With two hoods and two layers of thick latex gloves I think it would be correct to say that I was not very comfortable but loving the feeling of the slippery fabric and its crackly noise especially now I was literally trapped. Over the top of this I thought I had better warm things up a bit more by putting on a Beaufort thickly insulated hooded and gloved orange survival suit. At this point and after a good 3/4 hour dressing process I was seriously hot and also unable to get out of the two base layers drysuits. The gloves on this survival suit are three fingered and also insulated with thick neoprene. Once inside this suit and it is zipped up to the nose it is absolutely air tight and very hot even when i stepped into the garden where the temparature was only 5 degrees. Breathing through your mouth is impossible as is speaking. No wonder oilrig workers do not have to wear these suits when they travle by helicopter these days. Inside the tight confines of the neoprene hood my latex hooded ears had become filled with moisture and sort of vacumn packed themselves. Hearing anything but my breathing and the crackling of the nylon was now also almost impossible. Holding anything was also very difficult as the gloves are 3mm thick on top of two pairs of thick latex gloves. After an hour of wearing this suit around the house and garden which was amazing I had to admit that I probably needed to take it off as I was sweating liberally and feeling faint with the heat. Even after I managed to finally get the suit off I was now so hot that it was another1 1/4 hours of total discomfort waiting for the car to return so i could get the magnetic key and undo the segufix lock and get out of the 2nd drysuit. I am not sure I have ever been this hot and sweaty inside two full drysuits before. When I eventually got to the point of removing the last totally waterproof layer later on the feet were so full of liquid I needed to stand over the drain in the bath to get rid of it. What did please me was the liquid had not leaked out of the henri lloyd drysuit hood and gloves layer at all. Clean up was therefore the inside of 1 suit and me.
The black drysuit has been made by me using 2 layers of heavy 20 oz neoprene coated nylon and sailmakers stitching with treble stiched seams along with extra wide seam taping inside to make sure it is very very strong. The rear shoulder zip which is airtight if also protected with another zip and the sliders for these zips can be locked to a special flap I have stitched on securely to the suit. Once locked in there is abolutely no way to get out unless you have knife and using a knife would be difficult due to extra thick chemical gloves that have been glued to the suits cuffs. Even cutting this fabric with scissors was difficult when i made the suit originally. The fabric is so tough. The only thing you cna do is put the hood down if you need to. This is difficult/impossible with thickly gloved hands.
See pictures.
