits - How to?

So, building on the other thread.

I've never been diving in a DS before - I got a brief talking to from the dive shop, they have said after my trip they will take me down to the pool and teach me to use the DS as part of the purchase but in 2 days, I will be diving in this.
It will be 10m/33ft MAX so not too much to go wrong.

How do you dive in a dry suit? I just know lift left arm to descend (Keep the valve half open).. if all the air goes to your feet (Thank God for Hollis batfins!) then rectify this.. etc.

Cheers
Adam

Diving in a dry suit isn't difficult, but it can be "tricky" I just ran a friend through her first dry dives after a 5 minute explanation. The fact that you are doing shallow dives actually makes it a bit more challenging since the changes in pressure are more acute in shallow water.

The key is to get your weight dialled in properly. Too little and you'll be fighting the entire dive. Too much and you'll end up with more air in the suit than you should have which will exasperated things. As a rule you want to have just enough air in the suit to prevent squeezing and to provide insulation. I generally use my suit entirely for buoyancy control although others use a combination of suit and wing. Personal preference I guess.

If you think of the suit as a large bubble that you're wearing it might help you to visualize how the air will move around. Make tiny adjustments in volume as you move up and down... You might be surprised at how easily the suit can get away from you on ascent. If you can, hold onto the anchor line.. if you have one!

Assuming you're a competent diver you'll have the hang of it in a very few dives. Try to stay at one depth as much as possible and as much as I hate to suggest it, consider leaving the camera topside for the first dive or two anyway.

Enjoy! You'll never dive wet again!

I am another to use my drysuit for buoyancy control and soon it will seem easy, although after a few months diving here in Los Angeles when we go to the South Pacific it is fun to watch my wife lift her left shoulder to dump her wetsuit. For me at least, even with heavy fins, ankle weights are a complete necessity.

Enjoy

Bill

I dive my compressed 3mm neoprene dry suits with the left arm dump valve full or almost fully open and correct buoyancy with my bcd.

Neoprene dry suits are usually much tighter than trilaminate dry suits as you need less undergarment due to the isolation of the neoprene.

This gives them a snug fit and lead to a much smaller amount of air shifting around inside when you change your trim,
but still enough to correct your trim adding some air to your feet (or not).

This set-up and use is fine for me and i don't have/need/should use my dry suit as as bcd, is just use the bcd as i always do indipendently if i use

a tank on my back or my rebreather on my back.

The above written regard only diving with neoprene dry suits, diving with trilaminate dry suits can be different due the much bigger amount of air necessary

to archieve the same warming effect as neoprene do.

Chris

Typically, I use my wing for buoyancy, and just take the squeeze off with the drysuit. I normally open all valves on descent, then when I'm almost at the bottom shut the drysuit constant volume dump valve (autodump), then open 1/2 turn. I put enough air in as I descent to take of the squeeze, but then regulate my depth on the wing. Make sure your zip is well lubricated, and doesn't catch on the undergarments, and don't pull directly on the neck/wrist seals especially if they are latex - my friend was in a hurry to dive once and did just that - result - ripped neck seal and a missed dive for him.

It shouldn't take you more than a couple of dives to get used to it, just make sure that you do a weight check with the new suit as it will affect your buoyancy, especially if your wearing a thick undersuit..

I never use my wing when diving a drysuit. Two bouyant elements on one dive is asking for chaos in an emergency. If you're properly weighted there shouldn't be too much air in the drysuit: if you have to add air to the BCD it suggests that you are over-weighted or wearing too little insulation, allowing the air to form a bubble instead of distributing evenly around your body. Having my bouyancy distributed evenly, and only worrying about one inflator (I use an APEX adjustable dump valve on my left bicep) helps me to concentrate on my camera. I do find that a little weight on my ankles and trim weights on my wing help, with the balance in pouches: I hate weight-belts!

It will be 10m/33ft MAX so not too much to go wrong.

