There is one simple reason to _never_ use your drysuit for buoyancy control: Safety Your drysuit is designed to keep you dry, but it can fail, and a flooded drysuit is not designed to be able to be purged from water intrusion. Your BCD has multiple venting points specifically designed to be purge water intrusion, and can still provide adequate lift even when full of water. Additionally BCD's are also made of much more durable material, and are therefore less likely to fail. I agree with you, when you are starting out the instinct is to use the suit to control your buoyancy, but you have far less control. Open your suits autovent to full open and learn to tilt your arm to release air from the suit. Add gas to your suit to adjust for compression as you descend, but always use your BCD for controlling your buoyancy.

My experience with a drysuit emphasized proper ballast weighting and the associated aux equipment. I always used a dedicated argon inflation supply for the suit with a wing BCD and double steel LP cylinders. The wing BCD did eliminate the rollover problem. The LP's are about as neutral as you can get a back gas supply to be. I never did any dives in cold or deep water that did not need the wing and doubles, plus a 80% deco bottle, so I can't recommend a single cylinder setup. In SW with a 7mm wet suit, I normally take 13# to be just about neutral at the surface and about 5# more with a drysuit. My suit was custom made to measure but I still had a problem with suit air migrating to my lower body. Adding gaiters did help. I did get really proficient in the tuck and roll. The suit was trimmed to keep a slight squeeze and the BCD did the actual compensation, biased more to the suit at depth. I'd never do a full dive without being progressively trained on every bit of gear and I'd never task a suit to be a BCD. Then only with it all in place, checked for function and cross-checked, would I step off. A lot of this is my training, NAUI & TDI, and my preferences. Stay safe.

BCD. Adding additional air to a drysuit to get positive buoyancy and your trim will go and you rock and roll all over the place.

Hi, I have been using dry suits for almost 20 years and I also teach using them. I teach and use the dry suit as bouyancy for two reasons. 1 If you use the BCD you will be able to use less air in the suit which means less insulation If you are correctly weighted you will never end up with too much air in your suit. My suit is still a bit squeezed when I am perfectly bouyanced. 2. If you use air in both your BCD and suit, in case of an unwanted acend, or if you for some reason need raise up or move a bit shallower fast you will have to control the expanding air in both the BCD and the suit which is an unnecessary risk. To minimize the risk of getting air in your boots you see to that you get the correct size as well as filling the space with thick socks. Lastly it is important to learn and practice how to control the air in the suit, if you get too much air in your boots you should by reflex dip your feet in order for the air to leave the boots, getting light feet should never come as a surprise. Standing on your head in a dry suit for watching small critter, filming or taking photos is not a problem if you control the air in the suit. None of my students, dive buddies or another diver in the same group have never rushed to the surface with their feet first after completed the training in the course. Some have experienced light feet of course but the have handled it before it has become an issue. It all comes down to practice and always react fast on "light" feet.

I’m currently taking the PADI drysuit course the way my instructor is teaching me starting out is on the surface use bcd on the bottom use drysuit! However if the drysuit malfunctions then use your BCD so technically you use both depending on the situation! Drysuit fails switch over to BCD to ascend but use drysuit to prevent suit squeeze and control buoyancy on the bottom

I think this question depends on what temperature your diving. If you diving in Canada but learned in the tropics, you should use your suit for buoyancy. But this also depends on how warm your undergarments can keep you, if your using neoprene or trilam, etc. This also depends on your tolerance to being cold or feeling freezing.

Hey. Till about 30m I only use my drysuit for trimming, deeper use my wing.

Nurkuję od ok. 25 lat, prawie zawsze w zimnych wodach, z czego ponad 23 lata w suchym skafandrze. Jest taka zasada: jeżeli nie ma jakichś przepisów, algorytmów postępowania to należy oprzeć się nawet na instrukcji obsługi, w tym przypadku od suchego skafandra. Chyba żadna instrukcja nie podaje, że ten jest lub powinien być podstawowym źródłem pływalności. Za to dopuszcza się, jak najbardziej, wykorzystywanie go jako alternatywne - zapasowe źródło wyporu. Ma nam zapewniać komfort na dwóch płaszczyznach: termiczny i ciśnieniowy. Nie po to stworzono skrzydła w kształcie tzw. oponki w celu umożliwienia swobodnego przepływu powietrza, dla ułatwienia trymu, żeby utrzymywać neutralną pływalność dzięki skafandrowi, bo tak uczą w PADI...

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Loved the beautiful nudibranchs on your dive👍

I am a drysuit instructor, and have used drysuits for nearly 20 years, I have never taught any student to use his/her drysuit for buoyancy. The function of a drysuit is to keep you dry and warm. Your BCD controls buoyancy. Almost everything you said about a drysuit is wrong.