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Scuba School Dry Suit Care SCUBA SCHOOL DRY SUIT CARE There are five major areas of focus when caring for a dry suit: Overall Care Zippers Latex Socks & 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 suits, wear their suits straight into the shower after a day of sailing to rinse the exterior. After the shower rinse - take the suit off, turn it inside out, hang it on a hanger (folded over like trousers - not like a dress shirt), and rinse the interior leave to dry completely before storing it. Zippers Be diligent about keeping the zipper 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 Armor 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: Neoprene 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 dress shirt by the shoulders and neck as this will create unnecessary wear on the neck seal. Rather, fold the suit over the hanger at the waist 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 boots,, 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 undergarment and dry suit and it depends on the water temperature 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 weight. 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 panic :-). 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 airlock 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.
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