'NEW' wetsuit made from...

[promocop]

...some ultra modern material? My son read something about it in one of the outdoor magazines. Supposedly, with this suit 3mm gives the same thermal protection as 7.5MM? Anyone hear about this?

 

[redacted]

...some ultra modern material? My son read something about it in one of the outdoor magazines. Supposedly, with this suit 3mm gives the same thermal protection as 7.5MM? Anyone hear about this?

I suspect that it sounds a lot better than it is. It's the gas that really matters, not the rubber or what ever solid compound they use. I guess you could replace the nitrogen (or air) bubbles with argon but even that should not be any where near that much improvement.

 

[airmech]

appenna?
saw an article on a free diving suit that someone was using in the uk, when youd need atleast 10mm or a drysuit

 

[promocop]

Just found out. It's a MATUSE made with 'geoprene' Surfers use them. Going to a shop and see one today

 

[robint]

Just found out. It's a MATUSE made with 'geoprene' Surfers use them. Going to a shop and see one today

just remember that a suit made for surfers is not the same thing as one for diving! A suit made for scuba diving compresses slightly at depth, then returns to its original thickness at surface and must do this over and over and over. A surfer suit is made for the surface only and many of them will compress but never return to original thickness, thus reducing their thermal protection. That is one of the big reasons that surfer suits are so much cheaper than scuba suits... it is because of the methods used to inject the bubbles into the fabric, and what gas is used in those bubbles varies a great deal. I went through a seminar several years ago where they cut a cross-section of all the major scuba suits fabric along with several surfing suits and we examined them under a microscope and ran tests on them.... huge difference! A couple of the cheap suits we could burst the bubbles just pinching them between our fingers! Trust me, I was shocked.

(There are some really cheap/crappy wetsuits out there that people scuba dive in and then can't understand why they are so cold. Those people don't even realize the difference as that is the only kind of suit they have ever worn.)

 

[promocop]

Just Checjed them out. Closed cell material. Very nice. But a bit sloppily made. Not impressed