"Hanta-Yo-Yo" wrote in message
oups.com...

I did read some acct where a kayaker had a real dangerous incident
occur with a dry suit, where it had torn, and he could not recover from
a wet exit.

Your correct riverman, when you say you are equal mass with the
surrounding water, but that could put you on the bottom of the river,
bouncing along downstream and no way to resist the force of the water,

Why is that? The river water isn't all on the bottom. I didn't say you'd
have equal mass with the water (although that's basically correct), I said
you'd have neutral buoyancy...which is technically incorrect as you still
have your PFD on which provides positive buoyancy. The effect of a full
drysuit would be that you have more inertia: it would be hard to change
directions (so yes, when you are under the surface, it would be hard to get
to the top), but you would also find that once you were on the top, it would
take a slight bit longer to get dragged down under. Its like swimming in
molasses. Unfortunately, you still have the same amount of breath when you
DO go under, so the longer time spent below the surface would be very
serious. But there wouldn't be any special forces holding you to the
*bottom* of the river.

The problem with the open top waders, is that the waders act like a
drift anchor,

Only if there is a velocity differential between you and the current. If you
are free-floating, they don't act as a drift anchor at all. But once you try
to stop yourself, THEN they act like a drift anchor. Additionally, like a
drift anchor, they will tend to keep you in the faster current.

and forms a resistant force equal to the amount of water
displaced, and the velocity of the water, and I believe this force
would increase logrithmically. In other words it would get very large,
very fast.

Umm, actually a log curve flattens out pretty quickly. You may be thinking
that it increases exponentially, which does get very large, very fast.
Remember, you're talking to a HS math teacher here...and I'd have to give
you pretty low marks on your armwaving. g

No one holding on to a throw line would be able to pull you
out. You would eventually reach some sort of terminal velocity, that
would however be going alot faster than you would feel comfortable
with, and probably taking you where you did not intend to go. At least
not quite yet.

You'd end up going at the velocity of the river, which is the same velocity
you'd be going if you were nude. The difference is that you (or other
people) would find it extremely difficult to change your velocity, because
you'd basically have a mass three or four times your normal mass. When that
mass is multiplied by the velocity of the river, it'd be like trying to stop
the Queen Mary.

--riverman

river typed With waders, you can easily swim if they are filled with
water, with any
amount of water in them. In fact, its a bit easier to move if they have

large volumes of water in them, as the waders don't constrict your body
so
much. HOWEVER (and this is a big however), you cannot overappreciate
how
hard it is to climb out of the water with waders that are even
half-full of
water! I was completely unable to climb up the ladder out of the
shallow end
of the pool, and also completely unable to lay on my belly on the edge
of
the pool and roll onto land, which is the motion someone would use to
get
back in a raft. I could not even sit on the edge of the pool and lift
one
leg out of the water.

I can tell you from real experience that a flooded drysuit does not
effect your bouyancy, but it makes it very difficult to swim in
current. The problem is that you still have to overcome the moment the
additional weight of the water, think about swimming the length of a
pool with about 20 or 30 lbs of extra weight.

A drysuit is still well worth taking the chance of a flooded suit,
which generally only happens if you do something really stupid like
leave the relief zipper open. The addded safety under cold water and
weather paddling conditions are tremendous.

Per riverman:
When you are immersed in the water, you have neutral buoyancy...drysuit or
not, full or not, and moving water or not. If your suit is full of water,
you have much higher mass, therefore you cannot change direction, catch an
eddy, or hold on to a handhold so easily, but there shouldn't be any new
forces trying to submerge you.

I don't have any experience in moving water, but my take on a flooded dry suit
is that the two biggest problems a

- Cold. Most people don't wear neoprene under the suit, so once it's full
of water, you're practically naked. Not totally unless the suit is
flushing a lot, but close enough....

- Getting out of the water. I'd guess you can flop your torso over a boat,
but being able to lift a water-filled leg would seem impossible.


Couple years ago I read a survival story by a couple of HobieCat sailors.
They didn't even tear a seal or anything. They capsized the boat in heavy
air and, in repeated attempts to right it, managed to take in enough water
through the seals (like, I guess, when you make a fist and those little
channels open up around the wrist tendons...) that the PolarTec under the
suits became sufficiently saturated that they no longer had the strength
the clamber back up on the lower hull of the capsized catamaran. They said
that they would've been dead if a power boat hadn't finally come along.
--
PeteCresswell

Per Hanta-Yo-Yo:
I corresponded with various Dry suit designers, and ended up with a two
piece Palm for the exact reasons you are discussing. The wide waist
seal compartmentalizes the suit like a bulkhead. Also the suit can be
cut to a closer fit to minimalize the amount of volume inside the suit,
ie less water volume. You can vent water out of the suit if necessary,
and with ankle seals and booties. Cold wet feet can be a problem, not
being able to breathe a bigger problem!

