For what seemed a simple question, I’m learning a lot from the replies. The wealth of knowledge never ceases to amaze me.
Once on Principe Channel my partner and I got out of our boats to check out a camp site. Dave unzipped his suit and took off his PFD. When we came back down to the beach our boats were gone. Dave raced into the water like a Labrador Retriever chasing a boat bumper thrown from a dock zipping his suit up as he went shouting that he was going to swim after the boats which were no where in sight.
I was sure that he would streak through the water like Michael Phelps, recover our boats and save our trip. What I witnessed next, though, was predictable and utterly disheartening. His transformation from magnificent superhero to something much further down the food chain was shockingly complete before the initial splash was over. Immediately he was flailing away on top of the water with his suit totally Michelin-Manned out with excess trapped air. He was going nowhere fast. I watched as he tried and discarded various strokes. The crawl became the balloon-splash. Side stroking resulted in uncontrolled roll-overs to one side and then the other. The backstroke became four red-clad limbs slapping the water around a giant red kickball. After watching him for what seemed like five minutes he had made only about 20-30 feet of total progress. If he ever made it as far as the outside of the cove the current and wind would have caught him and swept him away.
I spotted the boats under some tree limbs that were overhanging the water and he heard my shouts over the his sounds of splashing water. He turned and “swam” back. It took him a while to get back to where he could touch the bottom and wade out.
I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I think this danger is somewhat exaggerated. I was a Swiftwater Rescue Instructor, and worked for quite a few years as a river safety patrol ranger on some very cold western rivers where I donned a dry suit every day. Almost invariably during our swiftwater classes this fear would come up, leading to the inevitable response of “Let’s try it.” The only time any one buoyed, with or without a PFD, was when they had purposely tried to get as much air into their suit as possible. As 3meterswell pointed out, it can indeed make swimming quite difficult though. Some students figured out the curl up in a ball technique that rstevens posted, but generally just bending your legs enough pushes some air up into the thighs, allowing you to float more or less horizontally. Absolutely it’s awkward and can be scary, but I never lost anybody 
. I actually would encourage dry suit wearers to get in the water (with a partner of course) and mess around with different burp/no burp/PFD/ no PFD scenarios.
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See rstevens15’s post above. The danger was explained to me by state fire instructors during my swift water training, and the ballooning was obvious to the students in my class who jumped into shallow water without burping that there could be a potential problem. But no one went full over to experience the full inverted float.
Couple thoughts:
The spray skirt can impede air moving from torso to legs. Often attempting a routine roll it feels like you can’t roll DOWN. Helps to just wait a few seconds for the air in the torso to migrate up past the skirt to the now higher legs. Otherwise roll up on the same side you rolled down on, instead of a complete revolution. One more reason why I like to vent fully.
During a cold lunch break you can blow air in through the neck seal to add insulation. Then burp before starting away again. Yes, while paddling the body creates vapor inside the suite. And the squat & burp can also alert you if you forgot to zip up after peeing, a surprisingly common error. The absence of bulging should make you question why.
I’m a big guy and the seals never stretch enough. Trim that latex neck and get comfy, we have enough reasons to hate wearing the damn thing IMHO. But save a few rings to trim fresh latex a couple years from now when the edges start cracking. It takes surprisingly little tension to maintain the seal.
I read it, but I’d like to see a more detailed report on the drowning, as there are definitely some points that don’t really add up.
Was he wearing a lead suit? Why would you sink once the air was released? If air trapped in your suit was keeping you inverted, a simple cut would release the air. The notion that he would need to cut himself out of the suit makes no sense. Water is neutrally buoyant in water. One simple cut would solve the problem of the inversion. Something doesn’t add up there.
If we’re assuming, I’m going to assume then that he couldn’t swim or something else happened, which might be the root of the problem, not the drysuit. A punctured drysuit will not drag you to the bottom.
edit: After reading what I could find on this drowning, apparently he was a good swimmer. Unfortunately the 21 pages that I could find made no mention of a knife or inversion, etc.http://www.psdiver.com/images/10-21-2008_Woodbridge_VA_-Frank_Stecco-_LEO_Vol_PSD_Training_Lost.pdf
Deleted my dumb post. D’oh!
I can imagine flayling around in a cut/ripped dry suit, not being able to effectively swim, and all of his air having been expelled from his lungs with no buoyancy left. My question is, how did he have a knife? Normally a knife is conveniently clipped onto the PFD for easy access.
No no no. You’re saying that water sinks in water? The water that enters the suit is no heavier than the water outside the suit, therefore there is no reason for it to pull down on the person. Awkward to swim in, but unless the suit itself is heavy, water in the suit will not sink it. Water is neutrally buoyant in water. If I jump in the water with big pockets on my swim suit, will they fill with water and pull me down? No.
