For many years we’ve carried a heavy duty wet suit for use in cold climates. This 8mm (5/16″) wet suit includes a chest and hood element, gloves, and heavy booties. It works, but the ingress of really cold water is painful in the extreme until warmed by Steve’s tender skin. As a result, we’ve never used this for preventive inspections, and carry it only for emergencies.

At the beginning of last summer we saw Evans Starzinger cleaning Hawk‘s bottom while anchored in Puget Sound. It was way too cold for us to venture into the water in our wet suit, so we began to think about a dry suit.

A few days later we were on Lake Union in the heart of Seattle, having our props removed for a bit of tuning, and we saw another dry suit. Dwayne Montgomery of Emerald City Divers has been making his living in dry suits for years, and he had some specific recommendations. We had lots on our plate, however, and did not pursue this further.

Recently we started to think about this subject again and called Dwayne for an update. Dwayne gave us his comments, and then suggested we contact Paul Gunderson, founder and chief honcho of OS Systems ( http://www.ossystems.com ), one of the largest manufacturers of dry suits in the country. Dwayne has been testing OS gear for many years, is a very tough customer to satisfy, and had confidence in the OS gear.

From Paul we got a detailed tutorial in dry suit features and construction. He and his competitors offer a bewildering variety of product, and for our needs, and those of SetSail readers, we wanted to focus in on cruising-specific requirements.

We told Paul that what we were after was a suit we could use to inspect our bottom, and maybe clear or even change a fouled prop while in Alaska. This means working in water as cold as 42 F (6C), with periods of immersion in the 15- to 30-minute range. It might get used in more temperate conditions further south with water temperatures closer to 70 F (20C). Finally, we did not expect to use the suit more than a couple of times a year.

Paul suggested their MANTA suit. The MANTA dry suit is made from a 210 High Count Nylon fabric, the same as Dwayne Montgomery’s suit which has survived for more than 1000 dives. This fabric is quite thin, but tough; it does not provide warmth, but only keeps the water out. Warmth comes from the garments you wear between your body and the dry suit – we’ll get into this in more detail shortly. There is another option for dry suit construction. These are made with wetsuit-like compressed neoprene. These suits fit more snugly, but are harder to get into/out of, and take a lot more storage space. In our opinion, for the cruising sailor, these do not make as much sense.

The next question is entry. Most dry suits have two systems. Paul’s suggestion for easiest ingress and egress is a front opening system, as shown above. This can be gotten into/out of on your own – although it helps to have another set of hands. Back entry suits are a little less costly, but require a helper to use.

Both Paul and Dwayne suggest having an upgrade of the DV-Boots attached to the legs than having ankle seals and separate dive boots (with separate dive boots the ankle seals are subject to damage when donning/removing the dry suit.

You can get the suits with gloves glued on, like the DV-Boots. However, if you want to work with tools under water, wrist seals and removable diving gloves are suggested.

Seals for the neck and wrists are made from latex, natural gum (from trees!) rubber. This is a soft, conforming material which requires careful maintenance. It cannot be exposed to solvents, must be stored cool and dry, and periodically should be sprayed with a special restorative material Paul supplies (seals can be replaced in the field by heating the glue joints, removing the damaged seal, cleaning the joint area, and gluing on a new seal). If you are interested in more details visit Paul’s website ( www.ossystems.com ) and check out the manuals for the “HDPro” suits.

For protection of the head and upper neck, a nonattached neoprene dry suit style hood with a zipper is recommended by Paul.

To stay warm, a system of undergarments are worn inside the dry suit, with the same approach as you would use when skiing in cold country, or working on deck in cold weather. Undergarments that wick perspiration away from the skin surface are the best. Paul likes a fleece (think Polartec) made from polyester. Polyester is easy to wash and dry, does not deteriorate when hot, and does not hold odors. Paul also says polypropylene tends to hold body odors and is heat sensitive.

How you dress under the dry suit depends on your body type, the amount of work to be done, and water temperature. There are no set rules for this, but you can generalize by saying the odds are you will be happiest with a little less clothing than would be worn if you were working outside at the same temperature in the air as you expect in the water.

For our use Paul suggested a full body jumpsuit made from a double layer of Malden Mills fabric called “Power Stretch”. This is four-way stretch material that conforms to your body and has a double layer of fleece. It weighs 13 ounces per running yard (90cm) in a width of 54 inches (1.38m). If it is really cold, additional layers of thermals can be added from the normal collection on board. Likewise, the jump suit can be worn on board without the dry suit when conditions warrant (if the heater were to quit, for example). Paul indicated that in water of 65F (18C) this double layer would be perfect. For colder conditions in Alaska we would want to add additional layers of a wicking-type fleece.

