Hi all. I'm considering purchasing an entry-level (read--cheap) tech suit for this summer's slate of open water swims and I'm trying to decide whether hydrophobic fiber or taped seams is more important. Any thoughts/experience?
Thanks!
Having swam through the glorified-wetsuit-"supersuit" year of 2009, I would hazard a guess that a wetsuit would be *much* more advantageous than a modern tech suit.
I do think if the question is training suit (read: not compressive on the legs) versus tech suit, the key is more in finding something that provides the best compression on the legs than the hydrodynamic aspect like seams, etc. Open water is a much more "messy" environment than pool swimming - you are not going to be streamlined in clean water for very long. So the benefits of the streamline components on the higher end tech suits are probably even more minimal in OW than pool.
That's my two cents, not being an open water swimmer myself.
Oh yeah hands down the wetsuit is faster. But at least for the lake swim, the race organizers break the finishers categories into wetsuits and non-wetsuits. Acknowledging that there may be a certain stigma attached to the wetsuit label (whether warranted or not) I wanted to try without this go around.
Having swam through the glorified-wetsuit-"supersuit" year of 2009, I would hazard a guess that a wetsuit would be *much* more advantageous than a modern tech suit.
I do think if the question is training suit (read: not compressive on the legs) versus tech suit, the key is more in finding something that provides the best compression on the legs than the hydrodynamic aspect like seams, etc. Open water is a much more "messy" environment than pool swimming - you are not going to be streamlined in clean water for very long. So the benefits of the streamline components on the higher end tech suits are probably even more minimal in OW than pool.
That's my two cents, not being an open water swimmer myself.
Oh yeah hands down the wetsuit is faster. But at least for the lake swim, the race organizers break the finishers categories into wetsuits and non-wetsuits. Acknowledging that there may be a certain stigma attached to the wetsuit label (whether warranted or not) I wanted to try without this go around.
