In Reply to: Re: Finite discussion posted by Kendall Raine on February 21, 2006 at 11:44:13:

I knew this was going to get out of hand...

I've heard the arguments before and simply don't accept them as sufficiently valid to adopt the use of the BCD with my drysuit. It's a personal choice.

Fact: you need some air in your drysuit. As you descend, the air volume in the suit is reduced due to the pressure change - ergo you put some more air in the suit to avoid squeeze and to stay warm. If weighted properly, the amount of air in the suit is minimal and introducing small amounts is not going to dramatically affect your air supply or cause significant loss of heat; do the math.

A shrink wrapped drysuit is about as streamlined as a brick.

The only time I would consider it valid to use BCD and the drysuit to control bouyancy would be when using doubles. In that case, the difference in buoyancy between full and empty is so great that using the BCD is advised.

You are right about task overloading being a little misleading, since you can dump both the drysuit and the BCD by raising the left hand and BCD low pressure inflator to dump the BCD - the drysuit's dump valve will vent at the same time.

If you aren't going to put air into the drysuit, then disconnect the inflator hose. That way, you will never, ever have a stuck valve or run-away inflation, unless it's with your BCD's valve!

• Re: Paper goes over... Kendall Raine 15:56:37 02/21/06 (0)