elmer fudd
Contributor
So far I've done 4 dives in my hg suit. Here are some things I've noticed.
2 of the dives I wore the hg over a 7mm wetsuit. This is really unpleasant. Yes, you are warm, but it feels like diving in a straight jacket. Wetsuits are already snug. Squeeze a latex suit over the top and you feel positively constricted.
I dove this way for two reasons.
1) it seemed like an extra margin of safety. If the suit didn't seal or it tore, I was wearing a wetsuit under it.
2) Fred Reed spoke highly of it in Basic Scuba.
The only reason I did it more than once was because my first dive was one of those 5 to 10 minute dives where everything goes wrong and you decide it's time to abort. Later on, I decided that I hadn't really given it a fair shot the first time around.
Those cheap mesh water shoes they sell in K-mart or Walmart work pretty well over the latex feet. Just be a little careful when you remove your fins. It's easy to pull off the shoe with the fin. If you pull the fin strap over your heel first, then the shoes stay on when you remove the fins.
The hood seems to need some sort of neoprene type hood on underneath or no hood underneath at all for a good seal. When I used a cloth hood it didn't seal well and my suit ended up half flooded. You seem to get a little more water in the suit than you do with a modern drysuit, but I've had no problem staying warm in water in the mid 40's.
The suit seems to work best when it's slightly overweighted. In order to vent you need to move into a somewhat upright position. At this point the air vents from around your face. If you are minimally weighted, you'll have to move closer to vertical and spend more time in that position to vent. This means you'll tend to ascend a few feet and you might have to swim back down and repeat to get the air out. With a few extra pounds on you just shift up to 45 degrees or so and the air bubbles out around your face.
These suits really don't seem to be well suited at all for bobbing on the surface talking with your buddies. When you go into that upright position the suit wants to vent, making you more negative. You can still do a surface swim, but it works better either with a snorkel or with a breast stroke. That way the air stays in your suit.
When worn over normal undergarments, the suit is very comfortable, but I've found that it's a good idea to put a loop of bungee cord around my crotch and over my shoulder as a crude type of suspenders, worn underneath the suit. Being a two piece suit it can sag. The bungee cord helps prevent the gangsta diver look.
I'd be more than a little hesitant to do a challenging dive in one of these suits. They really are quite thin and if I had a long surface swim or any decompression ahead of me I would be afraid of hypothermia in the event of a tear. Modern suits are a lot tougher.
You also need to trim the chin area a little or it will ride up and cover your mouth when you remove your regulator
The fetish jokes surrounding HG suits occur for a reason. Check out the alternate hood openings they offer. You can get a suit with only a mouth or nose opening if you want. Sounds like just the thing for diving doesn't it?
You have to inflate the hood as you descend. Because it is a hooded suit, you not only feel the suit squeeze on your body, but also in your ears. If you don't vent, your ears will never clear.
I'm going to do another 6 or so dives before I'm prepared to give these suits a final judgment. I've learned a lot so far, but I still have a lot more to learn.
2 of the dives I wore the hg over a 7mm wetsuit. This is really unpleasant. Yes, you are warm, but it feels like diving in a straight jacket. Wetsuits are already snug. Squeeze a latex suit over the top and you feel positively constricted.
I dove this way for two reasons.
1) it seemed like an extra margin of safety. If the suit didn't seal or it tore, I was wearing a wetsuit under it.
2) Fred Reed spoke highly of it in Basic Scuba.
The only reason I did it more than once was because my first dive was one of those 5 to 10 minute dives where everything goes wrong and you decide it's time to abort. Later on, I decided that I hadn't really given it a fair shot the first time around.
Those cheap mesh water shoes they sell in K-mart or Walmart work pretty well over the latex feet. Just be a little careful when you remove your fins. It's easy to pull off the shoe with the fin. If you pull the fin strap over your heel first, then the shoes stay on when you remove the fins.
The hood seems to need some sort of neoprene type hood on underneath or no hood underneath at all for a good seal. When I used a cloth hood it didn't seal well and my suit ended up half flooded. You seem to get a little more water in the suit than you do with a modern drysuit, but I've had no problem staying warm in water in the mid 40's.
The suit seems to work best when it's slightly overweighted. In order to vent you need to move into a somewhat upright position. At this point the air vents from around your face. If you are minimally weighted, you'll have to move closer to vertical and spend more time in that position to vent. This means you'll tend to ascend a few feet and you might have to swim back down and repeat to get the air out. With a few extra pounds on you just shift up to 45 degrees or so and the air bubbles out around your face.
These suits really don't seem to be well suited at all for bobbing on the surface talking with your buddies. When you go into that upright position the suit wants to vent, making you more negative. You can still do a surface swim, but it works better either with a snorkel or with a breast stroke. That way the air stays in your suit.
When worn over normal undergarments, the suit is very comfortable, but I've found that it's a good idea to put a loop of bungee cord around my crotch and over my shoulder as a crude type of suspenders, worn underneath the suit. Being a two piece suit it can sag. The bungee cord helps prevent the gangsta diver look.
I'd be more than a little hesitant to do a challenging dive in one of these suits. They really are quite thin and if I had a long surface swim or any decompression ahead of me I would be afraid of hypothermia in the event of a tear. Modern suits are a lot tougher.
You also need to trim the chin area a little or it will ride up and cover your mouth when you remove your regulator
The fetish jokes surrounding HG suits occur for a reason. Check out the alternate hood openings they offer. You can get a suit with only a mouth or nose opening if you want. Sounds like just the thing for diving doesn't it?
You have to inflate the hood as you descend. Because it is a hooded suit, you not only feel the suit squeeze on your body, but also in your ears. If you don't vent, your ears will never clear.
I'm going to do another 6 or so dives before I'm prepared to give these suits a final judgment. I've learned a lot so far, but I still have a lot more to learn.