Drysuit opinions

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:16 am

Well, I finally had a couple of dry dives in my new suit. And the most striking feature about it is.....I AM SO SLOW IN THIS THING!!!!! It's trilaminate, and baggy as hell. I didn't get a custom fit because the guys at the store told me the USIA XL was sized right for me. It's a little baggier than others I've seen, but not too much. I'm really upset at how hard I have to work to cover any distance in it. I wonder if I should have gone with the Apollo, or saved up for a crushed Neoprene DUI. What do you all think? Am I the only one who dives Trilaminate? Nobody told me that it was a low-speed, high drag suit, they just said it was more durable, and not as warm, unless I wore an undergarment. If I'd known it this when I bought, I probably would have gone a different route.

(edit- I love this thing now. Turns out the new fins I bought at the same time just aren't for me. I went back to my old fins, and suddenly, I'm like a fish again!)

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:33 am

Hmmmm.... I think you should dive it some more before you give up. There are plenty of folks with that suit who are very happy with it. During my DM I remember being the only one out of 7 of us instructors/divemasters without that very USIA!

I think you'll get used to the drag after a while, and why are you in such a hurry anyways? Get an UW camera instead of buying another suit and you'll appreciate going slow and not scaring off all the sealife

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:00 pm

Hmmm. Point taken. Thanks, that makes me feel better. I do think I'm overweighted at the moment, too- that probably doesn't help much.

John Rawlings · Post by **John Rawlings** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:04 pm

Hmmmm.......the unavoidable fact is that dry-suits from all manufacturers generally cause a lot more "drag" in the water than do wet-suits, simply because they are not skin tight and often have billows pockets and other such attachments extending from them. There is simply no avoiding the fact that they displace more water and cause a diver to be less "sleek" when swimming. The USIA suit also has attached stiff boots that can in no way match the manueverability or flexibility of a wet-suit bootie, which may also be causing part of your perceived problem.

If you think that you are overweighted, then I'd bet that you probably are, and that in and of itself will cause you to be less agile underwater as if you were dragging an anchor beneath you. I'd like to encourage you to spend a dive or two just getting your weight right - both in terms of number of pounds and location. My publisher, Curt Bowen, is a short little runt but has a barrel chest - he always wears two coated weights on his chest, one on each side of his harness, to give him better balance by spreading his weight around. When I dive my rebreather I find that I need to place a 2 pound weight on the top of each of my two tanks - that gives me a better balance of my overall weight rather than just having it around my waist.

Like everything else in our sport, there are trade-offs....in this case warmth or speed/manueverability. Because of the diving that I do....deep....cold....lengthy......photography-centered....I will choose warmth over speed every time. I like my DUI, but there is no way at all that it could compare with a wet-suit in terms of "sleekness" in the water. Would I ever consider going back to a wet-suit because of that? No way!

Like Calvin said, give it some time....all new gear takes some getting used to. My best friend and photography "dive-model", Sparky Campbell, dives a USIA suit and is completely sold on it. He chases crabs, hunts Lings, and can swim through a current with the best of them.

Good luck!

- John

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:39 pm

Cool. Thanks for the feedback. I should try moving my weight around and loosing a few pounds as well.

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:56 pm

Anytime you make a major gear change you should give it a few dives before you make any judgments about the gear.

When I first switched from wetsuit to drysuit I hated it ... now I wouldn't dive in Puget Sound without it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

DiverDown · Post by **DiverDown** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:15 pm

I wouldnt worry about it Nailer, I thought that suit was great!! It does take some time to get used to it.