Posted by Wood on July 24, 2001 at 11:00:03:
In Reply to: Drysuits and BC's posted by Wood on July 23, 2001 at 23:08:28:
Thanks for the input.
I dive and teach my drysuit courses with the valve all the way open, just enough to keep the squeeze off and stay warm. The suit is snug against my body.
Anytime I have more than the minimal air in the suit I can feel the additional drag, not only from larger volume externally but from the additional air in the suit. It just feels sloppy to me.
I've coached several divers that I know into getting suits. They went with a local shop for the class, I was to expensive. After doing 6-8 dives they are disappointed in the suit and lack of control they are experiencing. I volunteer to do a clinic with them only to find out they are using the suit for buoyancy. After converting to the other side, they love the suit.
I don’t want to get into a pissing contest with DL, he’s been underwater in drysuits longer than the years I’ve owned one. But I don’t understand the theory behind using the suit. Especially teaching a new diver to use the suit that way;
An out of control ascent is much faster to stop with the BC than a suit.
A BC can be vented in the vertical, inverted or horizontal position. The suit only in the vertical or with vertical angle.
Air in a decent BC is easy to control and vent, air in a suit can get trapped behind a bent knee or anywhere in the suit if you have a poor body angle.
Wrist and neck seals can leak air in the vertical, BC’s as a rule do not.
The methodology as explained to me was to prevent over-tasking by having two buoyancy control devices active at the same time. OK, in a positive feet first ascent in a drysuit you are taught to do a tuck and roll or a kick-over. Has anyone honestly tried to do that with fully inflated legs? It is not easy or quick and unless you are going to intentionally vent your arm or neck and flood the suit you will not get the air out of the arm valve fast enough to stop.
Understand where I am coming from, those that have been diving d-suits for a while are not the topic of this thread. I am concerned about how we teach new divers to use the suit. 2 dives later they are on their own.
Dive safe