I have now been using a Peak UK Custom drysuit for about 6 months on rivers and for playboating and I have been very pleased with it. Not only is the drysuit really good quality but the ability to have your own customised design incorporated really well into it makes for a winning combination.
One of the key features about this drysuit is that it is made out of their X3 material not the X4 that some of Peak’s other kit is made out of. Now this comes with a selection of pros and cons that will depend really on what the individual paddler would want from their suit. Trying on the Peak whitewater one piece in the shop, the X4 material felt quite heavy to wear although I don’t imagine this would greatly affect movement on the water too much. The custom suit with the X3 however feels much lighter.
The custom suit also doesn’t feel as warm as some other kit can be, although this can again be taken either way. Being a drysuit you can wear more or thicker thermals and also have to option to wear the suit more when temperatures warm up. However the need to wear more or thicker thermals may end up negating the lighter weight or even affecting your manoeuvrability. As I mentioned before though, this is not necessarily an issue with the suit, it is just something to bear in mind when looking at this suit.
Looking at the suit on its own it is a good quality piece of kit. The zip seal feels well attached and unlikely to wear any time soon. Having the U-zip entry system means that the zip is also covered up inside the boat reducing the chance of water getting into suit though any gap in the zip. There is also the noticeable absence of a zip across your back making paddling feel a little more comfortable, and producing a similar feel to a normal dry cag. However the custom suit does lack that handy relief zip, although the positioning of the main zip doesn’t mean that this is a huge issue, just a slight inconvenience.
With the Custom Suit you also get a slightly better fitting suit, with Peak tailor making the customised section to individual specifications. This gives you a bit more flexibility into how you would want your suit to fit. The socks also have plenty of room, comfortably providing enough space for feet up to around size 13 and there is even an option for the socks to be swapped for a larger pair. The latex seals also feel very comfy, although I found the wrist seals to be a little tight at first. This can be altered though so it is not too much of a problem.
The main reason that you would want to get this suit though would be to have the ability to customise the design of your drysuit. This process is much simpler that you would expect and you don’t have to be a gifted artist to be able to make the most of this option. As long as you can roughly line up a design that you want onto the provided template on the Peak website then you can leave it up to Peak to do the rest. Of course the more work that Peak have to do with the design the more the suit will end up costing, but Peak will only spend as much time of the design as you would want to, charging by the hour.
The design itself is printed onto the suit really well, colouring the actual material itself. This means that the design will not begin to fade or peel away any time soon. Peak also works in their logos really well into the design and it doesn’t look like they just place them on in pre-determined positions.
The Peak custom drysuit is a good quality piece of kit that will serve its purpose very well. It may not have all of the niceties of some of the other drysuits available but it comes with the added benefit of the customisable designs. It also comes in at a fairly respectable price for a drysuit, varying at around £500-£550 depending on how much time is spent on the designing process. Provided you that you take into account the slight differences that it has compared to other suits, this suit will not disappoint.
Review by Adam Huse.
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