“It works great for open water swimming. Easy to put on, and no water comes in to you tri suit. It felt a little tight on my chest, but I also had big wide back. I’m 6.0 and 175 lbs.”
“The suit in general is OK. The M fit is tighter than expected, particularly the cuff at the leg openings (i.e. too tight). My biggest complaint is that there is no string attached to the zipper such that you need help to zip the suit up. This is not practical when you want to practice in your suit when there is no-one else around. If I had known this I would not have purchased this suit.”
Sorry to hear you had fit issues with the swimskin. It is designed to fit very tight, like a second skin, in order to be as effective as possible at improving your hydrodynamics and increasing speed in the water. Any looseness in the fit would actually cause you to be slower and negate any reason for wearing the suit.
As to the zipper, this is intentional as the swimskins are designed as a race day garment, and should be saved for race day, when there is no shortage of folks to help zip you up. The locking zipper (tap up = open, tab down = closed/locked) reduces drag significantly compared to any sort of leash attached. In addition the construction of the suit (bonded seams for speed) means that it is not designed to be worn / trained in over and over, as this will limit the life of the suit.