In general most dry suits are cut rather large to fit
large ranges of bodies, and to allow room for bulky
underwear. DUI dry suits seem to be cut particularly
large as Jim G. and I have previously noted. The "cave
cut" drysuit is only applicable to DUI AFAIK.

In most of the Florida caves, the water is about 72
and you don't need bulky insulation, particularly if
you are swimming. Cave divers are concerned about
streamlining and drag since they are often doing long
dives against a flow. The TLS 350 is often used as a
caving suit as it is lightweight and sufficiently
durable for cave use.

So a cave cut (or custom cut for that matter) just
means a more closely fitting dry suit, probably sized
to allow for light weight underwear. I have a custom
cut CF 300 that is fine for lighter weight underwear,
but the thicker stuff doesn't work well with it. So it
is probably the equivalent of a cave cut. (Of course
one day the CF 300 will dry rot out on me, and I'll be
left with an expensive pile of neoprene. But that's a
different story!)

Jim G. may know how the "cave cut" originated. I
suspect that it is a WKPP/GI concept, but don't know
the history for sure.

Dick Long has been making dry suits for a long time,
and probably has learned that if a dry suit is too
small it always gets returned, while it may or may not
get returned if it is somewhat large. And a too-large
suit can be sized down and still be cosmetically
acceptable, while expanding a suit that is too small
will require more effort to achieve a good result.

Again, a DUI demo day is a good place to work sizing
and fit issues. They have them all over the country
and they are very well organized. Check out
http://www.dui-online.com/

Take care,
David H.

--- Lee Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Jim, I asked Strike earlier and, so far, have not
> seen a response.  Since
> you brough it up, I'll ask you too.  Discussions
> about cave cut drysuits
> always seem to presume that everybody knows what
> that means.  I don't.
>
> Explain please.
>
> Lee


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com