decowarrior(Offline)

hi after a long damp patch i have decided that for my own sanity and saftey that the drysuit needs binning

the question is what to replace it with, i would like a dui style number to replace it however given the urrwent dui pricing i find this completley unreasonable i would like a tri lam style that needs to be hard wearing to the maximum as my suits dont get an easy ride and seo hard wearing is a key issue

i have found these whites drysuits and had a look at one and they look ok however i havent met anyone who owns one to see how durable they are and how they would stand up to my kind of abuse any feedback or alternative sugestions would be appreciated

http://www.whitesdiving.com/index.php?id=39&cid=207

also posted on yd but with being a large us membership base i thought they might be able to give me feedback

BigJohn(Offline)

I,ve had a couple of Whites suit. They are not very good for flexability, the boots foat too much. I found it very hard to do a backward kick and also reach my valves. I mostly dive a DUI 450. The only good thing I like about my Whites Catalyst suit is it,s easy to put on, so if your really tall and have big feet, and you don't mind a leaking crotch, I,ve got the suit for you.

Gary Moffat(Offline)

Big Thumbs Up to:-

http://www.protecdrysuits.com/suits2.html

Links:-

http://www.poddle.net/~andy/gallery/...-at-Capernwray

Stoney Finnart

K Ripley(Offline)

Ordered one in for a customer, on dive 3 in a 6 day Empress of Ireland trip the material delaminated. Have had several in for leaking seams and crotches. Dont recommend or order them anymore unless the customer insists against my advice that he wants it.

decowarrior(Offline)

tahnks for the heads up much appreciated

TechDiver(Offline)

We were dealers for Whites and will no longer sell them, our market area is small and it has hurt us product testing these suits, we can no longer afford to sell inferior products to our very valuable customers.

They have limited mobility, never made to measure properly, start falling apart around 100 dives.

The valves they use stop ratcheting and shut themselves off when they get rubbed up against anything.

The heat tape is a joke it starts delaminating after the first time you get the suit wet, a good indicator is the air pockets on the under side of the taped seams.

Repairs to the suit are difficult they have user replaceable seals that are more of a temporary fix until you can send it back to the manufacturer to have them sew and re tape the suit. The nature of the tape being so difficult to remove for repairs make it necessary to cut back the taped areas and what you will find is the arms will be getting shorter every time you need to replace your wrist seals.

The quad flex material fades at this post I believe though they may have made some changes to the material and are trying to over come this. The flexibility and durability of the material is very poor it shows excessive wear in very few dives.

The almost self entry zipper is positioned too far onto your back to make it a truly self entry suit.

They compromise valve positioning and ease of dumping by having too many panels or unnecessary piping on the sleeves this don't allow them proper valve placement.

Their neoprene gloves and hoods are poor quality you can try on 4 medium hoods and not one will fit the same, zippers and stitching fall apart all the time, most of it's made in china.

The EVO boots have repeatedly had the soles fall off, these boots also require a fin that has a very large foot pocket using to large of a fin can be disastrous when it comes to leg cramps and proper fining techniques.

It is very difficult if not impossible to keep your feet warm in the stocking style foot suit we have tried countless combinations of stockings boot sizes with little or no success of keeping our feet warm.

The really sad part is Whites have the ability to be a leading manufacturer of dry suits world wide, they have great staff and dealer support its to bad that their products don't stack up to the competitions. If they would listen to the needs of divers that are diving their suits day in and day out and make a suit that is simple, functional, durable and easy to maintain, forget about competing in the glamour markets Whites would be a company to be reckoned with

I have 6 used suits for sale if anyone wants one, cheap!

Hunter makes two awesome suits the CBX Pro 450 and the VSN 1100 they are pretty much indestructible, and have a lifetime seam warranty. Both of these suits utilize replaceable seals and boots that require gluing and taping that most anyone can do them selves; if you can actually punch a hole in the suits a patch is a breeze. Mobility is awesome in both suits, a little better in the VSN.

The real proof is when you dive a Hunter suit, diving with a back arch, you can keep the air in your shoulders easily and move some to your feet easily when needed. If you dive squeezed the suits still have great flexibility and mobility. You can see and feel the difference when wearing a Hunter Dry Suit. Down side is there is no custom fits.

Andy’s make awesome suits along with many other UK suits like Otter’s Britannic Superskin and the Protec lines, sorry guys not to knock your expensive fancy looking DUI’s they really don’t cut it when it comes to user fix ability what we all need to remember is it’s not how we look it’s how we dive.

We are very fortunate to be able to agressively test our products in the riggors of British Columbia so if a product don't stack we won't sell it.

If you want the truth just ask.

I wonder if Whites is going to give me call. Hmm!

Steve Drouillard
Northwest Technical Diving Services

Danny(Offline)

A buddy of my is diving with that suit and he is very happy with it ,he is also a northsea diver .
The fabric is very strong and he likes the fitting of the suit .
Maybe this is a alternative sugestion ,the Scubaforce Explorer http://www.dive2gether.net/index_s.htm

__________________
There's more to life than scuba diving ,let me know when you find it !!!

JohnKendall(Offline)

Interesting you say this, My VSN 1100 only lasted about 2 years (maybe 150-200 dives if that) before the material started delaminating. For a lot of those dives it wasn't exactly dry either. I binned it after it's 8th Suit flood.

J

Joe Hesketh(Offline)

Why do you say that? I've put a neck seal on my CLX before. 2-part and taped it rather than the glued-over seams approach DUI use, though there's no reason why you couldn't do that - there are full instructions downloadable from the DUI website, it's just aquasure and cotol mixed. For patching holes I can't see why one trilam would be that different to another or DUI suits especially un-user-fixable? In fact I would have thought a TLS would've been one of the easiest suits to patch.

Joe

TechDiver(Offline)

You should have sent the suit back for warranty they are garanteed, I'm not going to try and tell you how to fit a suit, but if it leaked it wasn't fit right or it was defective it should have been replaced.