Put it on and forget it.
That’s what we hope you’ll do when you choose a Northern Diver drysuit.
We want to bring you closer to the exhilaration of diving by making a suit that performs so well, you won’t even notice you’re wearing it - for men and women alike.
When we were established over 40 years ago, we quickly became recognised as a leading drysuit manufacturer and introduced pioneering new manufacturing processes to the recreational diving market, such as a made-to-measure service and computerised cutting systems.
Back then, recreational diving was experiencing explosive growth in popularity and rapid development in the UK. We’re proud of being part of this point in history and working hard to help shape the diverse and truly special sport that diving is today.
Membrane or Neoprene Drysuit?
Broadly speaking, scuba diving drysuits are available in two categories: Membrane and neoprene.
Membrane suits, sometimes known as 'tri-laminate', are thinner as they’re typically constructed from butyl or vulcanised rubber, laminated with a nylon inner and outer lining to form a triple layer material (hence the name tri-laminate).
The outer lining of membrane drysuits can be formed from specialist materials such as Cordura® ultra-durable fabric, which features as standard on the Northern Diver Cortex drysuit.
Membrane drysuits are known for offering increased freedom of movement. However, unlike their neoprene counterpart, they don’t offer any degree of thermal protection by themselves. What mitigates this is that they can be worn with undersuits of a variety of thicknesses for different temperatures.
Neoprene drysuits, on the other hand, are thicker than membrane suits to a varying degree (depending on the thickness of the neoprene), offer some thermal protection and give a more streamlined fit.
All of our neoprene drysuits are constructed with resin-injected compressed or hyper-compressed neoprene fabric, finished with an anti-abrasion diamond weave outer layer.
Which type of suit you select largely comes down to personal preference, though our non-diving customers engaged in water rescue, offshore industries and boating prefer the light weight and breathability offered by membrane drysuits.
Drysuit Diving Innovation
Many recreational divers know and love our Divemaster 5mm hyper-compressed neoprene drysuit. When this classic Northern Diver suit was first released, it rose to become the drysuit that set the standard by which others were judged.
The Divemaster remains a firm favourite with divers today and, amongst our other neoprene models, is joined by the Divemaster Commercial, a variant that is trusted by commercial, technical and sport divers alike.
Membrane drysuits were traditionally seen as cumbersome and easily damaged. We broke away from this perceived norm by developing the tailored, high tenacity tri-laminate design of the Vortex drysuit, the original Northern Diver membrane suit.
Today, our membrane drysuit offering includes everything from the entry level Arctic Survivor, drawing influence from the historic Vortex, to the technical Aquatex fabric HID drysuit with a YKK® Aquaseal® zip and Constant Fit Tension Flex system.
We’re proud to be the prime contractor to the British Ministry of Defence for drysuits and diving equipment, and have the specialist capability to produce drysuits for purposes such as special operations and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). Such undertakings demand suits with properties including being non-magnetic, virtually undetectable at depth and having low acoustics.
Similarly, many years ago we departed from convention by developing our own low profile drysuit inflation and exhaust valves, which are compliant to current CE regulations and possess a 100% rating from the TUV-Rheinland testing house.
Our swivel inflation valve is available with conventional Hansen, commercial CJEN and specialist fittings. The exhaust valve can regulate the rate of airflow and has a manual override function.
Commercial diving versions of both valves are available. Our commercial exhaust valve features a dual diaphragm for resistance to contaminated environments.
How To Choose The Right Drysuit
Northern Diver’s present range of neoprene and membrane drysuits represents a culmination of our 40+ years of hard work, innovation and, of course, scuba diving.
One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is our determination to provide our customers with an unrivalled drysuit service.
Our drysuits are available in numerous specifications with off-the-peg sizes, a long-established made-to-measure service, a host of premium features available as standard and alteration options readily available.
Take a look through this section of our website, and if you feel that some advice would be useful to you, don’t hesitate to call, email, live chat or visit us in store!
We hope you’ll join the scores of sport, technical, police, commercial and military divers worldwide who use and trust Northern Diver.
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