suit stretch
- Thread starter Texanguy
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
KevinNM
Contributor
Depends on how good you are with the dry suit and how much struggling there is. There is certainly a learning process with a dry suit, and I'd be conservative with depth and task loading for a while. The whole uncontrolled feet-first ascent does happen to some newbie dry suit divers, and may well happen to you. Not a big deal if you are at 30 feet, it's kind of a bigger deal at 120 feet.
Once you get used to it there is some increase in work needed to swim due to the drag of the dry suit vs the lower drag of a wet suit. Supposedly a neoprene dry suit has lower drag. but I've only ever dove tri-lam or bi-lam suits.
elgoog
Contributor
50-72F, 80-120ft, 2 to 4 dives - I would go with a drysuit just for the comfort factors. If it was consecutive days of diving, even more so.
Other considerations, for those depths, like what size and type of tank you should use, buoyancy adjustment due to neoprene compression, buoyancy redundancy, etc will also point to drysuit being the better choice.
I've only done 1 dive to 100ft (AOW deep dive) and it was in my 8/7mm "semi dry" wetsuit, an AL80 and 44F at the bottom. It was the first dive of the day so I wasn't super cold but wetsuit compression was really noticeable - I had a lot of air in my wing and controlling buoyancy was a lot harder than usual. I reached turn pressure after only 12min at the bottom (I have a pretty horrendous SAC so you might get more time). Either way, that's not a combination I care to be in again. I would definitely go drysuit with a larger steel tank.
As far as custom wetsuits, wifebuddy has a made to measure WetWear which she absolutely loves for the kind of diving we usually do - 70ft max, 50ft avg, 50-60F water temps. In terms of fit, it is 100% worth it if the stock sizes don't fit you well. She was on the 100ft dive with me and also mentioned the same thing about needing way more air in her wing. Her suit is made out of the type of neoprene that's advertised as being "compression resistant" but that's only relative. You will definitely notice the impact deeper than 80ft or so and if that's where you'll be often, a custom wetsuit may not be the best use of your $$
Other considerations, for those depths, like what size and type of tank you should use, buoyancy adjustment due to neoprene compression, buoyancy redundancy, etc will also point to drysuit being the better choice.
I've only done 1 dive to 100ft (AOW deep dive) and it was in my 8/7mm "semi dry" wetsuit, an AL80 and 44F at the bottom. It was the first dive of the day so I wasn't super cold but wetsuit compression was really noticeable - I had a lot of air in my wing and controlling buoyancy was a lot harder than usual. I reached turn pressure after only 12min at the bottom (I have a pretty horrendous SAC so you might get more time). Either way, that's not a combination I care to be in again. I would definitely go drysuit with a larger steel tank.
As far as custom wetsuits, wifebuddy has a made to measure WetWear which she absolutely loves for the kind of diving we usually do - 70ft max, 50ft avg, 50-60F water temps. In terms of fit, it is 100% worth it if the stock sizes don't fit you well. She was on the 100ft dive with me and also mentioned the same thing about needing way more air in her wing. Her suit is made out of the type of neoprene that's advertised as being "compression resistant" but that's only relative. You will definitely notice the impact deeper than 80ft or so and if that's where you'll be often, a custom wetsuit may not be the best use of your $$
- Messages
- 20,561
- Reaction score
- 14,946
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
with those depths, drysuit certainly would be my recommendation. Call Dive Right in Scuba and they'll talk you through it, you can get a great suit for under $2k with a P-valve, but it's worth it for those types of diving.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
A lot of it depends on how cold you get too, everybody is different. Some people use dry suits in tropical water in the 80's, some people can dive wet in 48 degree water and are fine.