 

Adam

Unfortunately, that's completely wrong. Shallow dives are where drysuits are at their most difficult. Small vertical movements result in large changes in bouyancy; the suit is much easier to drive below 10m...

I never use my wing when diving a drysuit. Two bouyant elements on one dive is asking for chaos in an emergency. If you're properly weighted there shouldn't be too much air in the drysuit: if you have to add air to the BCD it suggests that you are over-weighted or wearing too little insulation, allowing the air to form a bubble instead of distributing evenly around your body. Having my bouyancy distributed evenly, and only worrying about one inflator (I use an APEX adjustable dump valve on my left bicep) helps me to concentrate on my camera. I do find that a little weight on my ankles and trim weights on my wing help, with the balance in pouches: I hate weight-belts!

Personal choice this. I find no issue with keeping a track of my buoyancy using both drysuit and wing. As I said I only use suffcient in the drysuit to take off the squeeze. Main reason is if I loose buoyancy for some reason, it won't be all my buoyancy. I agree that shallow drysuit dives are more awkward than deeper ones. Doing it while just learning makes it more difficult still!. Ankle weights are definitely useful when doing photography!

I agree with tdpriest, if your weight is correct you should not need to use your wing.... I only ever add a little air to my suit.

I think anyone looking to dive a dry suit for the first time should probably do it in a controlled environment i.e. a course.

I tend to use my wing only to fine tune between sets of gear and different underwear. For example, if I am wearing twin HP steel 130s, I don't need a weightbelt. If I am wearing 400 gr underwear, then I need little exra air anywhere for buoyancy.

On the other hand, if I am wearing my 200 gr undies, I tend to put some air in my wing, rather than have a lot in my suit.

Anyway, it's personal choice to a large extent, with allowances for gear and so on.

But do do a buoyancy check before you go anywhere! You will be surprised at how much lead can be required to sink a drysuit in saltwater!

And if the thing does get away from you, relax and enjoy the ride... just breath fast on the way up!

Personal choice this. I find no issue with keeping a track of my buoyancy using both drysuit and wing.

I have to disagree. In the 1980s a number of British divers drowned, tipped over and held head-down when making shallow-water entries or exits with over-inflated drysuits, but there are also rapid ascents, caused by confusion between drysuit and BC, that are equally dangerous.

 

And if the thing does get away from you, relax and enjoy the ride... just breath fast on the way up!

And that's just stupid, I'm afraid. Many British diving fatalities are associated with rapid ascents.

Tim, i would translate that into that they used their suit for buoyancy. And probably used too much weight. If they had near empty suits and used their BCD it might not have happened.

We were on a 35 meter dive in Los Angeles when a guy who clearly shouldn't own a dry suit did the polaris missile thing. My wife and I were at 20 meters or so on the hang line when a guy went shooting by to the surface. Apparently he thought he opened his suit valve but actually closed it at 35 meters or so. Put a bunch of air in the suit and started to ascend. Remembering (dimly) his training that in an emergency you drop your weights, he did that and went to the surface very very fast. Incredibly nothing apparently bad happened (he did another shallow dive to decompress?). On the boat he blamed his wife for closing his valve. Incredible.

Bill

I own Hollis FX100 and I have been diving with drysuits in California for past year.

I also never really use my BCD for buoyancy control when I'm diving with my drysuits.

Just a little puff in my drysuit is all I need to stay neutrally buoyant.

This mainly come from I'm using steel tanks, so I don't need to have an extra weights for the end of the dive when I'm using aluminum tanks.

There are couple tips I learned while using drysuits:

1. you can easily remedy floaty feet by tacking legs in and roll forward, this will shift air toward upper body and you can vent it out. Your center of gravity is right around your mid body, so it's very easy to use it as a pivot and roll.

2. lubricate zippers well with beeswax bars every dive and after dive before you put it back in a secure bag.

3. use talc powder liberally to each latex seals before each dive and before storing. (Don't do this to neoprene seals).

