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DRYSUIT
The North-east of England has always had a powerful interest in ships. First it was building them; now it's looking at them on the seabed.
It was a hardy lot of men who drove those white-hot rivets in, and it's a similarly hardy lot who like to hammer the bolt-ends off and rescue the non-ferrous metal. They don't like things fancy. They like things straightforward, often in a black-and-white-striped football shirt.
In some ways they remind me of the old times, when traditional BSAC divers were straight out of the non-commissioned ranks, and liked things run the way - they had been in the armed forces. SMB reels were home-made from heavy-duty plywood, regulators had twin hoses and wetsuits were manufactured by Tony Tillbrook.
I did my PADI Instructor Development Course with an outfit from Newcastle. PADI was new and I was one of only a couple of southerners on the course.
We decided not to go to the after-exam party, guessing what the entertainment was likely to be - get those soft Southern bar stewards!
I had put all this long behind me until recently when the phone rang and the distinctly Geordie tones of Carl Holford sounded in my ear. They initially struck terror. I thought the Holford family had tracked me down at last for cheating my way to a PADI instructor badge.
But it wasn't that. He wanted me to try a drysuit he had had made to his specification. I was equally surprised when the suit arrived from Spartan Wetsuits with a note signed by one John Tillbrook. He was clearly the son of Tony, so I had two blasts from the past in quick succession.
I was not surprised to discover that the Spartan Pro Dive was a traditional neoprene drysuit with a cross-shoulder zip and a simple wrist-mounted dump-valve.
I was equally unsurprised to notice that it was constructed like a Tyneside ship - not fancy, but built to last.
It was finished with tough but flexible additional reinforcing on shoulder/upper arm, seat and knee/side calf in the form of a tough nylon facing to the material.
The zip was of the heaviest weight and the neoprene neck seal was sufficiently long for me to be able to turn it in on itself (like a reversed polo neck) and still have it reach right under my chin. The neoprene wrist seals also looked plenty long enough. Comfy Gates neoprene boots were included.
The suit was still occupying most of my office floor when Carl came back on the phone to ask if it fitted. I jumped into it quickly and was agreeably surprised to find that not only was it exactly my size but it seemed to be very comfortable. I put this last down to the flexibility of the 5.5mm neoprene used.
The fit was so snug that there was room only for a minimal base layer rather than a full undersuit, but the advantage of neoprene in a drysuit is that it insulates you from the cold water as well as keeping you dry.
What's the disadvantage? Neoprene tends to compress at depth, losing you both buoyancy and insulation, so you might find yourself putting air into your BC as well as your suit to maintain neutral buoyancy even when using a single tank. I suppose you might get cold sooner than in a membrane suit with a suitably efficient insulating undersuit, but it's hard to compare dive to dive.
The Spartan Pro Dive comes with a rotating Apeks inflation valve at the centre of the chest. It also has a wrist-mounted dump-valve, and these benefit from their simplicity and can be seen working.
The disadvantage is that they reduce you to working with only the other hand. The moment you lift your left hand to do something, you start dumping air. As a photographer, often lifting a camera to use it, I wouldn't give one house-room. My wife, on the other hand, took a lot of persuading to change to an auto-dump, because she had trained with a wrist-dump.
Those who know tell me that wrist-mounted dump-valves are more commonly ordered in the North, whereas softy Southerners like constant-volume automatic dump valves of the type commonly mounted on the shoulder. The shoulder-mounted auto-dump is an optional extra.
The manufacturer holds a full range of stock sizes for men and women, plus the facility to offer short and long fittings and some additional tailoring if necessary.
The success of this suit depends on whether it fits you well or not. Those with sinewy wrists and scrawny necks will always suffer a little dampness within.
I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that the only drysuits that will keep me completely dry have long conical latex wrist seals. Divers with a little more flesh may not have this problem.
Spartan makes its drysuits in the UK and offers a full repair facility. A Spartan drysuit costs £545.
Spartan Wetsuits 0191 2327983, www.spartan.uk.com
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+ Tough
+ Not too expensive
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- Neoprene suits are not for everyone
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BC
There was a time when a man did what he had to do and a woman made the sandwiches. Now, despite what some beer-drinkers in Rotherham might tell you, times have changed. Women do what they want to do and men still have to do what they have to. That includes diving.
Don't think I have wimped out of my responsibilities. I still take all the major decisions in my household. I decide whether George Bush should have been re-elected or whether Tony should have committed our armed forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. My wife makes minor decisions such as where we live, what we eat, what we wear and where we go on holiday.
Diving manufacturers have only just caught up with this latest state of affairs. They are starting to realise that women are just as likely to jump into the water as their menfolk, and have their own hard-earned money to spend.
They are just beginning to realise too, that women are not simply shorter men with bigger bottoms. Women are often an entirely different shape.
Women often have narrow waists and squashy, sensitive chest areas. The Seac Sub Pro 2000 BC captured the hearts and minds of many of our readers and was even voted among the all-time top 25 items of diving kit on Divernet.
