Santi ELite drysuit – First Impressions
Anyone that knows me knows that I wear through drysuits fairly quickly. For some time I’ve been looking around at options for my next suit. While I was looking, Santi launched their new ELite suit. This suit has been designed with GUE divers in mind, and so has a lot of features that are very nice. I had always been impressed with the build quality of Santi gear, and have been diving their undersuits for around 5 years, so I thought I’d give the ELite a go.
So off went my measurements and around 4 weeks later a parcel arrived. Opening the box and the first thing I saw was a Santi Holdall bag. This is a nice touch. Opening the bag and out came the suit. My first thought was that it looked a bit stiff, however when I tried moving the material it felt very flexible. My next thought was suprise at how light the whole thing felt.
Starting at the top of the suit and working down. The first thing we see is the warm neck collar. This is available in Grey or Black, and I think in hindsight I’d have gone with the black. However in an attempt not to have a totally black suit I went with grey. Coming down the suit, I asked for an Apeks inflate and Sitech dump valves. Santi were quite happy to do this. The inflate valve is slightly off center, but close enough that there are no issues with it and the dump valve is pretty much in the perfect place for efficient dumping.
The zip is covered by a zip over cover, which protects the waterproof zip, and the positioning of this makes it easy to close and open without assistance.
Coming down the suit, we come to the telescopic section, This allows more movement while wearing the suit than the traditional design and so allows for a more snug fit without compromising movement. Next we come to the pockets. These are awesome. Nice and big, they have 2 bungees sewn into each pocket and the right pocket has a small zip section in the flap.
Further down we get to the boots. These are the best footwear that I’ve seen on a Drysuit. Santi call them Flexsoles, these are a compressed neoprene boot with a rubber sole. However unlike the DUI turbo sole, the flexsole is fully moulded and so should survive the rigors of diving better.
Finally I should mention the overall quality of the suit. The whole thing looks smart and well made. The material is light, flexible but gives the impression that it should be tough. And on top of all this, Santi have a 3 year warranty on the whole suit (excluding zip – 12 months and seals – 6 months)
The Santi ELite is available now and costs £1600 Made to Measure.