Zone 3 Vanquish Blautbúningur Karla

The Vanquish truly shows the laser precision and innovation which goes into the Zone3 product range.

Pursuing perfection and key design points:

The suit is designed to make sure the shoulder, arms, upper back and latissimus dorsi have as much flexibility as possible. This is combined with some of the world's most buoyant materials around the quads, hips and glutes. This is how it's been achieved:

1. Our highly praised ultra thin one-piece shoulder panel has now been extended from the middle of the chest to the centre of the back. You can see a flat-plan drawing of this panel to show you how much unrestricted flexibility the suit offers around the arms and shoulders. This panel is only 1.5mm thick and made with Yamamoto's premium #40 SCS which is one of the lightest and highest stretch materials available

The extension of this area combined with the lack of seams make the suit extremely comfortable, allows for improved chest expansion and enables a higher elbow position in the water. As soon as you put this suit on you can really feel the difference.

This is now combined with an innovative new ultra-thin 0.3mm Yamamoto BRS SCS material on the arm sleeves. This is the world’s thinnest SCS neoprene and reduces the weight and buoyancy of the arms. This allows a quicker stroke recovery after the catch phase and reduces arm fatigue during the swim, perfect for swims of 1.5km or more.

The focus on ensuring maximum flexibility means you can increase your distance per stroke, conserve energy and minimise the risk of shoulder injuries.

2. We have extended the area of this same high stretch fabric across the shoulder blades and from under the forearm down to the hip. This is the 2mm #39 Gunmetal SCS used under the arms you can see in our product photos. This material is very soft and is also highly flexible but at the same times helps to maintain the structure of the suit over an extended period of time. The panel design really helps to maximise the propulsion you can achieve with each stroke and ensures a fluid roll with each arm pull.

3. New chest panel design continues the focused hip and core buoyancy up through the torso to the centre of the chest with 5mm Yamamoto Aerodome. This acts like a roll-bar to help promote the essential torso rotation between each stroke, aids in course sighting during the swim navigation and keeps up core body warmth.

4. The hip and core areas are made up from a combination of three different materials, each with a thickness of 5mm which is the maximum allowed under ITU rules. These panels are

• NBR construction side panels designed to work in unison with the front leg panels. NBR is a super buoyant material which is commonly used in life jackets. This material is sandwiched between two layers of neoprene to ensure maximum lift in the water.
• Aerodome materials used on the front legs from the hips to the knees to help support the core leg muscles. This material is designed with air bubbles built between the fabric layers to make it lighter and more buoyant, producing up to 30% more buoyancy than conventional neoprene.
• 39 cell SCS neoprene used on the glutes, again with a 5mm thickness.

5. Full use of Yamamoto fabrics designed to ensure superb all-over body flexibility, comfort and performance. Zone3 work on new developments with Yamamoto as a chosen supplier because the neoprene offers fantastic performance features including:

• Speed: The aqua dynamic 'SCS' Nano coating applied to the neoprene creates almost zero drag through the water. A drag coefficient of just 0.021 compared with 4.0 for regular neoprene wetsuits. The SCS coating also prevents the suit from absorbing water, therefore avoiding excess weight in the wetsuit.
• Flexibility: A massive 480-580% in elongation, compared with human skin (under arm) which is just 60-70%. Superior flexibility and comfort with an expansion of 7x conventional wetsuit materials.
• Buoyancy: Derived from limestone rather than oil which offers a 23% higher closed-cell structure. This significantly increasing the buoyancy levels for the swimmer.
• Warmth: High heat retention: Keeping the body warmer in colder waters to help reduce body fatigue and improve performance.
• Eco: The neoprene is also derived from limestone opposed to petroleum which is more environmentally friendly.