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Am I insane, diving wetsuits?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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DiveHacker

Active Member
Jun 17, 2020
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Is there seriously no other material on earth that they can make wetsuits out of that does not require adding a belt with 10kg of lead weight on it? Lol

Idk it seems human ingenuity isn’t all that. Forgive me. Wetsuits seem tailor made for surfing having the buoyancy but for freediving spearfishing they are shite. I cannot believe there isn’t a solution to this. Idk just a rant I guess. But weight is probably the most annoying thing in this sport.
 
I think you are wrong mate. If you want a suit that it won't need the 10kg on the belt you say and you need it to be the thickness it is now, then this suit has to weight 10kg more than what it weighs now....
Besides that not everyone needs the same amount of weight or dives at the same depths... So the weight varies greatly on each occasion.
Not to add the safety issues. Now on a deep dive that something might go wrong you have the option to release your belt. You wouldn't have that option if the suit didn't need extra weight.
 
come on, you’re a clever chap. Air is an amazing insulator and very bad at conducting heat. Even the NASA Aerogel concept is based on a closed cell foam structure.

Even if we were to use thermo resistant silicone based gels, and replicate seal fat to reduce buoyancy, the suit would weight several kilos meaning that you’d need to use extra energy to move it arround during the dive.
 
Maybe there are better materials available or yet to be invented, but I don't know about them, so I'll stick to practical issues.

If you're wearing 10 kg I suspect you're doing relatively shallow dives, and perhaps in a thick wetsuit, which implies cold water. Your lungs will compress most rapidly at the start of your dive, which means that the change in buoyancy is greatest near the surface. If you were diving deeper you would want to work harder on the way down, i.e., to have a deeper point of neutral buoyancy, and so you would most likely wear less weight.

I'm sure the above is not news to you, and of course I could be wrong about the type of diving you're doing, but its implication to me is that you may want a slightly less buoyant wetsuit for shallow water spearfishing. You may be able to achieve this to some degree by varying the thickness of your wetsuit, wearing a thinner wetsuit overall, with a wetsuit vest underneath to keep your core warm.

Finally there is a variable-weight belt available - I can't remember its name - that could get you to your depth without effort and then allow you to release and not have to swim the weight back up again - the belt remains attached to the surface buoy by a line. Personally I'd be wary of there being an additional line hanging around whilst I'm spearfishing, but I've only actually spearfished a couple of times - I'm principally a freediver.

Any questions, please ask.
 
Is there seriously no other material on earth that they can make wetsuits out of that does not require adding a belt with 10kg of lead weight on it? Lol

Idk it seems human ingenuity isn’t all that. Forgive me. Wetsuits seem tailor made for surfing having the buoyancy but for freediving spearfishing they are shite. I cannot believe there isn’t a solution to this. Idk just a rant I guess. But weight is probably the most annoying thing in this sport.
Yes there is, sort of. Look at Fourth Element's Thermocline range. Neutrally buoyant woven material that claims to be equivalent to a 3mm wetsuit. I think Lavacore material is similar, and there are no doubt others. But from your description I don't think this would be warm enough for you. You make the comparison with surfing suits, and the fact is that snorkelling / freediving / spearfishing are predominantly surface sports. Most time is spent on the surface and the chill from deeper water is transient.

So echoing what others have said, I think your best solution may lie in getting yourself a better fitting, thinner, more efficient suit. I appreciate you may have been emphasizing to make a point, but there is no way you should need anything like 10kg, and if you are really wearing that much neoprene you must find yourself going negative and sinking within the first few metres.

More details of the suit you are wearing, the depths you are diving to, the temperatures you are diving in, and the amout of lead you are actually carrying might produce some more helpful responses. :)
 
Is there seriously no other material on earth that they can make wetsuits out of that does not require adding a belt with 10kg of lead weight on it? Lol

Idk it seems human ingenuity isn’t all that. Forgive me. Wetsuits seem tailor made for surfing having the buoyancy but for freediving spearfishing they are shite. I cannot believe there isn’t a solution to this. Idk just a rant I guess. But weight is probably the most annoying thing in this sport.
What is it about the weight that annoys you? Is it that's it's concentrated around the waist, carrying it in to a spot, etc? It's hard to beat neoprene, and other similar materials, as they're decent insulators given the thickness, flexibility, and smoothness they provide. I would think a big hurdle for finding something less buoyant would be making sure it's just as warm and just as flexible.

That said, maybe try using a weight vest to distribute the weight. Where and how deep are you diving?
 
Is there seriously no other material on earth that they can make wetsuits out of that does not require adding a belt with 10kg of lead weight on it? Lol

Idk it seems human ingenuity isn’t all that. Forgive me. Wetsuits seem tailor made for surfing having the buoyancy but for freediving spearfishing they are shite. I cannot believe there isn’t a solution to this. Idk just a rant I guess. But weight is probably the most annoying thing in this sport.
You're absolutely right! If they can invent a solid that is lighter than air, they can certainly create a thermal material with less buoyancy; and they will, someday. It's just that there is no money in it yet.
And of course, we may still need some weight to compensate for different bodies, etc.
 
The way I look at this, as someone noted, is it’s definitely a possibility to create an insulator that is even (hopefully) denser than water and you get a touch of weight and warmth all in the wetsuit. U want my opinion, but I say this about everything not just freediving, we aaint all that technologically advanced like we seem to think we are. It doesn’t even seem like too big of a problem to tackle to me. Maybe as mentioned the money isn’t there.
 
Guys you clearly do not understand how the suit works... The suit has bubbles of air in it. These bubbles gives the material insulation and also elasticity. This is why suits with smaller bubbles are more dense, less warm and less stretchy. When you are in a 5mm suit that needs for example 8kg in order to dive to a certain depth, this means that if you don't want to have that weight on your belt, that 5mm suit must weight 8kg. And it has to remain stretchy and warm. Unless you are dreaming of a material that won't add volume (so it won't need to be heavy), like 0.5mm thick and that will be stretchy enough and also be able to provide heat insulation. I dream about that too but it is only just dreams and really light years away from reality...
 
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It depends on the type of neoprene your wetsuit is made of ,there is Yamamoto 38 to 45 with the 45 having more air bubbles so more bouyant, Heiwa, Daiwabo, Jako and Sheico neoprene all have there different properties and uses.
Here are a couple of links on Deeperblue ,members discussing different neoprenes and there uses from 2010,2011
 
Human ingenuity... hmm. So you figure, instead of weight belt, which you can take off, adjust the weight etc, reposition etc. it would be better... having a fixed weight, permanently attached, evenly distributed over the entire suit. Fkn genius idea. Were you hypoxic, when this came to your mind? Have other ideas to share, I am listening.
 
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