The Dry Suit Learning Curve and How I Survived
The Dry Suit Learning Curve and How I Survived It
a Carolina Paddler Article
by Casey Mason
∞ I like the outdoors. I worked at a canoe livery in high school. During and after college I worked as a zipline and climbing instructor for kids. After moving to Colorado in 2016, I learned to roll while volunteering with the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Denver. Summers were spent on a tube in Clear Creek and the South Platte because we didn’t have air conditioning. I would watch the paddlers in play boats and dreamed of joining them.
It wasn’t until I moved to North Carolina that I bought my first real whitewater boat. A Dagger Katana 9.7 crossover so I could do flatwater with friends and family, while keeping the whitewater dream alive. Kudos to the folks at Get Outdoors in Greensboro for being super welcoming and helpful – a theme you’ll see throughout this story.
Skip forward to late 2025. I went to the Optimist Pool roll sessions in Raleigh with the intent to meet people and to gain more confidence in my boat. I joined the Carolina Canoe Club a few days later and on November 8th, asked in the CCC Discord gear chat “what’s the must-have equipment and what are the nice-to-haves?” Among other items, a full dry suit was often mentioned as a buy-soon item. I started looking online and at the next roll session I arrived with a ton of questions. Stan Cole and Alton Chewning were two of the people there, and they patiently took the time to teach.
Pausing for a second. Without people being willing to answer “noobie” questions, this narrative basically stops here.
Ok, back to it. Armed with helpful input I started looking at NRS, Kokatat, and Immersion Research for dry suits. On December 15, while doom-scrolling the web, I saw NRS was having a clearance sale, an extra 20% off. The Axiom drysuit was on closeout for almost $600 off.
Still, I felt uneasy about spending that much money without being able to try it on at a local outfitter. I shared the screenshot in the CCC Discord chat and received positive feedback. During my lunch break at work, I called NRS with a long list of questions and spoke with a rep. The biggest issue was my body specs were between the drysuit sizes. The rep said, “Buy both sizes, and return one later on.” Not thinking this was an option, I asked, “Even with it being a closeout item???” To my surprise, the answer was still the same – which speaks volumes about NRS in my opinion.
Once the dry suits arrived, I was beyond excited. The first one pulled from the box was the Medium. Without hesitation, I unzipped the cross body closure and put it on. As I slipped the gasket over my head, I realized I had made a big mistake. Within seconds, I started tugging at the neck and hollering to my wife for help. The gasket and collar were literally suffocating me. I had never tried putting anything on this tight-fitting before, and I was struggling to get it off.
Beet red, and in a panic, it took the two of us over a minute to extract my head from the gasket and back into the main part of the suit. Later that evening, I told Ally, my wife, if wardrobe suffocation was how I passed on to the great beyond, she should tell people I “died in a whitewater accident” instead of spreading the embarrassing truth.
After an hour or two breather, and now under close supervision, I tried on the Large. With how slowly and fearfully I slid the gasket over my head, I’m sure I looked like a man-baby seeing the world for the first time after protracted labor. This fit was better, but again within seconds of putting it on, I felt the urge to take it off, or to pass out trying.
I was sure the problem was me. I was doing something wrong. I found a video of someone getting into their drysuit without any problem at all. Not wanting to look like a complete fool, I called NRS the next morning instead of asking someone local for help. The rep told me to measure my neck, then find something that size or slightly larger and “stretch it out.” For reference, my measurements are 5’10” height, 175lbs, and 16.5” neck. I saw a video of someone using a traffic cone for a gasket stretcher and I went off to find one.
My first attempt was to stretch the gasket to 17” for 48 hours. This did nothing. The second attempt was to stretch to 20” for another 48 hours. Again, negligible difference. Not wanting to ruin it, I broke down and asked others on Discord for their opinions. Someone said, “Don’t be afraid to stretch the thing,” and “Cutting the gasket was an option.” With these helpful comments, I realized I wasn’t crazy and this was a common experience for many people buying a new dry suit. The other helpful tips were to “get it wet” and to “use a blow dryer on very low heat” to help loosen the material.
After a few more days of stretching, I cut the first band of the inner latex gasket. Emboldened now, I proceeded to cutting the second band of the gasket. The inner gasket started to feel pretty good, but I realized it was the outside collar that was adding a lot of the hangman pressure. After asking for input again, I found a paint can that measured 24” and stretched for two more days. Spoiler – it still wasn’t enough. I went back to the road cone, and stretched the collar all the way to the bottom. Important to note, I turned the suit inside out to only focus on outer collar and to avoid overstretching the gasket.
By this point, I had sent pictures and made posts online, but had not tried on the suit in front of anyone with dry suit experience. At the next roll practice, I took the suit with me and asked for input in person. Immediately, everyone agreed the collar was still too tight. Good news, they all agreed the Large was a good fit for my overall measurements.
The next day, I called NRS again. The options they game me: (1) Send it back for a refund, even with cutting it. The problem, the post-holiday deals were back to near normal prices so I would spend more in purchasing a different one. (2) Send it back and they modify it for free. That would mean I’d miss my first river trip planned, the MMRT: Mighty Mayo River Trip. Choice number (3) Modify it myself by cutting the outer collar. This solved the other factors but was by far the most intimidating. Then the NRS rep said the most unbelievable thing, “If you mess it up, or are unhappy with it afterwards, you can send it back to us for a refund or to have us fix it, at no cost.” I thought, “There’s no way.” What kind of a company tells a novice to go ahead and do freestyle surgery on a drysuit? Well, the kind of company that backs their product, that’s who.
Disclaimer: I am not saying hack up your suit without talking to the company. I think… since they understood I’m new to paddling and we had multiple touchpoints, and they seem to be just an all-around good company who wants satisfied customers, they gave permission to do so. That’s my impression at least. Please don’t use my story as an excuse for wonky, irresponsible refunds.
As I was saying, the solution given by the representative was to cut the collar. Going into my wife’s sewing supplies, I found the seam ripper. With surgical precision I cut away the top thread. This left two obvious rows of holes where the stitching had been. The second miracle of this story is that my wife let me use the super sharp fabric scissors she normally hides from me. With a headlamp on, I cut along the top row of holes. Then I very carefully tried the suit on. Still too tight. I then cut the bottom row of holes – somehow not enough. At this point, about an inch of the collar was removed from the top of the unfinished edge. Being this far down the rabbit hole, my last-ditch effort was to cut a “V” in the vertical seam thread about 1/2 an inch wide at the top.
Eureka! I could sit for more than 5 minutes with the suit on, not gasping for air or grasping at the neoprene. I couldn’t believe it. I used extra strength nylon thread to add a sketchy looking stopper stitch to the bottom of the V.
Now it was time to test it at the next roll session. Fully expecting the dry suit, with my questionable alterations, to fail, I was surprised to stay 100% dry. Not only was I able to float in the pool, but I was able to roll for about an hour without a hint of moisture getting in. As I talked with others, I was told this is because the inner gasket fit perfectly, and the outer collar is meant only for abrasion protection, so modifying the collar didn’t ruin the suit. You can imagine my relief when it worked.
While I still need a seamstress to fix my amateur stitch-job before the MMRT on January 17th, I now have a working dry suit. I’ve also added new synthetic base layers, pogies, a neoprene cap, and NRS wetshoes over the last month. If you’re curious of my thoughts on those, or want to see the modified drysuit in person, or just want to paddle with a new guy – I’ll be around and looking forward to being an active member of the CCC.
Special thanks to all the vendors and members who helped in person and on Discord.