With the two piece design, there are also no zippers to leak and need
replacing. And most important, You can go # 1 and # 2 without being
Houdini!

Before buying my Kokatat bag suit, I had a couple of Bare "Polar" dry suits.
These were basically a neoprene farmer john bonded to a nylon bag top. They
gave all the upper-body mobility I could ever want while providing floatation,
bruise-resistance, and streamlining (for swimming) on the bottom.

Only reasons I moved to the Kokatat we
-----------------------------------------
- The second Bare finally wore out,
- They'd changed the cut of the john in such a way that I didn't care for it,
- The whole suit was so heavy/warm that I needed a "spring suit" to supplement
it during the times when it was too warm for the Polar but too cold for just
shorts and a t-shirt.
-----------------------------------------

The Kokatat is nice, but I'm getting closer and closer to indulging a recurrent
fantasy of getting a glued-and-taped lightweight john plus one of those dry tops
that have an elastic waistband.

Seems to me like the john/dry top is the best of both worlds except for
entry/exit. You get the unlimited upper-body mobility, you get the
protection/floatation/streamlining of neoprene, and, even though you get the
drainability of ankle cuffs, drainability becomes a non-issue because the john
is a tight fit.

Also you get an acceptable degree of adjustability. You can wear just the john,
just the top, or both together with varying supplemental layers under the top.
You could even have two johns: something like 2mm and a 5mm for warm/cold water.

I always wear neo booties under my surf shoes anyhow to reduce bruising on my
feet, and maybe having calf zippers on the john would mitigate the remaining
entry/exit issue.
--
PeteCresswell

Per Larry C:
something really stupid like
leave the relief zipper open.

Have you ever heard of somebody doing this?

I read an account by one seemingly-competent guy of his paddling out on really
cold water only to realize that he'd gotten a half-mile-or-so offshore without
having zipped the shoulder zipper on his dry suit.
--
PeteCresswell

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...

I don't have any experience in moving water, but my take on a flooded dry
suit
is that the two biggest problems a

- Cold. Most people don't wear neoprene under the suit, so once it's full
of water, you're practically naked. Not totally unless the suit is
flushing a lot, but close enough....

- Getting out of the water. I'd guess you can flop your torso over a
boat,
but being able to lift a water-filled leg would seem impossible.



I think you have it 100% right.

--riverman

Pete Cresswell enquired

Per Larry C:


something really stupid like
leave the relief zipper open.


Have you ever heard of somebody doing this?

How do you think I know that it's hard to swim in a flooded drysuit
:^). If you did a search on the subject, you may still find the
archived
account of this unfortune incident. I haven't forgotten to check the
relief zipper since that incident though.

To comment on the other concern, if you are properly layered, you will
still stay fairly warm once you get the water out of the suit. On the
day that my suit flooded, I actually became mildly hypothermic, but
that was because of long term exposure to falling temperatures with a
strong wind in a wet environment. A women companion that was with me
that day was wearing a full goretex drysuit with proper layers
underneath, but she was also getting hypothermic before we got to where
we could get off the river.

On 19-Mar-2006, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

I finally got socks, but a reservation still nags at me.
Namely, if I flood the suit I'll be unable to drain
water at the ankle cuffs.

If your life is in danger, pull your knife and cut the booties open.

If you flood your drysuit by leaving the relief zipper open, it's probably
Murphy tapping you on the shoulder. Consider the cost of fixing the
suit his fee. If you have neglected maintenance and your seals fail,
ditto. If you tear the suit, I'd consider that a rare event - I've worn
lots of GoreTex clothing over the years and haven't ripped anything yet.
Those fabrics are pretty tough and my GoreTex drysuit (Stolquist) is at
least that tough. Since the odds are a tad long, cut and fix later - this
shouldn't be a recurring cost.

Mike

riverman wrote:
"Hanta-Yo-Yo" wrote in message
oups.com...

I did read some acct where a kayaker had a real dangerous incident
occur with a dry suit, where it had torn, and he could not recover from
a wet exit.

