Fantastic Trilastic

I’ve been wearing a fantastic new wetsuit for the last few months: the Mares Trilastic 8-6-5. Like Tony’s Mares Flexa 8-6-5, the Trilastic (which is just from the new range) is 8 millimetres thick on the torso, 6mm on the upper arms and thighs, and 5mm on the forearms and calves. The one I have is from the She Dives line by Mares, which makes allowances for women’s body shapes.

With it I wear a loose hoodie, and my booties and gloves go over the bottom of the wetsuit ankles and wrists, not underneath. There are two reasons for this:

1. The Trilastic doesn’t have zips on the legs and arms
2. The wrist, neck and leg seals are kind of special and seal very tightly against my skin (except for the neck seal)

The wrist and ankle seals don’t have zips and are quite delicate. Wearing the booties over the leg seals involves a bit of gymnastic stretching to get the zips closed, but it results in warm water trapped very effectively inside the wetsuit and boots. Unfortunately it makes me look extremely bulgy after a dive because the water can’t escape, but it keeps me warm!

I like the small zip at the front – it makes a big difference to my experience of seasickness, since my old ScubaPro presses very uncomfortably on that little dip at the bottom of one’s neck. This contributes greatly to the urge to hurl! There’s still fabric touching on my neck, but not nearly as firmly or tightly as a wetsuit with just a back zipper. I actually wanted a wetsuit with a front zip, but in the thickness I wanted (i.e. VERY) there wasn’t anything available for ladies.

With it I have a 0.5 millimetre thick Mares Rash Guard. It’s very warm but I do find the stitching a bit coarse and I have to be careful how I line the seams up on my arms and torso. The wetsuit seals so tightly that after some dives, however, my arms even have dry patches on them. I slather vaseline on the skin in the front of my neck before repetitive dives, because I get an uncomfortable chafe going on there if I spend a day in my wetsuit and rash vest.

The sleeves of both the wetsuit and rash vest are a bit long (or perhaps my complaint should be that I have short arms). I suppose I can have them adjusted (might be cheaper to do the sleeves rather than the arms). In the mean time I make use of Gerard’s patented plastic bag donning technique for wetsuits.

I can still wear a shortie on top of the 8-6-5. It remains to be seen whether Atlantic diving will require this.