Better testing better products


Zhik R&D manager Tom Hussey says there’s no tougher a sport for testing the waterproofness and durability of modern technical clothing than offshore racing


In the past decade Zhik has listened carefully to the wants and needs of the world’s best small- boat sailors, with Zhik the gear of choice for many of the sailors at Rio 2016 including all the team members of three of the most successful nations: Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. The gold and silver medallists in the dynamic 49er class – Pete Burling and Blair Tuke (NZL) and Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen (AUS) respectively – are among the better-known names who have been wearing Zhik for many years now. R&D manager Tom Hussey says, ‘When we started making neoprene garments back in the early days of the company, it was amazing what sailors were prepared to put up with. Or rather, they didn’t have much choice because most of the wetsuits available had been developed for surfers or athletes from other sports. For sailing they were pretty clunky, heavy and inflexible. Since then we’ve listened carefully to the world’s best and


44 SEAHORSE


most demanding sailors to give them what they need, to create garments that are warmer, drier, lighter and more durable than what had previously been available.’ Recently Hussey and the team at Zhik have started to ask the same searching questions about offshore gear. ‘The goal was to produce the toughest, most durable kit that we could; it needed to outperform existing kit from rival brands. ‘We’d picked up on comments off the round-the-world boats that some of the supposedly best gear wasn’t making it through an entire long leg without degradation in key features; when we tested used clothing “from elsewhere”, we quickly identified areas for improvement – in materials in particular. So material became our immediate priority. ‘It’s surprising that there hasn’t been a suitable standard to test for waterproof durability. What’s common in the industry is a hydro - static test, where you put a whole lot of water pressure on one side of the fabric and see if it leaks through.’


Above: not an easy thing to model. Wear calculations are based on an estimated number of impacts


encountered in one hour’s sailing,


multiplied by the typical hours of


activity in one day. That


impact total is then applied using Zhik’s accelerated wear machine (right). For example, 14 days of extreme offshore


sailing works out to just over 1,800 impacts, which is


equivalent to 30 minutes in the machine


While this method provides a good indication of the initial waterproofness of a fabric, Hussey says it doesn’t give you any idea of how the textile will maintain its waterproofness through the active life of the product. ‘There is currently no industry standard method that simulates the high levels of wear in the kind of wet, extreme conditions that are experienced by foul weather gear in the most serious offshore events.’ So Zhik approached the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) to develop a waterproof durability testing method specifically to simulate accelerated wear and tear in wet conditions (when the waterproof membrane is most vulnerable). The method involves placing waterproof textiles in an accelerated wear device that simulates impact and abrasion always in wet conditions. Each textile is pressure-tested to determine waterproofness after defined intervals of accelerated wear (see table).


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92