I recently got the new Palm ladies’ drysuit and I love it. I had the previous model (Element) and I might have expected this to be the same suit just a slightly different colour. This is not the case, the Atom ladies suit hasn’t been changed a lot, but the changes are all improvements.
The material is stronger and so after a few walks through some river banks over the last few months, I’m still dry in it.
The new zip is great, there is now no flap covering the zip and so I can easily zip up and unzip my suit on my own. No more driving home in my drysuit because there’s no one around to open it for me! They have improved the strength of this zip so it doesn’t need the flap to protect it.
The drop seat zip is also much better and probably one of my favourite features on the new suit. The fit is not so baggy, which make the suit look better but also I’m much tighter in my boat, less material around. There has some debate recently about the usefulness of the drop seat in ladies’ drysuits. I had a suit with the front relief zip and never once used it as I didn’t want to use a Shee Wee. In comparison I’ve used the drop seat numerous times while out paddling.
The velcro neck seal is gone and replaced with a lovely neoprene one. This helps with no more crazy knots and huge dreads in my hair from it sticking to the velcro. A small thing but a welcome change.
The colour has also changed to a different shade of blue with an orange accent colour, which I really like.
The new suit is not a huge change from the old (the Element was pretty good already). However the small changes that have been made the new suit even better.
