Hi, If you are considering inflating a drysuit, one problem is that because the BA holds the top close to your body you end up inflating the legs. I have seen people float upside down in a drysuit unable to get their head to the surface because they forgot to purge the dry suit of air. This happene...

The wind would take you for miles though.... Then you'll be interested in the skeg/rudder kit that I'm selling at a time-limited price of.... The only problem I can think of with the idea is that, unlike diving suits, quality surface drysuits are breathable. When searching for leaks on my Goretex s...

I took the plunge and bought a selection of 8 different sized Ortlieb bags (PD350 with valves) which came to £120 on the cheapest online vendor I could find. Go Outdoors would only have been marginally more expensive, but only if you've paid for their membership card (and I can never bring myself to...

Here's another invention that should earn me millions: a little oral-inflate tube fitted somewhere near the neck of your drysuit. (Before anyone gets excited: I'm not proposing this as an alternative to a BA or lifejacket - just as an additional layer of protection.) After surfacing from a scuba div...

I kayak a lot and have tried loads of different drybag brands. Last year I scrapped them all in favour of Ortlieb - I reckon you can't beat them. ... I'd previously discounted Ortlieb as my only experience of them is their cycle panniers, which are excellent but made me think their products would b...

There's neoprene and neoprene... Just before Christmas, I did a 2-hour dive and, as usual, my neoprene neck-seal didn't let in a drop (unlike my crotch, foot and hip...) If you get the stretchy sort which has a smooth rubber surface against your skin, you get a wide band of adhesion to your neck, as...

Thanks for all the replies. It was well worth asking as I at least now know that there aren't any 'buy and forget' solutions if you want a small, stowable dry bag. I hated the idea of throwing away the junk dry bags I've already bought, so I'm instead going to buy some of the suggested lightweight b...

Having just searched, there doesn't appear to have been a thread on drybags for a couple of years, so I started this as I'm in the market for some new ones and want to know about any good deals currently available. Over the years, I've picked up some budget junk from Mountain Warehouse, Trespass and...

If Hammond drysuits have been recommended by Sweet and System X, then you can't go wrong using them. However, re. your concerns about companies that haven't got experience with Goretex: I've been buying/repairing old Goretex suits for a couple of years and I can confirm they're exactly the same to w...

Very common problem with latex neck seals but only affects some people - it's your skin reacting to the latex and it will only get worse the more you use it. My neck used to end up bleeding after repeatedly using my first diving drysuit over a short period of time. People will suggest using all sort...

I'm similar dimensions to you so ended up buying a Perception Madness as it was one of the few boats I found that I comfortably fitted into. It's a bit of an all-rounder: okay for most things but not exceptional at anything. Perfect for a paddler of my limited ambition.

I've swapped out many seals on drysuits - usually going from latex to neoprene in the neck, but have done the other way too, as well as replacing seals on odd stuff, including Reed's Aquatherm material which feels a lot like glide skin. I've found that two-part drysuit glue has always worked - just ...

The zip lube depends on what you've got. E.g a Tizip plastic zip is only supposed to be lubed at the 2cm 'dock' section where it finally closes. (I use Tizip lubricant, which is probably just silicone grease, but you ought to check before using that.) If it's metal, then you lube the teeth all the w...

I think there’s one on eBay at the moment Yep, Nick Gates posted a link to that one above. The seller doesn't know what it is and isn't getting much interest. I was tempted to send them some more info via an eBay message so they could advertise it better, but decided to stay out of it as that might...

How would they have made the apex on the foredeck that pronounced without the ply fracturing I don't think you could make it from a single unscored piece of ply. I suspect they've either used two pieces or they've deeply scored a single sheet of ply in the middle and cracked/folded it along that li...

It's unlikely that the OP will reply - he was only active on this forum one day over a year ago when he posted the advert.

All the PLBs I've seen have been waterproof and completely plastic - i.e. nothing to corrode in salt-water. My model (McMurdo FastFind Max) has only one potential failure point as far as the waterproofing goes - the battery terminals. This model has a user-replaceable battery, which you screw onto t...

Then it sounds like your boat turns in the direction you're edging towards, the same as my low-decked boat. This would make sense if you're talking about your Anas Acuta as my Greenland boats are Shrikes, for which Nick pinched the dimensions from the same historical boat that the Anas Acuta is base...

Now I know that I may well be out on a limb here, but I really don`t get this idea that you should edge / lean outwards to turn a sea kayak. When people discuss the topic of leaning-away edging turns on sea kayaks, they're not talking about dynamic turns like breaking in/out of an eddy. They're tal...

Yep, shouldn't have said fill the suit with water. I just block off the neck and wrists and pour about an arm full (Hancock reference there to match your Laurel and Hardy) and zip it up. Then you can slosh it around inside the suit to find all the holes.

I can't help with chemical re-proofing as I've never had any success with it, whether it be on tents, motorbike clothing or drysuits/cags. However, it's worth investigating whether you've got individual holes in your suit, as opposed to the material going porous. I've been buying used military drysu...

I would have bitten but I just can't get past the 'hypothetical' bit.

I wouldn't want a tall mast on my kayak as it would get damaged eventually. Would it be possible to keep a coil of antenna wire on you which you could screw into your VHF in place of the stumpy antenna when needed? Then you'd somehow fix the other end to your main paddle blade and hold it up, or fix...

There has been similar discussion on here previously about sticking velcro inside boats - my suggestion there was to use superglue and accelerant, as an extremely cheap, quick and bomb-proof way of doing it. When it comes to foam, I've only recently discovered a glue that does a perfect bond, i.e. y...

Yes - The system alerts the rescue authorities nearest to you when you hit the red button: https://cospas-sarsat.int/en/beacon-ownership/what-happens-when-i-activate-my-beacon If you search for COSPAS on Wikipedia, their entry includes a list of the 44 countries which participate in the system. (You...

The nearest thing to what you're after that I've owned was a Decathlon cag that I bought in France similar to this: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/s500-mens-jacket-blue-orange-id_8383868.html?_cclid=v3_d2ef805c-f38a-5e25-8bc3-2c306350ea07&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3KzdBRDWARIsAIJ8TMSLu5vr6ifx6hH1KtGijoDo5SjaMjo9gi...

(Damo is a nickname for use on forums etc) Right - didn't realise you could get those cuff things retrofitted. Good luck trialling that glue - if it works, let us know. Re. neoprene v. latex: neoprene seals used to be rubbish, as I discovered many years ago when I was learning to dive using the scho...

When you say neoprene cuffs, are we talking wrist seals? If so, you put those on the same way you would latex seals. The only difference is that you might want to put one or two extra layers of contact adhesive on the neoprene because it's a rougher, more absorbent surface. I've got one neoprene and...

There's no harm in trying this glue, but given the hassle you have in getting seals changed, I think the best long-term solution would be to learn how to do them yourself. One of my ex-colleagues was a lifeboatman, and he took me down the lifeboat station where the guy that looks after their kit sho...

Does the glue stop UV? Could the glue itself attack your seals? Would the glue affect how well the seals work - e.g. make them a bit stiffer and less able to form a tight seal around your wrist? What's the cost/benefit analysis like? I.e. how much does the glue cost? How much of a hassle would it be...