I love the comfort and reassurance provided from a dry suit. Granted, a 6/5/4 wetsuit may indeed have the same warmth, but psychologically, a dry suit just gives me that inspired confidence to sail in the dead of winter in freezing conditions. Heck, I've unrigged with ice on my sails, and been completely toasty in that suit. Now that being said, these dry suits are just so darn prissy, you can poke a hole in the dang thing with a long fingernail, or wearing it while rigging and sitting on the ground covered with burs or sticks can do it too.
I may have to look into those Billabong suits Andy has been raving about. He seems to be pretty convinced they are the way to go.
8 comments:
It must get very cold up there, not even sure we can get dry suits here! Bring on summer, boardies and a rashie is how I want it to be!
Dave-yeah its gets windy around here, but unfortunatley, we need to wear 30 lbs of rubber to sail it! temps drop to an average in the mid 30s I think. But even during the dead of winter, there is a wide fluctuation with temps up into the 40s - and even 50s in Jan. the only thing that will keep me off the water is if it freezes..
When you get ready to replace it check out the ProMotion suits at www.wetsuit.com, they even have a dry suit. I just got a 5/3 with their ADV windskin. I rubbed it against my tailgate the other day on it's inagural outing and thought for sure I cut it...Didn't even leave a mark.
Mac-yeah, Ken Kellar has a ProMotion suit and he seems to be happy with it.
This is my second NP dry suit. I know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Its all on me this time. My mistake on buying that suit.
However, once the warranty repairs are effected, I s/b good for another 1-2 yrs?
Are dry suits baggy? Are they like the Huey Lewis and the News video where they jet skied up onto the beach in Florida and stayed dry in their tuxedo's (you know you remember it!)
Or...are t hey a simple better skin tight wetsuit?
David-i believe there are some that are baggy, but i wear the sort that are skin tight, traditional suits.
The material of a dry suit is no different than a wet suit. The zipper however is beefed up, and is supposedly "dry", so that no water is continuously flushing thru the suit, hence the "dry" moniker.
To confuse you even more, no suit is truely dry, only less wet than others, and hence warmer.
confused?
Yah, I'm a huge ProMotion fan now. I actually had my NP drysuit zipper completely rip open on the water last fall. Luckily it wasn't too cold and I was near the shore but mid-winter it could have been tragic. I too have the ProMotion 5/3. I wear a little something under it (a rubber shirt or a sleevless shorty) and then on top I wear a hooded vest. I've been tumbled in some nice size whitewater with very little water intrusion.
Another benefit of wet over dry suits is that I don't get pissed off when I do get a little water here or there 'cause, hey it's just a wet suit!
Oh and I don't dislocate my shoulder trying to zip up!
BTW, a vest over a drysuit would hold everything together if the zipper failed.
Ken K
Ken, what are the coldest conditions you've had that Promotion out in??
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