Using a dry suit requires a short course from a dry suit-certified dive instructor. One needs to learn how to swim, maneuver, and recover from unusual attitudes. These courses typically take a couple of hours and start first without weights, and then with a bit of familiarity weights and a buoyancy compensator. On the subject of weight Dwayne Montgomery indicated he felt Steve would need about 35 pounds (17 kg) to be neutrally buoyant.

Speaking of buoyancy, dry suits have an inlet valve to maintain air pressure as you descend. They also have a preset discharge valve, so they do not balloon as you ascend from deeper water. If you use a tank, there is a hose attached to the dry suit, similar to what goes to your buoyancy compensation vest. If you are using a Hooka rig, as we do, a “t” will be needed in the air delivery line with a connection to the dry suit.

Dry suits can be bought off the rack, so to speak, if you have a “normal” body type. Or, they can be custom made. For what we need it looks like we can buy standard sizes. A basic system of suit with boots attached, hood, and gloves retails for about U$1300. The double layer jump suit undergarment is another $350. “Street” prices from your local dive shop will typically include a discount off retail.

One of the things we’ve been discussing is whether or not we should carry “survival suits” in our high latitude cruising. Realistically, if we are forced to abandon ship (admittedly a minor risk with Wind Horse) unless we are wearing some form of survival or dry suit in the dinghy/life raft, the time at which we’ll survive is pretty short. Survival suits take a lot of space, are expensive, and at some point you have to draw the line on safety gear.

Of course if we have a dry suit (or suits) aboard why couldn’t they be used in lieu of a survival suit? When we posed this question to Paul he said “a dry suit is not a substitute for a survival suit” (he did not want to get into the survival suit business because of the regulatory and legal hassles). However, he agreed that a dry suit offers advantages. First of all, it is fit to the wearer, rather than the typical one-size-fits-all approach of survival suits. Next, a dry suit allows the user to continue to work to save the vessel while suited up – something which is much harder to do in a survival suit, especially if you are small relative the bulk of the survival suit.

But there are some negatives to using an immersion suit in this manner, as Paul pointed out. Where a survival suit has built-in buoyancy, the dry suit needs air or a life jacket to maintain a proper waterline for the wearers nose and mouth. If a survival suit is torn it will still provide buoyancy and some degree of warmth. If the dry suit is torn, the situation is not good.

When Paul mentioned working to save the boat our ears perked up. The concept here is that you know early on in the situation that risks have escalated and so get into the insulated layer(s) and dry suit well before it might be necessary to abandon ship. This means donning this gear becomes the first step in an emergency. And then continuing to do what is possible to keep the boat afloat.

But what about buoyancy? One approach is a life jacket, but if you are swimming (as opposed to being in a dinghy or life raft) a life jacket by itself is unlikely to float you high enough. Paul indicated there are miniature compressed air bottles that could be tied to the dry suit for emergency use. We need to investigate this further.

One other factor we’ll mention briefly are the breathable dry suits made as ultimate foul weather gear by several companies including OS Systems. Most of the around-the-world racers – mono and multihull – carry these suits for high latitude use and for emergencies. There are a number of instances when these suits have been put to the ultimate test with capsized vessels, and they appear to have worked well. This is an indicator of suitable toughness for the environment and we asked Paul how his diving dry suit would compare to one of the breathable foul weather gear dry suits. Paul’s answer was that the fabric from which the diving dry suits are made was significantly stronger, and so even better suited to the task.

We are going to come back to the subject of immersion suits and cold weather protection in another article. But for now, we’ve decided to give the OS Manta diving dry suit a try. Steve will set up a system for in-the-water maintenance, and have some form of buoyancy for use in emergencies as a survival suit. Linda’s suit will be set up primarily as a survival system (she would be lost in the confines of a one-size-fits-all conventional survival suit). We’ll report back later on the training process, and how this works in the water for maintenance.

Before we finish let’s come back to maintenance for a minute. This is an expensive and safety-critical piece of gear when it is in use. So a periodic inspection and maintenance schedule is a necessity. Paul suggests washing in fresh water after each use. He also wants his customers to inspect their suits at the beginning of each cruising season as well as the end. And of course before each dive. As previously stated, the suits need to be stored in dry areas (and it it gets wet it needs to be rinsed and dried). The neoprene seals will deteriorate if allowed to freeze. And dry suits are not happy stored in extreme heat. (We pursued Paul’s definition of heat a bit further and it appears that normal tropical cruising temperatures of 85F/25C are considered OK.) Finally, if these are to be used as survival suits, they must be inspected prior to each passage.