Pinnacle Semi Dry Suits

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weaserm99

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
237
Reaction score
5
Location
Buffalo, NY
# of dives
200 - 499
I was wondering if anyone out there has been diving with a pinnacle extreme or pinnacle polar semi dry suit. I just want to know what people think of them as in terms of warmth and comfort, i really want something that will be a great in between my two piece 7mm hyperstretch and my drysuit.
 
I have a Mares Semi Dri and love it. I've never dove dry so I can't compare, but it's sure better than diving wet.

So, a semi dry suit (semi dry = semi wet, and there's no thing as semi wet, you are or aren't wet), is better then diving wet?

Dare I say, any proper fitting wetsuit is a semi dry suit...:14:
 
One of my Dive Buddies has the pinnacle extreme and loves it. On a 100 foot dive in 60 degree water, he barely wet. He claims that it's the closest you can get to a dry suit. He also uses a 5 ml hooded vest. Unless diving dry, you will come out wet. With the pinnacle extreme, he come out looking as if he had finished his dives and had been in the sun drying off, while the rest of us in 5 ml suits are soaked to the bone.
 
I was wondering if anyone out there has been diving with a pinnacle extreme or pinnacle polar semi dry suit. I just want to know what people think of them as in terms of warmth and comfort, i really want something that will be a great in between my two piece 7mm hyperstretch and my drysuit.

If you have a wet suit, and a dry suit, why would you want a third suit that has all of the drawbacks of one without the main benefit of the other?
 
If you have a wet suit, and a dry suit, why would you want a third suit that has all of the drawbacks of one without the main benefit of the other?

Well put.
This reminds me of a "tropical drysuit". LOL
 
I have a Polar. I like it. It's good down to 50 degrees or so. Below that, I wimp out. Just got a Pinnacle Evo2 drysuit but haven't gotten it wet yet. Looks bulletproof. I'll get in the pool with it Wednesday.
 
Well put.
This reminds me of a "tropical drysuit". LOL

Now hold on there...

RJP3.JPG


...don't knock it until you've tried it! I wear my DUI 30/30 Tropical Dry suit in the Caymans, in Florida, in Hawaii, etc. Will be wearing it in Curacao and Bonaire in two months. If you're doing multiple dives a day there's NOTHING better than being dry!

Everyone on the Cayman Aggressor laughed on the first day, but after the first night dive (my buddy and I doing 75min while everyone else did 30min) they stopped laughing. Surprisingly comfortable top-side as well. Actually cooler in the 30/30 than in a 3mm wetsuit in 85-90F air temps.
 
It's true, dry is dry and wet is wet. (How profound!!) With that being said, a dive buddy of mine got one of the Pinnacle suits this fall. I'm not sure which flavor it is tho...

Sizing- as these suits really need to be a close fit to function as a semidry the fit is very important. His shop measured him, went by the Pinnacle charts and then Special Ordered his suit. When it came in the fit wasn't even close and he had to repeat the process for a larger size.

We dove the local quarry together in November. Biggest takeaways from those dives: it took him longer to get in the Pinnacle than it did for me to get into my drysuit. More struggling due to the horizontal zipper, the inner barrier and the attached hood. When we got him all kitted up and dove some comments from him- not quite as warm as he had thought it would be (compared to a 7mm farmer john combo, but warmer that a 7mm full suit). Less weight needed comapred to the f. john. Less water flow (most of his core was dry after the dives) allowed him more bottom time before he started to get cold. One surprise- back on dry land he was not as cold in the air as he had been with a regular wetsuit. He attributed that fact to being dry under the suit.

My buddy does not have the interest in a drysuit at this time. He understands the advantages of being dry, but he only dives cold water on a fairly limited basis and does not want to commit to the expense of a drysuit right now.

Hope this all helps.

Hank
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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