“Smurf Gloves” are those nice PVC gloves that most dry glove rings come with. Named such due to their blue, smurf like colour. The glove themselves are great. They are made for the commercial fishing industry (can be seen often on Deadliest Catch) and are designed to stay supple in freezing conditions while maintaining their abrasion and puncture resistance. Over all the best product for our application. However, there is a draw back. The price.

I’ve seen these gloves go for as much as $60 / pair. That is just wrong. They are PVC gloves, and while they are the best for what we need, they only cost pennies to make. The problem lies in the layers between the manufacturer and the diver. Each person that touches these things doubles the price. Years ago I decided to be one of those layers and sell to the shops. I was selling to them for half of the cost of their distributor and while I had some success, it wasn’t worth my time and I gave it up.

After reading many posts online where divers bitch and moan about the cost of these gloves (especially to Canada), I decided to share. If you are in the US, many will say to go to Seattle Marine, which is by far the cheapest solution for Americans. If you live in Canada (where dry gloves are kind of a must) then Seattle Marine can get expensive, fast.

Here is what you need

My distributor for the smurf gloves in Canada was Watson Gloves.

http://www.watsongloves.com/contact_location.html

They have locations across Canada.

Here is what you order;

There are three popular choices.
All three are made from the exact same material and are the exact gloves that DC, Skana, Si Tech and Bare sell. Probably the same as the DUI zuip gloves too.

Atlas 490
Built in liner (not removable), same sizing as the gloves that came with your rings.
http://www.showaco.com/glove_search….l&pg=0&P_ID=69

Atlas 495
Removable liner, same sizing as the gloves that came with your rings.
http://www.showaco.com/glove_search….l&pg=0&P_ID=71

Atlas 660
No liner, which I prefer because I can match up with my own fleece gloves of various weights for different times of year.
IMPORTANT – These gloves are ONE size OFF from all the other gloves. Order one size larger than the gloves that came with your ring system. This is because they come with no liner at all and the manufacturer doesn’t think you will use one.
http://www.watsongloves.com/catalogd…0-Blue_Boy.htm

Now I notice that the 660′s are the only ones on Watson’s website. When I was ordering them for resale, the 490 and 495′s were not an item on hand at all locations and they had to be brought in. IMO, this is not a problem since I would only order 660s now anyways. They go great with many fleece gloves that don’t have a mile long gauntlet. The liners that come with the gloves are too long and are a source of annoyance and leaks.

As far as other brands and various dish gloves out there…. these are far superior for cold water diving and now, not as expensive as they once were.

Enjoy

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 9:04 am and is filed under Skills and Equipment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.