A couple of (what should be, IMHO, obvious) points:
1. If the inflator is stuck, I will know this. It is OBVIOUS when air is going into the suit - you can feel it in your chest. Further, my inflator is VERY slow (good!); if it had been a "fast" inflator I would have immediately swapped it out, as I believe that "fast" inflators (whether on BCs and now on drysuits) are dangerous.
2. If the inflator is stuck open the immediate and obvious response, assuming that bumping the button doesn't close the valve, is to disconnect the hose. You can always recover it later if you decide to once things are under control. My suit has a VERY easy to grasp disconnect (its shaped like a "wing" on the collar), even in heavy mitts or gloves.
3. The first priority MUST BE to arrest a potentially-run-away ascent. That would mean stopping the inflow of air immediately and then stopping the ascent if possible. The reason that I believe this is the correct order of business is that a runaway ascent caused by expanding air is an EXPONENTIAL process. With a virtually unlimited volume available in the dry suit (compared to, say, a BC) you could have a MAJOR problem if you really got cooking. Therefore, the first priority, IMHO, should be to prevent any further expansion of the airspace in the suit, which means stopping upward motion and any inflow of additional gas. The SECOND priority is to get rid of the extra air. If you realize that you are unexpectedly ascending and inverted your FIRST move should be to stop that IF YOU CAN. You WILL NOT have a lot of extra air in the suit at that moment in time unless you are using it as a BC, in which case your first mistake was made much earlier on! Second, provided that you catch it early, you CAN fin down against it and as soon as you do the air compresses and the extra buoyancy dissipates. I practiced this both in my pool and today (at 15' after my safety stop had expired, plus a few minutes more) and it would take an amazing lack of attention on my part for the situation to deteriorate beyond where I could fin down enough to regain control that way. If I can handle it in shallow water where the pressure gradient is the greatest it would only be easier in deeper water.
You CAN fin down against 10lbs or so of positive buoyancy - at least for a short while. The trick is to catch the problem before 5-10lbs of extra buoyancy becomes 40 or 50lbs!
This is why I have a problem with the "suit as BC" philosophy. Its stupid and dangerous to teach people to dive that way. You just made my point for me. If you're not a balloon in the water in the first place, you feel IMMEDIATELY any change in the suit's contour on your body as a consequence of a gas addition. This gives you PLENTY of warning to avoid the uncontrolled ascent in the first place!
I have, indeed, practiced the "by the book" tuck-and-roll maneuver. My problem with that as a first response to a feet-first runaway ascent is that you shouldn't be in that situation and in fact you can't get in that box unless you've already done a whole bunch of things wrong, and possibly more importantly, you are both allowing the exponential nature of a runaway ascent to have more time to build AND pointing your propulsion source in the wrong direction!
Yes, you must get your head (ok, technically any seal in an emergency) up to dump. Yep. But if you're a rocketship already you've done so many things wrong that you may not be able to stop the ascent before you surface anyway.
Finally, if you only put enough air in the suit to prevent the squeeze from getting to you as you decend, and the dump is open, then the air in your BC is limited to the buoyancy shift of your tank(s) (assuming you are properly weighted, of course) since the buoyancy of the suit is a CONSTANT. As you decend you add air. As you ascend it vents off. There is, as a consequence, never a buoyancy shift of significance (more than a couple of pounds) beyond that of the air in your tank as it is consumed. This wound up being REALLY nice once I got the feel for it - it was actually easier to control my ascents than it is with the neoprene that I usually dive with.
I'm saying that if you're going to buy gear from them (or elsewhere) to take the course then this ought not to be a "one size fits all" type of thing, particularly since dry suits are NOT a "one size fits all" deal!
In fact, the amazing part of this entire experience for me was that the local shops neither carried any kind of collection of suits nor were they really interested in the matter. Yeah, they'd order you something, but let's be real here - with places like DUI shoving even THEIR mistakes in sizing down the customer's throat (rather than THEM eating it) this can get awfully expensive and very uncomfortable in the end.
When students come in and take OW classes the course typically includes gear - except for mask, snorkel and fins. Why not here?
THE biggest value in a class, for me, would have been an evaluation of the different suits and styles available and a chance to try the different materials and technologies on in a pool BEFORE buying one. You can't get there from here with either renting or buying first. THAT would have been worth a (fairly significant) price of a class - at least for me. Spending some money to insure that I don't waste a lot of it is a good deal from my point of view. As it was I couldn't get that, so I punted, figuring that if I didn't particularly care for the (relatively inexpensive) choice I made I wouldn't get hurt TOO bad.
I selected the BARE Nex-Gen suit and like it a lot. It dives a whole lot nicer than what I thought it would, given that its marketed as an "entry level" drysuit. Some of that may be due to my using it with a BP+Wing, since it doesn't have suspenders but with the crotch strap that becomes a non-issue, as the fit was very nicely controlled by my plate's harness in that area. Of course I don't have anything (wet) to compare it to; only "dry trials" of a couple of others - but I didn't find anything to complain about in my two dives today. That's not bad!
Maybe next year when the DUI folks do their "at the spring" demo thing I'll go there and try some of their suits on. I might even decide I like one of them. But I'll be darned if I'm going to do this roulette style - buy a suit, eBAY it if I don't like it or if it doesn't fit right, etc.