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No worse than falling in with clothes on.
No, no, no. You completely missed what was said. Of course water weighs like water. Trying to kick your way out of a ripped suit that is surrounding your legs like a and arms like a parachute doesn’t directly promote to sinking unless panic leads to ineffective swimming motions against the resistance of dragging the full suit with every motion. When you jump in and your big pockets fill with water, they will hinder effective swimming. Try swimming with a big sloppy sweatshirt and sweat pants on. When soaked they weigh nothing more than water of course, riight? But if deeply submerged, swimming effectively to and on the surface is nearly impossible. Plus, if he had exhaled all the air in his lungs in the process, he has no bouyancy. Some people are not naturally bouyant and will sink like a rock with no air in their lungs. it is not difficult to imagine how such a drowning might occur.
Exactly.
I thought this whole conversation started with the danger of not burping your suit? Where did this “deeply submerged” come in? With a suit full of air you’ll be bobbing like a cork. When you release the air, you’re not going to be dragged to the depths by your suit. My point is that it has been said or implied multiple times in this thread that the drysuit will drag you down, which is simply not true.
This topic has been discussed here before:If Dry Suit Fills w/ Water Will U Drown?
Here’s another example from a diver:Consequences of a flooded dry suit. | ScubaBoard
[quote=“ptickner, post:37, topic:112265”]
My point is that it has been said or implied multiple times in this thread that the drysuit will drag you down, which is simply not true.
[/quote]You are mistaken about what you read. I never said or implied anythiing about a dry suit dragging one down as if it was a heavy weight. only that it would be difficult to effectively swim with ripped fabric surrounding your limbs, and without any air in lungs, some (most) people naturally sink.
I don’t believe I specifically attributed this to you. Another poster said that a dry suit filled with water “might as well be lead”.
Original article: http://www.psdiver.com/images/10-21-2008_Woodbridge_VA_-Frank_Stecco-_LEO_Vol_PSD_Training_Lost.pdf .
Other articles can likely be found. I remembered this because it was close to home and we’ve discussed it in safety classes. I only have he news stories to refer to. Exactly what happened and the order that it happened in you can only rely on the after incident reports, as no one witnessed him go into the water (one of the several errors that were cited). Doubt if you will and discuss why it couldn’t have happened, the fact remains that it did.
Above link broken, but this appears to work:
http://www.psdiver.com/images/10-21-2008_Woodbridge_VA_-Frank_Stecco-_LEO_Vol_PSD_Training_Lost.pdf
Try cutting and pasting the link. For some reason the entire link won’t list after Woodbridge_VA_
Thanks Nunio.
(whoops meant this reply to @ptickner )
Of course you are right! What an embarrassing misconception. I feel silly.
I guess the real danger would be hypothermia from letting in cold water.
Although he succeeded in releasing the air from his suit, he was probably out of time and involuntarily inhaled and filled his lungs with water. That would probably make him negatively buoyant and so he sank. There’s no mention of whether he had any other gear strapped to his suit that may have further reduced his buoyancy as well. I’m slightly negatively buoyant even with my lungs full of air. I’ve always been jealous of people that can lie on their back and float like a cork.
If he had not succeeded in releasing the air in his suit he probably would have been found floating feet up, possibly in time to save him.
There is great comfort in being inherently buoyant. I’ve always been that way, even back in high school and college when my BMI was on the “low healthy” range (I am on the “fluffy” end of that range now). I suspect it is due to being rather small-boned yet buxom. I can literally “hang” motionless in the water without any flotation or actively treading water and my head will stay above the surface. I can float effortlessly so any sort of graceless flailing stroke will propel me to where I want to swim. Therefore I have never been afraid of water over my head or have any panic response to immersion – I was a “water baby” anyway spending early childhood on Great Lakes beaches where even as a crawling toddler my parents had to watch me because I would happily plow into the surf and come up happily laughing and sputtering from submersion.
The only drawback is that it takes an amazing amount of belt weights to neutrally balance me for scuba diving – more than usual for my body mass even just wearing a swimsuit and a ridiculous amount when I am in neoprene. I took my PADI course during the winter in a municipal indoor pool in a pretty chilly building. I wore my 3/4 surfer wetsuit so I wouldn’t get hypothermic during the extended poolside instructions but had to really load up on lead to execute safety exercises that required us to sit in the deep end and remove and then replace our tanks and gear. Unless I was well-weighted, as soon as I removed the SCUBA apparatus I would start to inexorably rise to the surface like a big rubber-encased bubble.