Your correct riverman, when you say you are equal mass with the
surrounding water, but that could put you on the bottom of the river,
bouncing along downstream and no way to resist the force of the water,

Why is that? The river water isn't all on the bottom. I didn't say you'd
have equal mass with the water (although that's basically correct), I said
you'd have neutral buoyancy...which is technically incorrect as you still
have your PFD on which provides positive buoyancy. The effect of a full
drysuit would be that you have more inertia: it would be hard to change
directions (so yes, when you are under the surface, it would be hard to get
to the top), but you would also find that once you were on the top, it would
take a slight bit longer to get dragged down under. Its like swimming in
molasses. Unfortunately, you still have the same amount of breath when you
DO go under, so the longer time spent below the surface would be very
serious. But there wouldn't be any special forces holding you to the
*bottom* of the river.

I did not mean to imply that you would necessarily be drug down, but
that you could find yourself bouncing along the bottom, and not able
to do much about it! Though you would still have your PFD on, that 15
Lbs of flotation would be a small percentage of your total weight, and
would not bring you to the surface very fast.

The problem with the open top waders, is that the waders act like a
drift anchor,

Only if there is a velocity differential between you and the current. If you
are free-floating, they don't act as a drift anchor at all. But once you try
to stop yourself, THEN they act like a drift anchor. Additionally, like a
drift anchor, they will tend to keep you in the faster current.

Again an undesirable situation if you are interested in getting out of
the water, which is usually the point.


and forms a resistant force equal to the amount of water
displaced, and the velocity of the water, and I believe this force
would increase logrithmically. In other words it would get very large,
very fast.

Umm, actually a log curve flattens out pretty quickly. You may be thinking
that it increases exponentially, which does get very large, very fast.
Remember, you're talking to a HS math teacher here...and I'd have to give
you pretty low marks on your armwaving. g


So you don't agree with using logs to descibe multitudes of energy
involved in hurricanes and earthquakes. Exponential works, Logs work!

No one holding on to a throw line would be able to pull you
out. You would eventually reach some sort of terminal velocity, that
would however be going alot faster than you would feel comfortable
with, and probably taking you where you did not intend to go. At least
not quite yet.

You'd end up going at the velocity of the river, which is the same velocity
you'd be going if you were nude. The difference is that you (or other
people) would find it extremely difficult to change your velocity, because
you'd basically have a mass three or four times your normal mass. When that
mass is multiplied by the velocity of the river, it'd be like trying to stop
the Queen Mary.

I do not recall saying that you would be going faster than the river,
but as you say as fast as the rest of the river. In a dry suit, that is
compromised and taking on water, you could easily take on ten gallons
of water that would weigh 80 lbs additionally. If you have ever tried
wading across deep rushing water, you know it is difficult. Try putting
on an additional 80 lbs and see how well you do.

Waders on the other hand could easily take on 20 gallons, or 160 lbs,
now you are in real trouble trying to wade that stream. Get knocked
down, and try getting up. Add to this the volume of water could be
larger than the 10 and 20 gallons, and the velocity could be faster
than where you would try to fjord, and the problems just get worse, and
the prognosis for successful self recovery less.

Also at the same time, as pointed out later in the thread, you are
getting colder all the time. The shock to vital organs and the lowering
of core temps can result in catastrophic outcome. I heard recently, "
50% of folks can't swim 50 ft to a near shore when the water temp is 50
degrees or below! Now add the extra weight and see how well you do! HYY

--riverman

Brian Nystrom wrote:

You could glue cuffs one with Aquaseal or a similar adhesive/sealant.

Good advice. Aquaseal is also recommended to glue on neck and wrist
gaskets, plus booties if you choose booties instead of ankle gaskets.
As Pete said, use circular plastic containers of appropriate size
to stretch the latex gaskets before glueing.

Nobody has mentioned it, so I'll add this: after every trip, spray
all latex gaskets with 303 Protectant, especially on the inside where
salt-perspiration degrades the latex. Doing this will prolong latex
by a factor of 3-5x.

Good idea. Latex socks are vastly superior to ankle seals.

And Goretex (or equivalent) socks are vastly superior to latex socks
for longevity, unless you never stand up and don't walk anywhere
with your drysuit on. My latex socks never lasted more than a year,
always failing at the crease, but I walk a lot while boating.

My relief zipper leaks, as I've said here before. One time I had to
stand in armpit-high water to help perform a rescue. Afterwards it
was necessary to remove my entire drysuit, an turn it inside out
to empty about half a liter of water per foot.

If you "burp" your drysuit after putting it on, the amount of water
that comes in isn't really that much. Leaving the relief zipper open
is mainly a problem because the drysuit unburps itself.

That said, a rafter on the Illinois river (Oregon) in flood stage
once died in a long swim, probably owing to torn neck gasket, which
had been repaired with duct tape at put-in.