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Home , Dry suit

SCUBA SCHOOL DRY CARE

There are five major areas of focus when caring for a : Overall Care Latex & Seals Properly Packing your Dry Suit for Travel Properly Storing your Dry Suit - In General and in the Off Season

Overall Care

When you don your suit in the elements, you expose all exterior components of the suit to salt, chemicals floating on the surface of the water, and other contaminants. Additionally, you expose the interior components of the suit to oils on your skin and vapours from the moisture your body expels. (farting & sweat) lol.

To ensure the longest life possible from your dry suit, it is important that you rinse both the inside and outside of your suit with fresh water every single time you wear the suit. Several sailors, who wear dry , wear their suits straight into the shower after a day of to rinse the exterior. After the shower rinse - take the suit off, turn it inside out, hang it on a hanger (folded over like - not like a ), and rinse the interior leave to dry completely before storing it.

Zippers

Be diligent about keeping the of your dry suit lubricated. (Note: If the zipper fails, it’s very expensive to replace so you should invest some time into maintaining it.)

The T-Zip Zipper - as found in the Henri Lloyd TP1 Pace Dry Suit – keeps the cost of the suit down but requires a little more maintenance than a metal zipper. If not well lubricated, T- Zips tend to "pop open." If your zipper does this, lubricate the open zipper, run it all the way to the bottom, and re-zip.

Using Zip Tech (which kind of reminds us of an oversize chap stick) to lubricate both the T- Zip Zippers and Metal Zippers. To lubricate, open the zipper, wind out the Zip Tech stick, and rub the Zip Tech over the teeth of the zipper until you get a nice, light coating. Again, the T- Zip requires lubricating quite frequently. As soon as they have resistance when closing, it's time.

There is another product on the market that cleans and lubricates both types of zippers. It is called Zip Care. With its brush applicator, you can get down into the teeth of the zipper to make sure the it's clean of any debris, etc.

For Me, i like the Bees Wax, been using for over 10 years but i am set in my ways....lol

Latex Socks & Seals

Some have latex socks, while some dry suits feature Latex wrist seals - making this next section quite important. You want to keep the water out after all, don't you?

Latex dry suit socks and seals are specifically susceptible to degradation caused by chemicals and salt in the water where you sail and oils on your skin. To keep your latex in good shape, you should condition the latex on your suit with a product called Seal Saver. Seal Saver prevents dry rot and thereby increases the longevity of your suit. Note: Conditioning latex with Seal Saver reminds us of using all on the interior of a car - it kind of shines it up, makes the black look blacker.

Be sure to condition the latex on your suit - but don't overdo it, if you over condition the latex will soften too much, a good idea is to condition the latex at the end of the season before storing your suit for the off season and conditioning at the beginning of the season to create a protective layer that will help defend the latex from the elements. Also, if you get a lot of wear out of your suit, feel free to condition every once in a while during the season.

Note: seals do not need to be conditioned. However, be sure they are rinsed well with fresh water.

Properly Packing your Dry Suit for Travel

Don't crumple and or stuff your suit! You can cause serious damage to the zipper when you're packing a suit. The proper way to pack it is to lay out a completely dry dry suit, front up with zipper down Starting from the feet, and roll your suit up. All of the air will be squeezed out of the suit, and the zipper will be resting in a compressed state. Fold arm over arm. The suit will be as small as it will get. Remember, this is how you can travel with your suit - not how you store it. Do not leave it like this in direct sunlight, in high heat, or for extended periods of time.

Properly Storing your Dry Suit - In General and in the Off Season

When storing your suit make sure it's clean and dry. If you haven't already, pull out a hanger. Do not hang your dry suit like a by the shoulders and neck as this will create unnecessary wear on the neck seal. Rather, fold the suit over the hanger at the almost as you would a pair of slacks. Stick the suit at the back of a cool, dry closet.

