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20 DRY SUITS Aquatek X480 Aquion Pro Rear-Entry Beaver Iceberg Ultra Body Glove Pro-Lite Diamond Saxon 200 DMS Atlantis DUI FLX50/50 Gates PRO-VSN 1100 GUL Commercial Hydrotech Evolution IST Dive Team Proline Northern Diver Vortex Oceanic Flex O'Three RI 2/500 Otter Technical Superskin Poseidon Jetsuit TNG Roho Tech Seaway Arctic Pro Typhoon Nexus Viking Pro 1000 Return to GEAR Page |
Aquion Pro Rear-Entry First impressions A lightweight but proven durable suit, well made and neat, and often thought of as an industry standard. Price Negotiable. Material and construction Tri-laminate material. The stitching is adequate, with double-stitched crotch. Wide internal taping to all seams, but without any reinforcing at seam junctions. A clean construction, obviously resulting from a long production run that has allowed the manufacturer to perfect it. Boots Gates boots, which seemed a bit lightweight in comparison to some others. They are lined inside but untaped at the join to the legs. Zip A standard cross-shoulder zip; well fitted and glued, but taped only on the inside. Seals Bellows-type neck seal, glued and taped. Parallel wrist seals of medium weight. Wrist seal contact length 40mm. Knee pads A double layer of material forms the knee pads. Small drain holes give a watering-can effect after climbing out of the water. Valves Apeks inflator valve set to one side of the central seam of the suit. Standard Apeks auto-dump. This suit came with a hole cut for the electrical input cable of an Aquion heated undersuit. We inserted another Apeks inflator valve to block the hole for the dive. Other features Sadly, Aquion went into receivership during the period that our test took place. However, Typhoon has bought up the remaining Aquion drysuit stock and will be selling it with a full 12-month warranty. Ease of dressing "It fitted me like a glove, which meant it took some pulling up over my snake-like hips. I wondered if there would be room for a thicker undersuit." In the water "It proved very unrestricting and perfect in every way apart from the fact that the shoulder dump was placed too far towards the front. This meant I had to do a Roman salute every time I needed to dump air, spoiling the automatic nature of the valve." Approximate weight of test suit 3kg. Made-to-measure service Remaining stock only. Tested by John Bantin. |
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