There’s a new breed of swim wetsuits out there – but are they right for you? Editor Helen tries out seven new open-water-specific wetsuits
WORDS HELEN WEBSTER IMAGE ZOGGS
BUYER’S GUIDE
First up, a little bit of an explanation... You might be wondering why we’ve included a grouptest just for ‘open-water wetsuits’ this year. After all, aren’t all swimming wetsuits for the open water? Well yes, they are, but the difference comes in the features and spec.
Put simply, the new breed of open-water swimming wetsuits are designed for those wanting to do longer swims, or to swim outdoors without necessarily competing in a triathlon. They will often be a little warmer and slightly more robust, as these suits will need to keep athletes warm over long swims (say a 10km swim event or similar) and they will also need to last over many more kilometres of training potentially, whereas a triathlon wetsuit will often be designed more with race-day speed in mind.
Other features may include more of a focus on visibility, so brightly-coloured arms, as well as more thermal options for warmth – open-water swim events often aren’t subject to the same rules on water temperatures as triathlons and can be held all year round. On the flip side, these suits won’t usually include race-specific features such as quick-release zippers and cuffs/ankles engineered for fast removal and will usually be a bit sturdier, which means no sub-1mm paper-thin neoprene.
Some suits (such as the Zone3 and Gill tested overleaf) have features that allow them to be used across more than just swimming, reinforced knees for example, which mean you can use them for watersports including stand-up paddleboarding and bodyboarding or surfing. Of course this will be at a trade-off of speed and flexibility, but if you’re only targeting short triathlon swims and need a suit that is a bit more versatile, then why not?
There is one suit in this test that is a little different, however (which I’ll explain more about in the review). The Huub Lurz is designed for those who want to target a fast open-water race and, as such, is designed with real speed in the water as the focus. So not one to buy for messing around on the beach in!
So do you actually need one, though? Well, there are some very good suits over the next few pages and unless you’re hunting marginal speed gains, there’s no reason you couldn’t use one of them in a triathlon. Alternatively, going for a ‘train heavy, race light’ approach (to steal the anal
