Per Moby Dick:
From my previous posts regarding kayaking near Stockholm, Sweden, some
of you have suggested I may need to get a wet suit or a dry suit. What
are the tradeoffs of each? I suppose I could have done a google search
on the topic but thought I'd ask this group first.....

I'll start it off.

Wet Suit:
-------------------------------------------
- Harder to get on/off
- Bulletproof. No seals to rip. No issues with
shipping water - it's already wet in there.
- Bruise protection from the foam rubber
- Streamlined when you have to swim
- No self-BS: It's either 5mm or 3mm or whatever
- Depending on the suit, may have less freedom
of motion than a dry suit


Bag-Style Dry Suit:
-------------------------------------------
- Easy on/easy off
- If you rip a neck seal, you it can spoil your day
- Ditto if you forget to zip the shoulder zipper. For
that reason, I'd only consider a diagonal-zippered
dry suit like my Kokatat.
- If you ship enough water, the insulation factor goes
down the toilet and, if the weight of your soaked
Polartec is enough and you have to, say, right a
capsized catamaran you can be in deep, deep kimchee.
- Seals last anywhere from one year to a max of three
or four years - then they have to be replaced.
Figure $150 minimum for ankles + wrists + neck.
- No bruise protection
- Negative streamlining
- Finely-tunable thermal protection. You can wear a log
or a little underneath. The downside of is
the self-BS factor...
- There's a self-BS factor: you can kid yourself and wear
enough under it to be comfortable paddling but
be insufficient to survive immersion long enough
- Good freedom of motion in upper body, but there can be
a vacuum pack effect on the legs when immersed - and if
the material is hanging the wrong way (as in the crotch
is too low) your mobility can be severely limited - as
in unable to get to your feet in shore break.


Full Neo Dry Suit
-----------------------------------------------
- Pretty much bulletproof if you don't forget to zip
the shoulder zipper - but even then you're covered
in rubber.
- Easier on/off than a wet suit - but not all that much
- Bruise protection as a wet suit
- Streamlining as a wet suit, but maybe a little less
- Better upper body mobility than a wet suit (assuming it's
made for windsurfing or paddling) but not as much as
a bag top.
- Again, no self-BS factor


Hybrid: Bag Top Neo John (e.g. Bare Polar)
-------------------------------------------------
- Somewhat fault-tolerant. If you rip a seal,
you're still wearing a neo john
- Supreme mobility. All the upper body mobility
of a full bag suit without the vacuum bag
effect.
- Better streamlining than a bag suit, probably
not as good as a wet suit or neo dry suit.
- Bruise protection for the lower body
- Less chance for self-BS bco the neo john.
You can still not wear enough under the top,
but can't go as far down that path as with
a bag suit.
--
PeteCresswell