KITTED-UP
5 . The drysuit
When in the water , a wetsuit is a wonderful thing , warm , flexible and you can widdle at will . Out of the water , wind chill and rubbing wet neoprene , especially when climbing back into a freezing cold suit , make them a bit grim . Drysuits have been around as long as diving has , with early hard-hat divers wearing canvas suits with long , brown rubber seals . Modern drysuits are just a development of this , using more up-to-date materials .
Tri-laminate nylon-rubber-nylon thin lightweight membrane suits ape the older canvas suits , giving lots of flexibility and room for plenty of undersuits . Neoprene suits suffer the same problems as wetsuits with the buoyancy changes , but the invention of compressed neoprene , where the sheets are first squished between rollers to flatten the bubbles , helps with this . DUI invented the ‘ crushed ’ neoprene suit where they first make the drysuit about 20 % bigger than needed , then squish the suit in a pressurised water chamber overnight to crush the bubbles down , producing a dense , strong material that doesn ’ t change in buoyancy .
Arguably the biggest change in drysuit technology is the dry zip . Hard-hat divers had to squeeze their whole body through the neck hole , and the army underwear roll-together suit created a somewhat cumbersome , thick , portly waist . The dry zip allows divers to get into the suit , usually through a long zip across the top of the back , with variants diagonally across the front and even the notable Poseidon Unisuit which went under the crotch , a design which was impossible to get in and out of .
With almost all modern suits , maintenance and care is essential as the term ‘ drysuit ’ for many seems to be an aspiration rather than a description , with many divers putting up with dribbles and leaks as they inevitably succumb to the rough and tumble of diving life .
PHOTO : CHARLES HOOD
A shore dive off Cornwall wearing Jetsuits ( a variant of the Uni-suit )
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