Imported post
Hi,
I had ignored this thread, but in an idle moment at work, I obviously read it.
We have been round this one several times in the past, but;
there are a couple of realities we have to deal with, once we have a twin set, two stages, a canister torch, two reels a spare mask and Uncle Tom Cobley attched to us there is bugger all chance that the suit alone will give enough lift to get to the surface (I know the DIR boy's will argue - don't bother). Once this realisation hits you, you change your style, I did.
I touch the autodump 4 times each dive, it is wide open when I jump in, pretty much as soon as I start decending I close it a couple of twists, I have it set so under normal conditions no air gets out, but, if I need to dump some I just kinda give myself a hug (cos I luv me) and it will let some out.
Once down I fly the wing, much better control, plus the design of the wing holds me in a nice comfy position, as opposed to haveing loads of gas in the suit slopping around. There is enough in the suit to remove the squeeze.
At the end of the bottom time, I throw up the blob and take a twist off the dump, this for the most part allows the excess gas out on the way up, with the occaisional hug.
At 6M like Mark I dump air out the wing and fill the suit. We have had to sit there for a considerable time, you are not moving about much, it gets cold, air is a better insulator than no air.
As for Argon, I have it, the critical thing is to remove the air out of your suit, if you do that then it makes a huge difference, I now dive a compressed neo suit with a very thin under suit and have kept quite warm. Though to be honest I have not had to do a long hang this winter so I don't know how I would feel after that. Most people who use Argon don't vent the suit at the begining, this is the reason I have the dump fully open when I jump in and only close it when I begin to feel a squeeze.
Take care all,
Andrew