A friend of mine who just competed in the Kona Ironman sent me the following blurb:For immediate Release- 10/11-2008
Kailua –Kona, Hawaii (from San Diego based XTERRA WETSUITS)
For the second year in a row, The Velocity Speedsuit by XTERRA WETSUITS posted the fastest swim time of the day at the Ford Ironman World Championships.
In 2007, Mark Van Akkeren posted the fastest swim split with a time of 49:50 wearing a Velocity Speedsuit. This year, Noa Sakamoto posted the fastest swim split with a time of 47:01 wearing a new version of the XTERRA WETSUITS - Velocity Speedsuit.
John Flanagan, (also wearing a XTERRA WETSUITS- Velocity Speedsuit) was only 1 second behind Noa posting a time of 47:02. The XTERRA WETSUITS- Velocity Speedsuit was victorious by more than one minute and 30 seconds faster than the next swimmer Andy Potts.
The Velocity Speedsuit is considered to be the fastest Speedsuit in the water. On 09/09/08, the Velocity won a gold medal in the European Open Water 10K Championship. The new technology behind the Velocity Speedsuit continues to dominate anything that involves water.
Website for this suit is here. It is approved by FINA for OW competitions and I can only assume that applies to pool races as well (but perhaps I'm mistaken).
My friend said that about 80% of the people competed in one of the new FINA-approved "speedsuits" (I guess this is what the OW purists refer to as "real swimmers swimming naked" but I digress...) and that the B70 was far and away the most popular.
So my question is this: if the Xterra suit is similar, and its swimmers posted the fastest times (which may only mean they are better at choosing who to sponsor), why is it that the B70 gets all the love in pool swimming? Is it because of Roque Santos? (If so I hope they are paying him a lot.)
I'm not trying to muddy the waters here...I don't think any of these suits has a HUGE effect, and I certainly don't think there is a big difference between them in performance -- if you are going to wear one, factors such as price, comfort, durability should be more important, IMO.
I am just curious about how this happened. Why not Xterra? (Other than the fact that there is no getting around the fact that THIS IS A WETSUIT.)
Parents
Former Member
Hey Chris......
Great question. Why not the Velocity powered by XTERRA WETSUITS? We have been asking ourselves the same question at our office.
We were a few months behind B70 on developing our new speedsuit. This delay came with several performance advantages over our competition.
Our Velocity has a new Nano-SCS coating which has a drag co-efficient of 0.02 compared to our competitors suit which is using an older SCS coating which has been measured at 0.03. We also found that the front of the B70 suit was designed with lycra panels which create additional drag. (we assume this design was for aesthetic value).
The B70 suit is also designed with several front panels which have exposed stitching. It cost us a bit more in materials but we found that our Velocity Speedsuit without any frontal seams and stitches reduce drag. This may have something to do with the fact that Blue Seventy is a New Zealand owned company. We are based in San Diego, California and have an advantage by being owned and operated in the United States.
We intend on placing additional focus on the swimming market with what we have learned from our research with open water and pool swimmers. I have to thank several US Masters swim coaches for their expert advice and input. (i.e. - Michael Collins, Jim Miller, Gerry Rodrigues, Marcia Cleveland, and Steve Munatones)
Lastly, Roque Santos is a rock star. We wish we had him on our sales team. If Roque has a twin please contact our company ASAP.
We welcome any input and advice from US MASTERS SWIMMING. Thanks for taking notice of our products and recent accomplishments.
All the best,
Keith Simmons
Owner/Founder
XTERRA WETSUITS
keith@xterrawetsuits.com
Reply
Former Member
Hey Chris......
Great question. Why not the Velocity powered by XTERRA WETSUITS? We have been asking ourselves the same question at our office.
We were a few months behind B70 on developing our new speedsuit. This delay came with several performance advantages over our competition.
Our Velocity has a new Nano-SCS coating which has a drag co-efficient of 0.02 compared to our competitors suit which is using an older SCS coating which has been measured at 0.03. We also found that the front of the B70 suit was designed with lycra panels which create additional drag. (we assume this design was for aesthetic value).
The B70 suit is also designed with several front panels which have exposed stitching. It cost us a bit more in materials but we found that our Velocity Speedsuit without any frontal seams and stitches reduce drag. This may have something to do with the fact that Blue Seventy is a New Zealand owned company. We are based in San Diego, California and have an advantage by being owned and operated in the United States.
We intend on placing additional focus on the swimming market with what we have learned from our research with open water and pool swimmers. I have to thank several US Masters swim coaches for their expert advice and input. (i.e. - Michael Collins, Jim Miller, Gerry Rodrigues, Marcia Cleveland, and Steve Munatones)
Lastly, Roque Santos is a rock star. We wish we had him on our sales team. If Roque has a twin please contact our company ASAP.
We welcome any input and advice from US MASTERS SWIMMING. Thanks for taking notice of our products and recent accomplishments.
All the best,
Keith Simmons
Owner/Founder
XTERRA WETSUITS
keith@xterrawetsuits.com
