Orally inflating a dry suit

[AfterDark]

Seems to me that any solution that involves breaking the seal is going to create more problems than it solves. Water will enter the suit ... removing any thermal protection you may have and, depending on water temperature, start a whole new cascade of problems that have a relatively short time cycle for solution ... hypothermia can incapacitate a diver in a hurry.

Seems to me a far more logical solution in that case isn't to add air to the suit, but to ditch some weight or swim yourself upward to better utilize the buoyancy of whatever air is already in there. Once you begin the ascent, the problem becomes self-correcting ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

We already have a ditch the freakin weights thread. This one is about orally inflating a dry suit.....party pooper!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

We already have a ditch the freakin weights thread. This one is about orally inflating a dry suit.....party pooper!

Well, the only practical solution I've seen so far is to buy a suit they stopped making 25 years ago. No thanks ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[rhwestfall]

if you are diving a ds, is not the bc there?(or do folks forgo the bladder then? that seems odd). there are always two then.... aside from a possible uncomfortable squeeze, it seems one is prepared. Perhaps not versed or drilled, but prepared....yes, a SMB or lift bag are also tools in the toolbox.

If you went OOG, your DS suit won't hold air, your BC bladder won't work, and the buddy option isn't another viable option, I'd suffice to say that regrettably, it is your turn......

 

[Doppler]

The reason for accident analysis is to learn from the mistakes of others so that we may avoid making the same mistakes... Additionally, during the process of picking apart the events that triggered whatever happened to get someone scared, injured or killed, we may discover a technique that's new and that mitigates or avoids a risk altogether.

Using a drysuit as primary buoyancy has been shown time and again to be the opposite of best practice.

Being in an OOA situation is a serious indictment of a diver's lack of skills and situational awareness. Do any of us really believe that this person will suddenly throw a switch marked "Turn on superior skills" and become capable of filling his suit by purging a regulator into a wrist seal or orally inflating?

Open debate is great. Accident analysis is cathartic and useful. Pontificating about complex and unachievable skills is fun, but solves little except providing a laugh.

If we are serious about teaching people to avoid the mistakes of others, let's focus on basics and restate the lessons already there for us to learn and follow.

Follow a proper gas management plan
Be familiar with your kit
Backup what needs to be backed up
Dive within the limits of your experience
Evaluate how you feel today and modify accordingly
Don't dive with anyone you don't trust
ETC.

Most of all: when the rottweilers hit the fan, STOP, THINK, ACT

 

[TSandM]

I don't know about anybody else, but I dive a dry suit in really COLD water. That means very thick wet gloves, or dry gloves. The whole idea of breaking a seal for any reason is absurd -- to get to my wrist seals, I'd have to undo my dry gloves and then try to pick the seal open; to get to my neck seal, I have to pull my hood out of the suit and then fumble, with gloves fingers, to even FEEL the seal. I've seen this recommended as a solution for a non-venting dry suit as well, and thought that equally impractical for the environments where dry suits are typically used.

Using a separate suit inflation bottle, as many of us do for Argon or when diving trimix, gives you redundant inflation, because your wing and suit are connected to completely different things. Personally, I follow the GUE principle and plan for one major failure. The day that my wing fails AND my dry suit fails on the same dive is a very bad day. If I run out of gas, I should be able to establish an air-share with a buddy before I sink enough to immobilize myself (in fact, if I sink much at all, I have failed a lot of my tech training) and as has already been pointed out, once you begin to ascend, the lack of suit inflation becomes irrelevant.

Any situation where I am trying to get gas into a dry suit by the kinds of means described in the original post means I have screwed up in so many directions that I kind of deserve what happens to me . . .

 

[Diver0001]

I don't know about anybody else, but I dive a dry suit in really COLD water. That means very thick wet gloves, or dry gloves. The whole idea of breaking a seal for any reason is absurd -- to get to my wrist seals, I'd have to undo my dry gloves and then try to pick the seal open; to get to my neck seal, I have to pull my hood out of the suit and then fumble, with gloves fingers, to even FEEL the seal. I've seen this recommended as a solution for a non-venting dry suit as well, and thought that equally impractical for the environments where dry suits are typically used.

I also had trouble visualizing how I would accomplish that.

R..

 

[JamesK]

Dry suit inflation bottle. Simple. Done. Over.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[dive_turkey]

I don't know about anybody else, but I dive a dry suit in really COLD water. That means very thick wet gloves, or dry gloves. The whole idea of breaking a seal for any reason is absurd -- to get to my wrist seals, I'd have to undo my dry gloves and then try to pick the seal open; to get to my neck seal, I have to pull my hood out of the suit and then fumble, with gloves fingers, to even FEEL the seal. I've seen this recommended as a solution for a non-venting dry suit as well, and thought that equally impractical for the environments where dry suits are typically used.

Yup. This really bothered me about the wrist and neck seal dump skills. If my dump valve fails to vent, I would have quite the time actually getting to a seal to manually dump gas from the suit. I suppose at this point I would be aborting the dive anyway, but still.

I do agree that the drysuit bottle is the way to go for independent inflation.

 

[DaleC]

To dump you could just pull the neck seal open - it will vent. Mine does without trying if I over inflate and go heads up - oh! that water's cold.

Old school latex rubber suit divers (the original drysuits) with attached hoods (and no inflation hoses) would exhale into their hoods (pull the rubber up around their lips) with minimal/moderate water seepage, but few modern drysuits fit this one piece description.

Otherwise, I'm not wasting time trying to inflate my now flooding suit, I'm ditching weight and swimming up.

 

[Rich Keller]

Well, the only practical solution I've seen so far is to buy a suit they stopped making 25 years ago. No thanks ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

You could just take a BC hose and add it to the suit, like the jet suit, but I think that would be overkill for the task at hand. Another way to go would be smaller, add and oral inflator form a snorkel vest. You could put it in the usual place but it might not be easy enough to get to with all of you other equipment on top on it. Another option would be to place it on your forearm so it is easy to get to and not in the way of anything else. If you do not wear anything on one wrist it could be placed low enough on the arm that you could tuck the top under the cuff of your glove so it doesn't get hung up on anything. If you are already using a BCD and only need to add a small amount air to the suit to prevent squeeze then you could do away with the suit inflator altogether.