Me, well i hang over the clothes horse, some people use a hanger from the feet this puts strain on the ,, trust me,,

If you are putting your suit away for the off season, condition the latex one final time with Seal Saver. This will prevent dry rot, and your suit will be ready to go at the start of the next season.

We wish your dry suits long and prosperous lives!

SCUBA DIVING IN A DRY SUIT

How to use a dry suit for first timers.

Dear diver, now that you´re considering diving in the land of Ice you are probably aware of the need for proper exposure protection. A wise man once said “It´s better to be dry and warm than cold and wet”, and we wholly agree.

1. Formal education

You can obtain a PADI dry suit speciality certification by doing the PADI dry suit specialty course, which combines a self study with the PADI dry suit manual, a theory session in which your instructor will go over the knowledge reviews of the dry suit manual with you, a confined water session and two dives in open water in which you will do the practical skills. To dive safely with us, you don‘t necessarily need to have prior dry suit experience but it helps to enjoy fantastic dive sites, since you are not occupied with learning how to dry suit dive first. With the PADI Dry Suit Specialty Course you obtain a certification card which is required in some other places and dive sites. For further information about the PADI Dry Suit Specialty Course, please have a look at this website: www.scubaschool.org.uk

2. What to wear underneath the dry suit (layering)

Layering is important, it is the base layer that goes under you dry suit and dry suit and it depends on the water and what kind of dry suit you use. Neoprene dry suits need less layering than e.g. trilaminate dry suits. The colder the water the more layers you add and this means that for every layer that you add, you need to compensate for with additional . Your first layer should consist of thin woollen underwear and a pair of thick woollen socks. Fleece or other synthetics materials are fine as well,,, but cotton is not recommended as it doesn‘t insulate as well, especially if it gets damp (e.g. sweat).

Me,, well i swear by Fourth Element Artic Socks,, ask us!

3. Dry suit components

Dry suits have 5 major components which need to be well maintained and taken care off to have an enjoyable dive.

Dry suit wrist seals made of latex

The dry suit wrist seals The wrist seals of a dry suit are made of latex or neoprene (our dry suits have latex wrist seals). These seals need to fit tightly around your wrist to stop any water from coming in they need to be handled with great care, because they can tear easily, especially if you have long finger nails. Please work with caution when you put your arms through the sleeve and take them out. It‘s best if our Dive Team assist you with doing this to prevent you from missing a dive because of a ripped wrist seal.

Dry suit neck seal made of neoprene

The neck seal of the dry suit The neck seals of our dry suits are made of latex or neoprene as well. These seals need to fit tight around your neck to keep water out and air in. However, it may not be too tight because it could slow down or block blood flow. But don‘t :-). It might take a moment to get used to the neck seal if it’s your first time. Neoprene neck seals get folded in towards the neck to create an which helps to keep water out and air in. Also, if you have long hair, it‘s important to get all your hair out from underneath the seal. Please ask our Dive team to check if you have done it right or better ask them to assist you with folding the seal to the inside.

c. The dry suit zipper

Dry suit zippers at back or front of dry suits, this is where you get into the dry suit, zippers can be in the front across your chest or on your back from shoulder to shoulder. The dry suit zipper is very fragile and it needs to be waxed often to keep it moving smoothly, please do not step on the zipper while putting your dry suit on. Our suits have a protector flap that needs to be pulled down to make sure the zipper does not get stuck in the material of your base layers when closing it. Once it‘s closed, give it a good tuck to make sure it is fully closed. Closing and opening your dry suit zipper always requires a second person (your buddy or guide) because it‘s pretty much impossible to close alone and it can get damaged by trying to do so. The best way to close it is with a slow and smooth pull from one side to the other instead of giving it multiple tucks.

