I asked the advice of someone I know who works at a leading swimwear company. (They don't make swim skins themselves.) Any thoughts on the below:


In regards to the swim skin suit for Kona, I may be able to help as I researched them a little a few years ago when I designed the [redacted for privacy] triathlon race wear suits. The speed suits or ‘swim skins’ for Kona are not buoyant but worn over your trisuit/singlet and shorts they are nice and snug with a little compression so it may improve your swim feel as it holds your core. The surface finishes on the suits are usually SCS (super composite skin) Yamamoto with a low co-efficient of drag which don’t absorb water, so over that Kona sea swim that will reduce drag and time.

I remember testing a Blue Seventy version a few years ago but I’m not sure which is the best spec suit to wear currently.

I tested a bunch of the suits, you can find all my results in the archives here somewhere. But basically it came down to how tight a suit you can wear. All the companies make a fine suit, some only top of the line, others have a couple price points. The fastest suit i tested was the Tyr pro torque, but all the suits were close. So if you have to take price into consideration, then get the tightest fitting, cheapest suit you can find. If price is no object, then go try on several different brands, and try them on over what you are going to wear in the race. A couple companies like DeSoto make suits that can be worn through out the entire race, so not quite as fast in the water, but makes up some seconds in transition.

And 2 to 3 seconds per 100 was my norm on all the suits, but that was against a training jammer unshaved. So not quite as much in a real race comparison of a shave down and racing jammer, but still an advantage in my opinion...

Good info minus the bold. Typically the suits of today will have a very tightly woven textile fabric with a teflon like coating that allows for a very low absorption rate. This allows the suit to have a nearly 100% hydrophobic surface. There are a few suits with SCS, but not the majority.

Monty is also on point with the fit story. If you look at the suits that Olympic level swimmers wear, they are usually several sizes smaller than a typical suit they would wear. This allows for max compression and muscle support. Now a Triathlon Speedsuit and a Swimming Tech suit are still fairly different in terms of technology, but the principle is the same.

Provide a smooth surface for the water to run over, while supporting and compressing muscles throughout a swim. Thus, lowering your swim time (and muscle fatigue), I'd same somewhere between 2-5 seconds per 100m.

The tighter the suit, likely the better the benefit from the suit, but you need to be able to swim in it without constriction. Keep in mind in open water like in Kona, chaffing can easily increase due to the sand particles in the water. This makes the fit even more important.

Try some suits on. Swim in them if you can. You can test our suits on the pier in Kona, all week, every morning, and we'll have them available at the expo for purchase.

If you have any questions I'm more than happy to help!

Jake

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