Wetsuit for freediving

I know how hard those decision are, just ordered my Elios in December.

What I would suggest:
- get open cell inside, it is nice and warm
- get nylon outside to protect the suite
- which neoprene you want depends on your budget, but for the beginning you probably di not need the fancy expensive stuff
- You can have camo nylon outside or simply blach with coloured sewing, just as you like. I got black with orange sewing and it looks nice
- I selected high waste for extra warmth on my belly
- As long as you do not go into ice water for long I would almost tend to get 6mm instead, because every extra mm makes it stiff and harder to get into. For that I always need my buddy, because I can't even get into my 6mm on my own

For the measuring:
- be as accurate as possible
- maybe add an extra centimeter for neck cirumferrence, so it does not choke
- I believe I should have added another cm to the chest or shoulders to make the get-into more comfortable
- dont make arms and legs too long, you will be wearing neopren sochs and gloves anyway

I hope that helps for the start

you can visit the Elios site for some more ideas and colors and patterns...

I have the black shadow and like it a lot, but have no experience with the other material. Maybe in a big shop they can advise you better on what to get, or if there is a suitable cheaper alternative to the Elios.
It took me over a month to make all the decisions.

Hey Lambe,

You should send an email to the guys at Elios. IME they are very helpful in explaining the differences between neoprene types, etc.

Some thoughts though:

For freediving, IME lining makes suits noticeably less stretchy, which means less comfort. It also means more water entry is possible, which means that the suit can feel colder.

OTOH, nylon covering makes the suit much tougher, especially if you're going to be sliding across rocks, concrete, and other rough areas.

So the cost of owning a nylon-lined suit can be lower, because the suit will last longer, even if you spend a little more in the beginning.

I personally have learned to use wetsuit glue to fix holes & tears in suits, so I don't mind getting the occasional "wardrobe malfunction" with a smoothskin suit. I think the extra comfort & warmth of smoothskin suits makes it worthwhile putting up with the durability issues. Others don't mind nylon lining at all.

Different neoprenes have different softness, density & stretch. Yamamoto 45 is very soft & very stretchy, but will have lower durability than the Heiwa, for example. This is why you should write to the Elios people & get their feedback on what material will work best for the kind of diving you want to do, and for your budget constraints.

Lambe, in order to be able to sort out the best material, you need to know what you find important in gear and stuff in general.

Maybe you've got a mountainbike, how is your setup?
When you buy clothes, what kind of clothes you buy for spare time?
When you buy tools, what kind of tools you like?
When you create or build something yourself, what do you find important in your design?

There are other factors to consider:

-environment (pool, open sea, lakes, rocks etc.)
-depth
-type of use (training/comp/recreational/spearfishing)
-your bodytype and fat/mass ratio.
-the delicacy you generally handle you gear with. Some people treat much stuff in a careless unrefined, sensless manner, like abrupt pulls and nail use.

Typically a beginner starts out with a cheaper, durable, training/rec suit.

I started out with a 4,5mm sandwich (neoprene type) suit (D'assault apnée 2000) I bought 2nd hand. The suit fitted pretty tight, but the smooth skin exterior made it pretty fast and the open cell inside did provide sufficient warmth for ~ 1 hour in 19c water (surface, @ 6m it was like 12c...).

When you get a handle on these questions, you can serve the DB community with the question and maybe find a nice fitting cheap 2nd hand that fills your needs.


Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

ps:

@SRoss, Thanks for your generous advise. Though I must admit your abbreviations are a kind of hard for me to comprehend and read, remember we're merely pretending being a part of the Anglo Saxon world

Kars said:

@SRoss, Thanks for your generous advise. Though I must admit your abbreviations are a kind of hard for me to comprehend and read, remember we're merely pretending being a part of the Anglo Saxon world

Click to expand...

Hi Kars,

Thanx (sic ) for the note, I'll keep you non-English folks in mind in the future.

IME = In My Experience

OTOH = On The Other Hand (i.e., considering the opposite side of the question)

Actually, in a sense both the English the Netherlands people are a part of the larger Anglo-Saxon world. In their day the Saxons occupied what is now the region around Sachsen state in Germany, next to the North part of the Netherlands, and their neighbours to the North, in what is now Denmark, were the Angles.

In the 4th century groups of Saxon, Angle and Jute people migrated into the coastal areas of what is now the Netherlands and North-West Germany, where the original occupants, the Frisii, had suffered a population collapse for reasons that the historians still debate. The mingling of those people with the remnants of the Frisii gave rise to the present-day Frieslanders, and their language (or languages, depending on which linguist you listen to) and the Frieslanders made a big contribution to the the future Nederlands language, and vice versa.

It was in the 5th century that Saxons and Angles (and yes, some Jutes) began migrating to what would become England, bringing their language with them, and mingling with Old Norse speakers and Celtic and the Latin that still remained from the Roman occupation gave rise to Old English, which in its day sounded surprisingly similar to the Frysk language of our time.

So there's a lot of common roots, just on opposite sides of the North Sea. Still, though, English is a pretty obfuscative language, so the natives should try to be as clear as possible . . . or alternatively, you can just apply the Guinness Solution :friday which removes any need to understand what is going on