4. When you pull a head through latex seal, it's easier to turn your head sideway 90 degrees, so your side of the face is facing forward. Use a twisting motion instead of forcing through (same for wrists).

5. Never bend a zipper area, keep zipper area flat when you are storing or drying (of course hang dry in a shade!).

Happy drysuiting!

Super late but why not....

-Try to keep horizontal, otherwise your feets are squeezed and your upper body is in a bubble

-Ideally you don't need much air in the wing/bcd at depth, you should have just enough weights to get you down with your suit inflated at a comfortable level, and the extra air for the start of the dive is in your wing/bcd. That is unless you're diving heavy steel doubles and stages which can get really negative when you start a dive. Nothing wrong with using only your suit if you're weighted properly and have a AL80 though, you're only managing a 4lbs delta.

-Remember that by changing your orientation you can manage the bubble in your suit and get yourelf in a stable trimmed position

-Practice makes perfect, dive your suit often, try to do slow accents (1ft per min) at the end, that'll really teach you how to control your suit

I love drysuit diving, but I find especially suited for local diving, for anything above 60F where I'll be travelling I'm in a 7mm wetsuit, I know I can do 2hrs dives in a 7mm (done it often at home) and wetsuits don't fail easily and suddenly like drysuits.

And that's just stupid, I'm afraid. Many British diving fatalities are associated with rapid ascents.

Well thank-you for sharing your opinion. Perhaps there is something unusual about British divers that causes the fatality, but in reality, a rapid ascent is a manageable event... as long as there is no pulmonary restriction, and the diver is not close to requiring decompression.

Where a rapid ascent is dangerous is when the diver, either because he he is holding his breath, or for some other reason, fails to "vent" his lungs causing over-expansion. And of course a diver also runs the risk of a decompression hit if he/she is approaching saturation.

In this part of the world, regulator freeze-ups are not at all uncommon, and frequently result in divers ascending very quickly. And yes there have been fatalities, but the cause of death was air embolism because the diver failed to exhale adequetly causing the lung over-expansion. However for every fatality, there are probably hundreds of ascents that resemble missle launches and which end uneventfully. Panic is the problem, not the speed of ascent.

I appreciate that I might be being picky, but the speed of the ascent wasn't the cause of the divers' fatality... it was their failure vent their lungs properly... typically the result of panic. A diver can hold hs breath and ascend at a snail's pace and embolize...

When I was much younger and stupider, we used to hang onto large rocks in 60' or 70' of water, inflate our Fenzies (which I think had more lift than my 20' Zodiac RIB!) and shoot to the surface for fun... breathing like a school boy who had just lost his virginity! And apparently I'm still here!

 

Perhaps there is something unusual about British divers that causes the fatality, but in reality, a rapid ascent is a manageable event... as long as there is no pulmonary restriction.

Unusual? The British Sub-Aqua Club has long cooperated with the police, hospitals and decompression chambers to investigate diving deaths in the UK, if that's unusual. One thing that became clear many years ago is that there's a world of difference between a planned rapid ascent in training and one made in an emergency, particularly if there is a regulator failure or, heaven forbid, an out-of-air situation. I think that you're dangerously sanguine: how many burst lungs are too many? I also think it's silly to distinguish between the rapid ascent and failure to exhale: they are, of course, two sides of the same coin.

I live in drysuit country, and everyone here dives dry, so I guess I'm qualified to chime in with my opinion

I totally agree that a snug, elastic neoprene DS is a lot easier to dive than a shell suit, particularly when you throw a set of thick undergarments into the equation. I have both types, a neoprene suit for summer diving with only some thin wool underwear underneath, and a trilam suit for cold season diving, with thick Thinsulate undergarments.

