Anyone ever heard of a Sea Lion drysuit?

[Darcey]

One of my insureds is a diver and he's got a drysuit he bought a couple of years ago from someone that works at our LDS. He's never worn it and says that the person he bought it from had only used it once. He was going to sell it on Ebay but wanted to have me look it over first. The drysuit is beyond repair from dry rot around the cuffs and bad seals so there's probably no point in him trying to sell it. Then...it's a brand that I've never heard of before and can't find on a google search. The brand on it is Sea Lion.

Anyone ever heard of this brand?

 

[Darcey]

Hmm...I'm taking it that this drysuit is a rare or long forgotten breed....

 

[David Wilson]

A Sea Lion drysuit was made by Respirex. This British company, which has been in business making gas-proof and biological warfare suits for industrial and military applications for a long time, makes suits worn by firemen at chemical spillages. Their website is at

Respirex

They ventured into the divers' drysuit market ten years ago, producing the Sea Lion in 1998 and Sea Lion Fusion in 1999:


There are reviews of the suits at
Diver Tests June 1998
Diver Tests October 1999

Are these the "Sea Lion" suits you have in mind? Other diving equipment companies use the name "Sea Lion" for their products. For example, US Divers uses the name for their rubber snorkelling fins:


It's quite possible, therefore, that another company has made a Sea Lion drysuit over the years. It would help if you could either confirm that the Respirex suit is the one you mean or give us more of a description so that we can at least narrow things down to a particular decade of drysuit manufacture.

 

[Darcey]

YES! That's it. This one is all black and only says Sea Lion down the right sleeve. The tag inside is faded to the point that you can't see the entire word "Respirex" on it but now that I know the name of the maker I can make it out a bit.

Thanks for digging that up for me!