Whites Fusion Drysuit - are they tough?

[setchell]

Whites Fusions are a curious sell, on one hand, they are the most comfortable, flexible drysuit out there, chock full of innovations and simplicities, a front entry drysuit that weights 5lbs soaking wet, rolls up to nothing, and provides quite possibly the greatest drysuit diving conditions out there- a great buy no? On the other hand, I have customers who say: "THAT dosen't look very tough..." so I ask the question, how tough is your fusion? has anyone managed to destroy theirs yet? What's the ugliest diving conditions these things have seen? Caves, Barnacles, Wrecks, how durable is a Whites Fusion?

 

[fdog]

Mine has just shy of 300 dives. Or maybe a bit more, I'm not sure. Mine was one of the first batch made.

I changed out the lycra skin to the tech skin at ~200 dives. At that time it still looked amazingly wear-free. The tech skin is outstanding and still looks like it was new last weekend.

Everything on the bladder, seals, seam taping, all is in great condition. The inside looks new, actually.

My cat did bite holes into the feet; these took me 10 minutes to permanantly patch using the White's patches and a heat gun. These patches have about 40 dives on them and you can't tell they are there.

I was sceptical too, but as it turns out, two layers are more durable than one thick one.


All the best, James

 

[WHITES Justin]

Hi,

From being on the road throughout the Western USA conducting Fusion demos and seminars I can tell you that the first thing everyone asks about the Fusion is "how durable is it?"

I can tell you from personal experiece (my Fusion has over 200 dives) that the suit holds up remarkably well. The Fusion is decievingly tough as a result of it's design - here's why:

-If the Fusion is caught on a sharp object the outer skin slips away from the DryCore which causes a shearing effect. This prevents the skin from actually tearing.

-The skins themselves are very tough whether it's the Lycra or Tech. Tearing the Lycra for example would ential stretching it to the max then cutting it with a sharp object.

-The outer skin acts as a protective layer for the inner DryCore. Since the DryCore is actually keeping you dry, even if the skin did tear the Drysuit would remain dry.

While no suit is completely invicible, the Fusion is definitly very tough. The nice thing about the suit is even if you did get a hole in the DryCore, the Bi-Laminate material can be self repaired very quick and easily with a Whites repair kit.

Cheers,

Justin



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[TSandM]

I did 183 dives in 2008, and most of them were in the Fusion. I did 79 cave dives and about half of those were in the Fusion. The Lycra skin still looks really good, except for a little pilling of the fabric on the lower legs from crawling around on limestone. The suit was bone dry until I had work done on it (replaced the neck seal with neoprene, and put in a p-valve). Now we have some issues, but so far, they all appear to be due to the work that was done.

I love the suit, have nothing at all bad to say about it except that I have a sticky zipper. But not all the zippers are sticky -- I just got one.

 

[Kern]

Are they tough; yes.
I'v done a few dives that I fully expected to rip, tear & shred the suit. To date I have a couple of small holes in the knee pads.
I'd be surprised if I didn't get a few more years diving out of the skin. When it dies I'll get a new skin at a fraction of the cost of a new suit.
If I hole the core I'll patch it. From my experiences so far I'd say it would take quite a bit to hole the core.

I do lots of research dives where I'm crawling over lots of very sharp metamorphic rocks & coral. For even more fun I like to flop around in wrecks. The suit has coped with it all, surpassing my expectations on many occasions.

Problems to date: The suspenders are falling apart. The drainage holes in the pockets look really neat, unfortunately it's a victory of style over utility. On mine the rubber surround & therefore the mesh will definitely fall off one & the other will probably fall off leaving a very big hole behind.

 

[skdvr]

Interesting about the pocket drains... I will have to keep an eye on mine.

While I do not have as many dives in mine as the rest of the folks here (about 40) mine has held up very well. I have the tech skin on mine, but started with the lycra skin. The harshest action mine has seen was walking through thorn bushes with the lycra skin on a shore dive. This was my first weekend of diving with it and I thought I was going to shred it to he**, but it did not do anything to the skin...

My suspenders too are falling apart, well I would should not say Falling Apart. There are threads coming out of the middle of the suspenders here and there. I do not think that they should be doing that already.

I installed a p-valve in my suit just about 2 weeks ago and that went well.

All in all I love my suit.... My wife is wanting to get a DS this year and I am sure it will be a Fusion...

Phil

 

[Dan Watkins]

What do you do when the suspenders fall apart? Can they be easily replaced or not?

 

[setchell]

Thanks a bunch, we will be throwing some into our rental fleet here soon, and now I can answer my customers question. You guys rock.

 

[Kern]

What do you do when the suspenders fall apart? Can they be easily replaced or not?

Yes, they're velcroed in, so very easy to replace. The double velcro system holds them very securely.

 

[WHITES Justin]

What do you do when the suspenders fall apart? Can they be easily replaced or not?

Hello,

There has been alot of comments about the Fusion suspenders coming apart. It is true that on the original Fusions we used a type of suspender that wasn't as durable as we would have liked. We have since switched suppliers and the new suspenders feature neoprene shoulder straps, and the neoprene backplate. They are very durable and comfortable.

Just a quick note, it is very easy to put in a new suspender system in the Fusion as the are simply velcroed in!

Cheers,

Justin