attached hood or not for a exposure suit

[arcticat99]

what do you people recommend for a semi dry suit attached hood or a separate hood any comments will be appreciated

 

[tbone1004]

if you're in canada and considering a semi dry, I'd highly recommend waiting a few more months and save up for a drysuit. Much safer than thick wetsuits.

that said, I am a firm believer in hooded vests and don't recommend skirted hoods or integrated hoods. If it's cold enough for a hood, you can always use a few extra mm's on your core.

 

[BoltSnap]

Drysuit is the way to go but if, for any reason, you won't/can't get a drysuit, a proper fitting and designed semidry suit works so much better than a regular wetsuit. You need to make sure that you are considering a real "semi-dry" suit and not a wetsuit with integrated hood the manufacturer is trying to sell as a "semi-dry" suit.

I don't like the attached hood to any type of suit because it is uncomfortable, size mismatch between your body and your neck/head and you can never get both, the suit and the attached hood to fit at the same time, difficult to remove when you want the suit to stay one but you want to remove the hood.

I don't buy wetsuits/semi-dry suits that have attached hoods anymore.

 

[Dive Right In Scuba 2]

Attached hoods on semidry suits are really a matter of personal preference. Some of the divers that frequent the shop here love them. Personally, I'm not a fan of them. Like T-Bone said, hooded vests are good because if you need a hood, a little extra on the core won't hurt. If you're able to, try out both setups in a pool and see which one you like.

 

[Steve_C]

I think attached are a bit warmer. But a separate hooded vest is more flexible in terms of options. I am not a fan of separate hoods and have given mine away.

 

[turnburglar]

I can't stand how a hood/vest feels tucked into a wetsuit. They always seem to bunch up uncomfortably and leak. I LOVE my aqualung solaFX, but a lot of that love has to do with how well the suit fits me. you definitely gotta try it on. For example my wife tried on both a hollis neotek and a solaFX. The solaFX was the better fitting suit even though the Neotek had the cool pockets.

 

[arcticat99]

if you're in canada and considering a semi dry, I'd highly recommend waiting a few more months and save up for a drysuit. Much safer than thick wetsuits.

that said, I am a firm believer in hooded vests and don't recommend skirted hoods or integrated hoods. If it's cold enough for a hood, you can always use a few extra mm's on your core.

just curious how would it be safer

 

[tbone1004]

less risk of cumulative thermal loss, less buoyancy loss at depth contributing to overweight. those are the two big ones

 

[2airishuman]

what do you people recommend for a semi dry suit attached hood or a separate hood any comments will be appreciated

I have a two-piece 7mm freediving suit with an attached hood.

I find that it has two advantages. One, it is warmer than a separate hood because there is no water ingress. Two, it is much easier to don and doff than a separate hood.

The main disadvantage is that it is not comfortable to wear the wetsuit topside. With the hood on, hearing is attenuated. With the hood pulled back, there is excessive pressure on the neck.

less risk of cumulative thermal loss, less buoyancy loss at depth contributing to overweight. those are the two big ones

It is my experience, having dived a 7mm in cold water, and having dived with dry suit divers, that the choice of a dry suit vs. thicker wetsuit depends on the individual and on the dives contemplated. It is possible that I will never purchase a dry suit.

Tolerance to cold varies widely from one individual to the next. Divers who are tall, muscular, and male will not get cold as easily as divers who are none of those things. The reasons have to do with metabolic rate and the ratio of muscle mass to skin area. I have dived to 100' in 39 degree water in my two-piece 7mm wetsuit and been perfectly comfortable.

Regarding weighting, this is best understood as a problem that technical divers face as the accident history shows all too well. The usual problem scenario is: extreme depth, hypoxic trimix in doubles, multiple stages with travel and deco gasses that are needed to end the dive safely (so they can't be ditched). Problems show up towards the beginning of the dive, and it turns out that there isn't enough wing capacity to get off the bottom.

On a recreational dive, you can just ditch weights, or stages if you're using them.

Drysuits have their own set of problems, safety and otherwise, among them accidents involving uncontrolled ascents, floods leading to hypothermia, and a far greater likelihood of thumbing a dive due to exposure suit problems.

 

[turnburglar]

As a beach entry diver its nice to have a wetsuit vs dry suit in the durability department. Also wetsuits don't need the seals to be perfect. There are definitely some pro's to finding a wetsuit thats warm enough vs 'just get a dry suit'.