Hello,
I was wondering if anyone can tell me anything about Oban drysuits? I've scoured the internet and found very little relating to the manufacturer. I have found a brief mention of a company called Oban Drysuits Ltd, but the company was dissolved many years ago. Just wondering if anyone knows the back story here?
I'm curious to know as I've just purchased an Oban drysuit (second hand, cheapy ebay deal) and wondered whether there is any reputation relating to Oban or common faults.
Any info would be much appreciated, Thanks
FYI Oban Wetsuits started in the mid 90's and with a amalgamation of Bill Gourley of then GMT Diving Glasgow and
Cliff Hares of Solent Divers Portsmouth. Both "old hands" in the diving game.
When Oban wetsuits started Elaina King was the "top man" there, she came up from from Solent Divers to set up the
wet suit manufacturing aspects and loved the place so much never went back. So she say's, but if you ever had met
Cliff when he was alive you may be forgiven for wanting to distance yourself.
The pair of them Bill and Cliff had between them IMHO around half the total production of 6 and 12 Siebe Gorman
copper diving helmets and hand pumps.
Oban Wetsuits main business was as a contractor to Royal Navy and made both there wets suits and dry suits,
They also did a lot of "contract" OEM work making wetsuits for the likes of Scubapro and a number of
other companies on a OEM basis. They were taken over when both Bill and Cliff retired by "Helly Hansen"
the yachting folk and is presently owned by Terje and Helge Hansen.
Oban Wetsuits as a company is now making offshore survival suits and the like.
But your Oban suit In a word you have one of the best made dry suits in the world,
using one of the better neoprene polymers designed and assembled with best practice.
The assembly of a military suit is much more detailed than you will find on an internet forum,
the glue, method of cutting, gluing, even the number of stitches per inch and the type of thread
polymer all detailed. For example even the sewing machine used would have to have been a
Strobel 2 thread cup seamer. Every detail of the build was engineered, the price only reflective of the quality.
The suits Oban wetsuits make now are mostly for the offshore survival markets since the Royal Navy in it's
wisdom started lowest cost tendering for adequate equipment at the cheapest possible price attitude
and started buying cheap "Made in China" suits, you know the sort with uneven legs and boots on backward,
with seams that leak from glue made foam dead horse carcasses.
As this is an American forum and as such not to enrage the local masses a comparable suit in the US would
be the KME Diving suit made when they were using the nitrogen blown Rubatex G-231 neoprene. Iain Middlebrook
