Last year, I reviewed the Waterproof Ultima dry glove system and rated them very highly. I said towards the end of the review that I'd be ordering some extra glove-side parts so that I could carry spares and different sizes for summer use. These took ages to arrive as the UK distributors don't seem geared-up for supplying parts. However, arrive they did. So, I armed them with some gloves and brought them here to Scapa. Every, EVERY, dive with the new parts was wet once I got past 30-35m. It was like a switch turning on; all of a sudden the water would start coming in. So, I mentioned this to the guys from whom I bought the spares and they said they'd contact Waterproof. Meanwhile it was suggested that I try swapping the large internal o-ring from the good rings to see if that helped. It did - bone-dry once again. I reported my findings back and was told that they'd heard from Waterproof that they'd had an issue with some o-rings and found that they'd leak at - guess what - deeper that 30m (ish). So, Waterproof knew this but didn't think it might be prudent to contact their distributors or issue a recall. They seemed happy to allow divers going deeper than 30m to have a failed dive, probably assuming that most divers don't do deeper dives than that and they thought they'd wing it in order to save face. When it works, this system is every bit as good as Kubis, with the big advantage that the gloves are easier to doff, although the rings are slightly more bulky. But, I'm pretty pissed-off that they knew there was a problem and did fuck-all about it.
Thanks for the review. I’ll be sticking with Kubis when I get another suit made. Poor customer service is a massive bugbear of mine.
That's not good at all. The consequences of their product failing means a curtailed dive which could easily cost hundreds of pounds when gas, boat and time off is added up. Not to mention a box of tissues. That some twat of an manager/accountant doesn't see that the parts are faulty really grates. As ever it's not the original fault, but the cover-up which is the real issue. Would be nice to see Waterproof dragged through the dirt over this as a reminder that a 10p part needs to be just as reliable as everything else we use whilst diving. Have you 'written' to Waterproof's managing director pointing out their errors?
