As a professional Technical Diving Instructor and active cave diver I spend a considerable amount of my year travelling to the far corners of the globe to teach, or on expedition. Either way it always involves a journey with a large amount of equipment. Whatever I am doing, two things are paramount to ensure that I achieve my objective.

Firstly I never compromise on the quality and reliability of the equipment used. On many trips replacement is impossible so if repairs are needed, they must be simple and fast using minimum spares and tools. An excellent case in point has been the work I’ve done on the Russian Projects. I’ve been privileged to be lead diver on several cave diving expeditions to remote regions of both the Ural and Caucus mountains. These ventures
invariably involved many days travel by extreme and unusual modes of transport such as raft and snowmobile, which created the need for even greater levels of self sufficiency.

The second factor I scrutinize is that of weight and packed size. When packing my equipment I not only need to take into account luggage allowance on commercial flights, but also how am I going to get my kit to the exploration site. Having landed, it is quite normal to repack everything so that it fits into manageable sized bags for remote location transport.

Three years ago I started diving a Signature Series cave cut TLS drysuit. This membrane suit specifically appealed to me because I dive in a variety of water temperatures, and the TLS allows me to multi layer my under
garments as required.

The very first thing I noticed when picking up the suit was the weight - when compared to most drysuits, it’s very light. Instead of bulky heavy boots being attached permanently to the suit legs, lightweight sole less neoprene socks are fitted. (When diving, Rock Boots are donned over the top of the socks to provide protection for the feet and good traction when climbing ladders or walking over rough terrain). For me, the fact that the boots are not permanently attached proved to be incredibly useful, as the suit can be rolled up tight for packing, so that it takes up a very small space. This made the TLS just perfect for transporting through dry sections of cave on expedition, or squeezing into precious luggage space when flying.

I must admit that when first trying on this super lightweight low bulk suit, I was sceptical as to its strength and longevity capabilities. I dived my first TLS for two years, solidly teaching technical courses, averaging 200 dive days each year, with 3 hours dive time per day. During this time I was never disappointed - my suit did not let me down once.

I have the ‘Zip Lock’ cuff and neck system fitted, which I found indispensable. When a seal wore out I was able to self fit a new one, in the field, in seconds. On one occasion we were several hours out at sea, when during suit-up the neck seal spit. This simple feature allowed me to quickly replace the seal and get on with the dive.

I then tested the suit to the next level of robustness by taking it on my 2005 Ural mountain cave trip. This involved travelling by raft down a remote river gorge. With luggage space at a premium on the three rafts, the TLS proved ideal as it rolled down into a small dry bag. During this expedition we dived a series of small tight (British Style) caves in side mount configuration. Despite the abrasive characteristics of crawling through tight underwater and dry sections of cave, again the TLS did not let me down. This was just as well as we finished the trip by conducting a deep and long resurgence dive with multiple cylinders and decompression.

One of the other significant advantages of the suit was the fact that it’s extremely thin construction meant that the suit offered no buoyancy changes and issues, and no thermal protection. The later may at first sound like a distinct disadvantage until you consider it more closely. By providing no thermal protection the diver is left with the ability to infinitely vary their insulation by multi layering the underwear. From a single thin base layer when diving in the Red Sea to a thin mid layer for long cave dives in Florida. During the summer I combined base and mid layers when UK wreck diving, choosing to don a four layer system for the three plus hour exposures in 2°C water in the Russian winter. As for buoyancy characteristics, the lack of any is perfect for Technical diving.
With no compression little weight is needed to descent, and, as there is no compression once submerged the diver does not become excessively heavy at depth.

Over the years I have been privileged to dive in many different suits and thermal systems. I found when the build quality, attention to detail, innovation and design of the TLS to be exceptional. Its robust nature is impressive, especially when you consider the weight and lack of bulk. In my opinion the TLS, when dived with a multi layer thermal insulation system, to be the most suited to my current professional and personal diving applications.

Phill Short
www.philshorttechnical.co.uk