Me, I Personally like to dive wet in the low 50's in NorCal. Yes I get cold sometimes especially if I get a little deep, but to me the slickness and streamlining of diving wet is worth it. I like to be wet, I like the feeling of salt water on my skin. I like the simplicity and time savings of clean up. I also decided to invest in several custom wetsuits made to fit perfect and utilizing better neoprene than can be obtained by buying something of the rack. Adding up what I've spent on custom suits It wasn't necessarily cheaper than a dry suit. But dry suits can bleed you over time with maintenance costs. I like the idea that wetsuits require little or no maintenance and if there is a tear or a split it can easily be fixed with a can of wetsuit glue, many times in minutes during an surface interval.
A lot of my diving for a spell included going to very remote locations along the coast and doing exploration dives from shore, so a wetsuit just made sense. No seals to tear, no zippers that can foul, no chafing on rocks getting in and out.
However, if I was still into deep technical diving off boats I wouldn't even consider using a wetsuit, it would be dry suit all the way.
Me, I Personally like to dive wet in the low 50's in NorCal. Yes I get cold sometimes especially if I get a little deep, but to me the slickness and streamlining of diving wet is worth it. I like to be wet, I like the feeling of salt water on my skin. I like the simplicity and time savings of clean up. I also decided to invest in several custom wetsuits made to fit perfect and utilizing better neoprene than can be obtained by buying something of the rack. Adding up what I've spent on custom suits It wasn't necessarily cheaper than a dry suit. But dry suits can bleed you over time with maintenance costs. I like the idea that wetsuits require little or no maintenance and if there is a tear or a split it can easily be fixed with a can of wetsuit glue, many times in minutes during an surface interval.
A lot of my diving for a spell included going to very remote locations along the coast and doing exploration dives from shore, so a wetsuit just made sense. No seals to tear, no zippers that can foul, no chafing on rocks getting in and out.
However, if I was still into deep technical diving off boats I wouldn't even consider using a wetsuit, it would be dry suit all the way.
Personally I would say go for a dry suit in those conditions, I think long term you will get better value, longer dives and stay warmer.
I also would say you don't need to do a formal course PROVIDED you can get a little mentoring on how to dive it, I didn't do one, and never had any major issues when learning with a mentor. They are not rocket science, but there are a few significant differences from using a wetsuit that you need to think through before diving one.
For example how to deal with an inversion if you get floaty feet - which shouldn't happen if you are just putting air in the DS to take off squeeze, whether to use the DS for buoyancy, BCD or wing for buoyancy or a combination of both. There are arguments for and against each option but it would be sensible to know them and then decide how you want to dive. If you approach it sensibly, dive conservatively until you have got the techniques off pat, then you will be fine. I've ended up with three drysuits, but only one wetsuit because except when at work in Cyprus I dive dry all the time by preference. - have fun and dive safe - Phil.
I also would say you don't need to do a formal course PROVIDED you can get a little mentoring on how to dive it, I didn't do one, and never had any major issues when learning with a mentor. They are not rocket science, but there are a few significant differences from using a wetsuit that you need to think through before diving one.
For example how to deal with an inversion if you get floaty feet - which shouldn't happen if you are just putting air in the DS to take off squeeze, whether to use the DS for buoyancy, BCD or wing for buoyancy or a combination of both. There are arguments for and against each option but it would be sensible to know them and then decide how you want to dive. If you approach it sensibly, dive conservatively until you have got the techniques off pat, then you will be fine. I've ended up with three drysuits, but only one wetsuit because except when at work in Cyprus I dive dry all the time by preference. - have fun and dive safe - Phil.
There are some cool natural springs in new Mexico not to far from Lubbock like the blue hole and bottomless lakes. they are 80 and 90 ft deep. Its amazing how may of these places exist.
The problem is that clothing including wetsuits has been Whopper sized since most men have large guts and no butt. Body Glove and Bare seem too have a more atletic fit than for example Hendreson but the truth is that if you actually have a waist you will be clothing challenged.
Since big and fat is the norm I would wish for a skinny and normal store.
N
Since big and fat is the norm I would wish for a skinny and normal store.
N
Similar threads
