Dry suit pros and cons, part 1
October 10th, 2007 Filed Under Article
Considering going dry? Here are some factors I was looking at when I made my decision to go dry. I will split it up into multiple posts.
Pros:
User-variable compression
A wetsuit compresses the deeper you go. The more compression, the less thermal insulation. I have noticed that with a particular wetsuit setup I can be fine at 30 feet but then feel cold past 70 feet with similar water temperatures. So, that means that in order to be warm at 70 feet I need to layer up more neoprene before the dive. There are some disadvantages to this; more neoprene means wearing more lead in order to sink. Once the suit compresses some, buoyancy decreases, but I still have all that lead that required to initially get me down and keep me at 15 feet at the end of the dive. Now I am essentially overweighted for the rest of the dive. The deeper I go, the more overweighted I am since the wetsuit continues to compress more, and the deeper I go the less insulation I have.
A dry suit has a low pressure inflater hose connected to is so the diver can add air to compensate for the compression in the insulation layer caused by changes in depth. This allows the diver to maintain the same level of insulation regardless of the depth as the diver can add or release air to maintain the same volume of the air “bubble” in the suit as the diver ascends or descends. The other advantage of controlling the compression is all air in the suit can be vented in order to “vacuum pack” the suit. This reduces the volume of the suit, which reduces the amount of water the diver displaces, which makes the diver less buoyant. This is useful in managing the surface to 15 foot depth range - less weight is required to descend at the beginning of the dive along with maintaining a safety stop and slow ascent to the surface at the end of a dive (when the tank will weigh less since there is less compressed air in it). So with a dry suit you don’t have to pack extra lead for the shallower depths where there is less compressing force than at depth. Weighting for a wetsuit is pretty much what is required to keep you at 15 feet at the end of the dive, whereas weighting for a dry suit is more like the weight required to be neutrally buoyant during the dive with the desired amount of air in the suit. User preference and undergarment materials can affect the size of the bubble in the suit. So a dry suit isn’t so much about keeping the water out as it is about keeping the air bubble in.
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