The neoprene suit vents fairly fast, and the bubble inside it is small. It's snug around my legs, so I have absolutely no issues with floaty feet. I can move some air into them, though, to improve trim. Standing on my head is almost as easy as in a wetsuit. The trilam suit carries a bigger bubble, and the thick undergarment causes it to vent rather slowly. With that, floaty feet definitely is an issue if I use the suit air for buoyancy control, so I like to dive with just the amount of air that's needed to keep me warm (which is a little bit more than is needed to avoid squeeze) and use my wing for primary buoyancy control. Even then, I have to be aware of the suit's buoyancy and anticipate buoyancy changes early since it vents so slowly. An upside down position needs some care and consideration, too, and if I run too much air in the suit, my booties may pop off due to the inflation of the boots. You should anyway be familiar with the "tuck and roll" method if you end up feet-up.

If you, like me, dive with the suit's shoulder dump valve open, managing the two air volumes is pretty simple. OTOH, if you like to ascend head first, you'll lose the suit air while ascending. The good thing with that is that the suit vents automatically if I get too light and have to dump air (which means I only have to worry about the BCD dump valve), the bad thing is that I have to close the valve somewhat for a controlled head-first ascent, to avoid losing the suit air and becoming negative.

I'd advice a diving novice to use the suit for buoyancy control, since the task loading of managing two air volumes may be a bit too much. OTOH, if you're comfortable in the water and have enough mental bandwidth to carry and handle a camera rig, managing two air volumes shouldn't be a big issue.

 

I'm afraid. Many British diving fatalities are associated with rapid ascents.

And even more are associated with buddy separation or solo diving. Just sayin'.

On deco diving, a rapid ascent can of course be catastrophic. All rapid ascent fatalities we've had in Norway lately have been associated with deco diving. We've had no rapid ascent fatalities where the diver was diving no-stop, at least for the last three years. I've had one uncontrolled ascent myself (new suit & undergarments, underweighted and got too buoyant half-way into the dive, when I had depleted a bit of my air), and frankly, if you do the Polaris missile impersonation during your ascent, you've screwed up majorly already. Yes, I couldn't stop, but is was at a sensible ascent speed. Even if I lost control at 18 meters.

 

Unusual? The British Sub-Aqua Club has long cooperated with the police, hospitals and decompression chambers to investigate diving deaths in the UK, if that's unusual. One thing that became clear many years ago is that there's a world of difference between a planned rapid ascent in training and one made in an emergency, particularly if there is a regulator failure or, heaven forbid, an out-of-air situation. I think that you're dangerously sanguine: how many burst lungs are too many? I also think it's silly to distinguish between the rapid ascent and failure to exhale: they are, of course, two sides of the same coin.

We don't disagree TD... I am only saying that coming up too quickly, is not, in itself, dangerous from a lung over-expansion perspective at least, AS LONG AS the diver continues to breath and have a free exchange of air, which would typically be the case of a drysuit gets "sporty". But you are absolutely right... In an OOA situation or a reg failure (either of which might easily lead to panic) that's an entirely different, very serious situation, and one which is likely to end badly.

Needless to say, rapid ascents, and the related decompression issues, can also be very bad, assuming the diver is even moderately "full" of inert gas. But for many recreational/one-dive-a-day types, they can likely ascend pretty fast and not have any serious issues come of it. I see this many weekends with divers having regulator free-flows on say a 30m/100' dive. Typically this is the first dive of the day, and the reg freezes very early in the dive. They rocket to the surface with nothing hurt other than their pride.

I will take exception to your comment that rapid ascent and failure to exhale are inexorably linked since I frequently see one without the other here in Tobermory... "Where Cold Water Was Invented ®"

Ok, I made up the slogan, but it's chilly water, rarely getting above 40°F/4°C at depth.

There are many ways how to control buoyancy in dry suit. It depends from the type of dry suit, volume and type of thermal protection layer. I saw that discussions many times. In my opinion there is no sense to discuss this via internet. How to swim in dry suit You can learn only in the water, with experienced colleague or instructor. And the end it is easy, but if You learn to make mistakes at the beginning, then it can go wrong. The is one main thing which can happen wrong: You will fly very fast to the surface with Your legs on the top and head still underwater, without possibility to roll and release the air.