d. The air inlet and air outlet valves of the dry suit

Dry suit air outlet and air inlet valves, the dry suit valves are used to let the air in and out of the dry suit. It works basically the same as with a BCD. The inlet valve is located on your chest and has to be attached to a low hose coming from the 1st stage of your regulator. The valve has a button in the middle that needs to be pressed down to push air into the dry suit. The outlet valve is located on your shoulder or on the left hand wrist, Outlet valves can be set to let air out of your suit automatically or can be set that you have to let air out you self by pressing on the valve. For first time dry suit divers it is better to keep it open so you can better control the flow out of your dry suit. To have the valve on the manual setting you turn it clockwise as far as you can. To have it closed for automatic release you turn it the other way around Now this takes lots of practice with this setting,,SO ASK. Please ask our Dive Team for assistance if you are unsure. Dry Suit inlet and outlet valves these five elements need to be checked before every dive and needs to become a standard buddy checking procedure.

4. Dry suits versus

There are some key differences between diving in a dry suit and using a wet suit. Dry suits are used for cold water diving while wet suits are used in warmer waters: a. In a dry suit you don‘t get wet on your body so the air in your suit acts as insulation. In the water seeps into your wet suit and acts as insulation once you body warms it up. Dry suits keep you warmer because in water you body loses temperature 25% faster than in air so being in a wetsuit surrounded by water you lose body heat faster than being surrounded by air in your dry suit. b. When diving in a dry suit you control your with your dry suit instead of using your BCD like you would with a wet suit. c. With a dry suit you need a lot more weight than with a wet suit. The reason is that you have a large space of air that surrounds your body and all of this air needs to be pressed under water,, aswell more garments, that is done by adding more (led) . d. Your regulator has two low pressure hoses; one goes to the BCD and the other into your dry suit inlet valve which is situated on your right side for your regulator.

5. Why use the dry suit for buoyancy

The reasons we use the dry suit to control our buoyancy and not the BDC is that the air inside the dry suit keeps us warm, so if most of the air is in our BCD it does not help us to stay warm. Another reason is that when you dive down a few meters the air inside the dry suit compresses which creates a squeeze on your body. To compensate for the compressing air we need to add air to our dry suit. The deeper we go the more air we need to add.

On the other hand, when you come back up to shallower parts of your dive, you need to release some of the air in your suit because it expands again due to less surrounding pressure of the water. However, of course it is also possible to use your BCD for buoyancy control in a dry suit, so if you experience difficulty to use the dry suit: The BCD is always there, too. On the other hand you might NOT want to end up using both dry suit and BCD at the same time since this can create confusion on where to release air when you come back up.

6. Dry suit and tips

When using a dry suit keep in mind that there is an air space and it surrounds your whole body. In order to press you down underwater you need to use quite a bit more weights to compensate for the extra air than in a regular wet suit. So instead of using short bursts when putting air into your BCD when diving in a wetsuit you now have to hold the air inlet button of your dry suit in for a longer time to feel an effect. A very important thing to remember is that you need to always have the air outlet valve of your dry suit at the highest point of your body when you want to release air. Just like with a BCD you have to lift the inflator/deflator hose up to get the air out so also with the drysuit, make sure your feet are lower than the outlet valve on your shoulder or cuff dump. The classic (but very rare) dry suit diving is that divers have their upper body lower than their legs and at some point the air gets into your feet and turns you upside down. This can make it impossible to release air from your drysuit and you could end up doing a rapid accent. This can be corrected by kicking hard with your feet and turning over to get them below the valve again. On your first dry suit dive we will not dive deeper than 10 meters, to make sure that in the rare and unlikely case this would happen you are still well within safe limits. Dry suit diving opens up a big range of new and exciting dive sites different to the mainstream dive sites in the warmer climates. It‘s a great amazing new world that‘s waiting to be discovered. The only way to be successful in diving with a dry suit is to try it out and practice. Don‘t feel overwhelmed by all the information. Take in what you can; Our Dive Team will go through this with you again either on your dry suit course or at the pool if you have brought one.

Scuba Training from Bubblemaker to Instructor Level. Head Office: 50 Mainstone close, Redditch B98-0PP Facebook: Scuba School - Twitter: @scuba_school Website: www.scubaschool.org.uk [email protected] : [email protected]