Palm Solo PFD | A Short Summary From Our Paddlesport Expert Joe

Palm Solo PFD | A Short Summary From Our Paddlesport Expert Joe

Palm Equipment’s newest addition to their buoyancy aid line is the Solo Vest. This is a personal floatation jacket designed with kayak and stand up paddle board trips in mind and is arguably their lowest profile, most slim line model. The design is simple, with only essential features included, such as a large expanding front pocket, neoprene padded shoulder straps and buckle side entry for easy access.

The key benefits of the Solo Vest are the lightweight feel and slim fit, which boasts a great range of movement when paddling, making it feel like you’re hardly wearing a PFD. This minimalist design has advantageous when the weather is warmer as it doesn’t retain a huge amount of heat, meaning you can stay cool whilst paddling. The foam used is Gaia, a form of non-PVC foam, which is becoming increasingly popular in the paddle sports world due to its reduced environmental impacts and great performance.

A few people have commented on why you would choose the Solo Vest over the hugely popular Palm Meander, which can be purchased with a high back shape to comfortably fit taller seats, is available in Women’s specific sizes and includes a front zip for easy entry. Speciafically discussing SUP, the Solo vest is extremely clean and thus has no zip or buckles to snag when climbing back on the board. In addition, the expanding pocket is a neat addition that holds a great deal more equipment than that found on the Meander.  Its expanding nature keeps the vest feeling low profile when the pocket is not in use.  Finally, another positive feature is the narrow rear buoyancy panel. Due to its width  we have found that you are unlikely to catch this with your elbow when paddling.  This again promotes the feeling that you are not wearing a buoyancy aid. Of course, these points are not to detract from the popularity of the Meander, which will remain one of our best sellers due to the inherent ease of entry associated with a front zip jacket.

We look forward to hearing reviews from customers as more of these roll out over the coming weeks and months. If you have any questions about what the appropriate PFD for you please do get in touch to have a chat about all the different options available. Check out the video below for an in person review.

Thanks for reading.

Joe



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