How long for wet suit to break in?

[ezcompany]

hey guys,
How many dives does it take for a wetsuit to break in?
I have quite a handful of dives now and don't feel as bouyant as before, and am thinking that the weights are maybe just a tad heavy on my 2 piece suit. I have 18 lbs of weight at the moment, time to switch down to 16lbs?

[ApneaAddict]

If you think you're too heavy, you're probably too heavy. If you're wearing a 5mm, both 18 and 16 sound like too much to me, but I don't know your body type. If you've got a 7mm, then 16-18 is in the ball park. Better to err on the side of too light than too heavy, generally. But at the end of the day, you've really gotta decide what works for you.

[ezcompany]

i'm around 160 lbs, and its a 2 piece 7mm.

[Chris Oak]

I'm not sure what you mean by "break in" Enufa. If you are talking about flexibility, a good suit should be fairly flexible from the get go. If you are talking about being less bouyant, then it means the suit is compressing and will not be as warm as when you got it. On some suits the older they get the stiffer they get.

What kind of suit is it? In my spetton 7mm farmer john I wear a whopping 26 lbs of weight. In my JMJ 7mm with hooded vest I'm 23, with hood only I'm 20 lbs. I like to be neutral at 15-20 feet if I'm diving deeper, shallower dives I like to be negative earlier. Just make sure you aren't too negative when you are diving deep, nothing is scarier than being deeper than you normally go and kicking and not making much progress.

[scotty_rez]

Maybe you're just getting more comfortable in the water and diving deeper and requiring less weight? Thats what has ended up happening with me. I weigh 200-210 and I wear 15lbs in my 5mm but at the beginning of the season I was wearing 20lbs and diving shallower. I'm definitely no expert though.

Scott

[ezcompany]

hey chris
its the riffe 7mm
its flexible for sure, so by break in i guess i meant being compressed?

[Nelson Kwok]

Your wetsuit shouldn't be "breaking in" on you anytime soon if you are taking care of it properly. I've worn my new suit over a dozen times with zero change in bouyancy.

[Bob Ballew]

depends on how many times you pee in it...mine takes 2 days if the water is cold.. as far as I know, wetsuits don't "break in"...you either get fatter and they are tight or you lose weight and they slip on easier....play with weight ajustments to be neutral at your comfortable cruising depth in open water...add more when you dive up shallow along the coast...a couple of quick removal weights will solve any problems...

[matt mattison]

I guess I dive heavy I weigh 155 and wear a 7mill riffe and use 22lbs and I feel perfect ! but then again I raley go over 35ft mosty 10 to 30ft

[ApneaAddict]

Originally Posted by matt mattison

I guess I dive heavy I weigh 155 and wear a 7mill riffe and use 22lbs and I feel perfect ! but then again I raley go over 35ft mosty 10 to 30ft

I definitely over generalized. The weights I stated are what works for me with an average max depth of ~60 feet. Everyone is different and has their own preferred weighting scenario. Edit: I'm pretty sure I have 18lbs on my belt right now for my 7mm Beuchat suit. With my 5mm, I usually do 14 or 15lbs.

I prefer to be weighted so that I am always buoyant (meaning I can exhale every last bit out of my lungs and still float). I find this helps me to relax during my breath up. It is also what the PFI instructors recommend for safety reasons: if you happen to black out below the surface when over weighted, you might sink back to the bottom where your chances of recovery are slim. If you black out when weighted so that you are quite buoyant, you're more likely to float to the surface where a buddy can spot you (assuming that you're attempting to dive the buddy system, but the kelp limits things so that you can only keep an eye on each other on the surface).

[one_drake]

Nothing is worse than having to work so hard to get down and then float up while stalking, except being down and having to work so hard to get to the surface to breathe. After recently learning about some of PFI's theorys i am going with lower weight these days...

[ApneaAddict]

Originally Posted by one_drake

Nothing is worse than having to work so hard to get down and then float up while stalking, except being down and having to work so hard to get to the surface to breathe. After recently learning about some of PFI's theorys i am going with lower weight these days...

I hold on to the kelp stalks. When moving through thick help, I feel a bit like Tarzan- going from kelp stalk to kelp stalk. When doing a deep drop (45+) in kelp, I try to find a nice thick stalk to pull my way down. Saves a lot of O2. Works well for hunting vermillion rockfish and lingcod, but probably not so hot for wsb and halibut...

[toptuna]

Man 7mm I wear 26lbs.

[MiguelT]

Originally Posted by Chris Oak

I'm not sure what you mean by "break in" Enufa. If you are talking about flexibility, a good suit should be fairly flexible from the get go.

That was my bad on the terminology. I told him to use a bit more weight until it was "broken in" so that he'd be neutral at about 15, by which I meant it's not that it gets less buoyant, it's that it loses some of that new suit stiffness while at the same time a little more weight makes diving down and hunting at 10-15ft in the shallows for a new diver a lot easier.

Looks like now that the suit's lost the stiffness and the dives are getting deeper it's time to drop some pounds, plus I'm sure us getting rolled by big swell in sea urchin country helped soften the suit up a bit

[davej]

Never heard of suits needing breaking in. If anything the newer the suits the more flexible as the rubber has not compressed or filled with dirt. I know that when I wash my surf suits they always feel more flexible but not like when they were new. As for weight I wear a 5mm riffe with 22# and neutral at 18 feet.