Now Seac Sub has revamped its BC, including a vastly improved integrated-weight retention-and-release system. On top of that, the forward-thinking Italian company has introduced the Pro Lady.
What are the differences? Well the Pro Lady has a backpack that is fully adjustable for height as well as girth, hidden behind a shapely cushion. I say shapely, because it is contoured to fit a shapely back. The single-tank camband has a choice of positions to allow a long tank to be worn on a shorter person. A number of strong fabric loops do the job of otherwise heavy D-rings.
The conventional inverted-T-shaped buoyancy cell is independent of the harness, so there is no uncomfortable torso squeeze when the BC is fully inflated at the surface.
Air is introduced by the normal direct feed, but with a very nice pistol-style inflator mechanism.
You can dump air either by pulling on the corrugated hose to activate a dump-valve at its top, or on a toggle attached to a lanyard that operates a dump valve at the opposite side.
The lanyard is threaded through a flexible plastic tube to a point at the front of the shoulder facing. Both dump-valves are positioned at the very top of the buoyancy cell - so no drama there.
The buoyancy cell itself is made from 1000 denier nylon contained within a 1000-denier cordura outer shell.
The harness attaches well to the back of the waist to avoid compressing the chest. It has a couple of normal-sized D-rings and two little ones.
A novel feature is the elastic octopus-holder. The harness has "kind" material added to the area that might otherwise rub on an unprotected neck. There is also a sternum strap. This is thoughtfully long enough to stop the shoulder straps slipping but without putting pressure on the upper chest area.
This brings us to the integrated-weight system. Unlike the Pro 2000, the Pro Lady has no trim-weight pockets at the back. Perhaps because aluminium cylinders are so long compared to the height of the average woman, the designer thought trim-weights were unnecessary.
The front weight-pouches (an optional extra) now use Seac Sub's own quick-release buckle system in addition to a healthy slab of velcro to keep them securely stowed. It takes quite a bit of effort to drag the weights free to pass up to a waiting pick-up boat, but I couldn't find any woman who would admit to not being strong enough to do it easily.
Each weight-pouch has its own strap and buckle midway, enabling the user to choose whether to have a half-load of lead towards the front or rear of the pouch. The pouches take a maximum of 4kg each. Most experienced women divers I know use precious little lead and even less air.
Finally, the Seac Sub Pro Lady has two pockets that are readily accessed thanks to zips that are easy to find and pull.
This BC is a well thought-out bit of kit. Its maximum buoyancy when fully inflated for use at the surface is not amazingly great at only 7kg in size XS, but because it is positioned low down, all the lift is put to good effect.
I am told that this BC is very comfortable when compared to one designed with a male diver in mind.
The Seac Sub Pro Lady is available in sizes XS, S, M and L, and costs £325. Integrated weight pouches, £24 extra.
Beaver Sports 01484 512354,www.beaversports.co.uk
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+ Carefully designed to suit women divers
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REGULATOR
Maverick and renegade I might be, but dilettante I am not. I take what I do very seriously, and once I get the bit between my teeth I never let go.
When teaching diving in the mid-'80s I noticed that most divers tended to hang their octopus rigs on the same side as their primary second stages.
This looked fine until you came to do an air-sharing ascent, when you realised what a tortuous routeing the hose needed to take if the rescued diver was to be face-to-face with the rescuer. It made far more sense to hang it on the left, and this is how I taught my trainees. But how was I to convince the then all-powerful BSAC?
Well, first I captured the radio station, so to speak, and supplied all my pictures to Diver with rigs hanging to the left. However, the real coup came when I found myself in the Caribbean for a week with Mike Holbrook, then the single-minded leader of the club.
All the pictures I took of Mike had the octopus rigged to the left. The rest was history until now, when manufacturers have suddenly woken up to the real function of the octopus rig. It's not for the one who purchases the regulator. It's for someone else who might be out of air.
The latest Scubapro R395 octopus rig was sent for me to review along with the revamped S550, now renamed the S555. In common with some other recently arrived second stages, the R395 can be supplied ready to be rigged either way you want it - left- or right-handed. Just ask your Scubapro dealer to fix it for you.
I had mine set up by the Scubapro technician with the hose to the left, allowing me to rig it on the same side as my primary second stage, the right side, as it's shown in the PADI manual. The difference is that someone can take it from me, stuff it in their mouth, and we can make an air-sharing ascent face to face without any grief.
Just for comparison with the excellently breathing S555 second stage, I did rig it on my left side for a few dives.
In that way it was good for me to breathe from.
Apart from the longer hose getting entangled with my camera's long flash arms, I could detect no difference in performance between the two second stages.
The R395 octopus costs £105. The S555 fitted to a MK 17AF diaphragm-style first stage costs £265.
Scubapro UK, 01256 812636, www.scubapro.co.uk
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+ Can be set up to be used left- or right-handed
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- None when with the MK17 first stage
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