Salvimar has an amazing spearfishing line and has been in recent years the fastest growing brand in terms of new products. This also applies to the wetsuits, where the Italian Company has an offer of well 7 different models. This only considers the spearfishing sector. Never stopping to renew and improve the product line, in 2022 Salvimar has improved the NAT wetsuit, with the new N.A.T. 101 model. N.A.T. stands for Natural Advanced Texture. The N.A.T. 101 is the most affordable of the camouflage spearfishing wetsuits by Salvimar. Still, is indeed rich of many high-quality details.
Camouflage
The camouflage of the new Salvimar N.A.T. 101 is brown-based with also some blue elements. The look is made of pixel-like shapes, basing the camouflage on the image breakdown concept. In addition, as fish see images in a blurry way, it is evident how a pixel-like image will be seen by the fish as any other natural image of the underwater world.
Materials
The neoprene used to manufacture the new Salvimar N.A.T. 101 is an open cell internally and lined externally solution. The external lining is an ultra-stretch Lycra Spandex solution. The open cell is Q-Foam neoprene of medium density, which can be an all-round solution for dives at different depths. The neoprene is made by Namyoung. The company indicates the medium density neoprene to support loads of more than 3 atm with total elastic behaviour. This means that the neoprene returns exactly to its normal thickness even with dives below 30 meters…not bad!
Finishings
Details are part of this excellent high-quality value-for-money wetsuit. In fact, the new Salvimar N.A.T. 101 wetsuit is complete with reinforcement on the chest and knees. In such areas, a special Puffgum cover is applied. The design sees a number of rubber elements separated one from the other to avoid stiffening the areas involved as it would happen with a single patch.
Also, the details of the borders of ankles and wrists are reinforced with seams. Such system is called Overlock system. This consists of a seam applied to the cut neoprene, which is not folded at the border. A good solution that does not cost too much. Such finishing evidently gives more life to the wetsuit in those areas where a simple cut neoprene would with time lose elasticity.
A higher level of detail is intelligently applied to the hood contour. This is not only complete with a reinforcement seam, it is folded to improve strength and comfort on the face of the spearo. The only detail we don’t like too much is that there is an internal seam in correspondence to the chin. Still, the seam is very neat and well performed.
The chest area internally has an additional 3 mm thick patch. This protects the stern of the spearo when loading the speargun.
Cut and fit
The closure of the jacket is with a single clip. The system is well designed with the indication of the adjustable position of such clip. It is originally set in the central position. It can be though moved to long or short simply by repositioning the two steel screws.
The cut is very refined, with areas such as arms, legs and back preformed. The seams behind the knees that are shifted one respect to the other. This improves comfort a lot, as during finning the spearo will no feel the stiffer seam on the skin.
The back of the wetsuit has a vertical central seam. This works well in adapting ad adhering to the concave area of the dorsal spine. Such a solution helps to avoid water sacks on the back.
The new Salvimar N.A.T. 101 is available in the thicknesses 3.5, 5.5 and 7 mm. The sizes are S-M-L-XL-XXL. Jacket and pants cannot be bought separately.
