Introduction
We have several sayings that we turn to here at O’Three and one of the most popular ones is “we don’t make anonymous units”.
Every dry suit has its own unique serial number, but more importantly every drysuit has its owners name written inside, allowing us to access the full history and in many cases the journey of each suit.
Rez Soheil is an extremely experienced technical diver who dives with a close knit group of friends, they have spent many years researching and diving the incredible wrecks off of Donegal – Ireland.
The Rescue
It was on one of these particular trips that Rez, well…, more specifically his suit was going to go on a journey that would astound us all.
On the 12th June 2017 Rez was diving HMS Viknor, about 30 miles north of Donegal, Ireland.
A dive he and his crew had done numerous times.
Unfortunately, on this occasion one of the divers on this trip needed to be airlifted from the dive boat.
In the commotion of clearing the deck in readiness for the winchman some of the kit was not stowed as securely as it could have been.
As the skipper of Laura Dean headed into wind at a speed of about 20 knots allowing the rescue helicopter to approach at the correct angle and speed the downdraft caught Rez beloved Ri 2-100 dry suit and it flew overboard.
Obviously, everyone’s focus was on the safe airlift of their fellow diver. The actual lift from beginning to end only took about 8 minutes, but by the time the helicopter turned away it was any ones guess as to where Rez’s suit was.
That, thought Rez, was the last he would ever see of his trusty dry suit.
Discovery
Now we fast forward to 30th July when we received a phone call at O’Three HQ from a Mr Andrew Fairburn, a fellow diver who had been walking along a beach,
Maze Beach to be exact, on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland.
I found a dry suit and its one of yours, would you know whose it is?
We asked Andrew to take a look inside and yes, you guessed it… After nearly 7 weeks and 98 ebb and flood tides resulting in a journey of about 700 miles at sea, Rez’s O’Three dry suit finally washed up. Andrew told us that it looked in good shape
Andrew kindly sent Rez’s suit to us from Scotland via courier. When it arrived back with us it was indeed in amazing shape.
We put the suit on our leak test rig straight out of the box and were stunned to find that even after it’s lonely voyage the suit didn’t have any damage or leaks apart from a couple of small nibbles out of the neck seal, but other than needing a good wash to remove the sand it was diveable.
Happy Ending
During the nearly 7 weeks that Rez suit took to “surface”, he placed an order for another Ri 2-100, thinking that his beloved suit would never be seen again. We have reunited Rez with his original suit, fully serviced, salt and sand free and has now become a trusted spare. Most importantly, the rescued diver has made a full recovery.
Another saying we try and live by here at O’Three, “go the extra mile”. Rez’s suit certainly did and it is a happy outcome on all fronts.