Fastskin 2
Encyclopedia : F : FA : FAS : Fastskin 2
Fastskin 2, also called FSII, is the more advanced version of the original Speedo Fastskin, and is hailed, by Speedo at least, as the most advanced competitive swimsuit on the planet. Its development was started in 2000. They looked again to nature for their inspiration and once again used the shark, a creature that is very fast and hydrodynamic. Speedo did revolutionary research allowing them to engineer the most effective suit ever. It is actually made of two fabrics, Speedo's patented Fastskin and their new fabric "flexskin".
Fastskin
The Fastskin has the Shark Denticles imprinted on the material and is made of 81% Nylon and 19% Lycra/Spandex. New to the Fastskin 2 suits is the Turbulence Management System, which is made up of 3-D Titanium Silicone Rivets attached to the chest area of the Fastskin 2 suit. These control Turbulence of the water and reduce drag. The material of the suit is has 22 stitches per square inch, whereas the seams are made with 52 stitches in the same area, making the fabric extremely strong. The material is somewhat stiff, but is very stretchy to improve fit.
-->
FlexSkin
The Flexskin is new to the Fastskin 2 suits. It was added in areas where extra flexibility was needed such as under the arm, the sides of the suit, and on the inside of the arms on suits that include material covering the arms. It is extremely slick and elastic to provide the best possible manueverability for those critical regions. The Flexskin on the inside of the arms, on the full-body variant, has had a 3-D Titanium Silicone scale added. This was done after swimmers complained that the extremely smooth flexskin on the inside of the arms of the suit did not allow them to "feel the water". The seven+ separate materials are then combined by seams made of super-stretch thread, and engineered to follow the path of water over the body, again to reduce drag.Marketing
Speedo knew that the new material had a very limited audience, and so they took complete advantage of having all the swim enthusiasts combined at one event, the 2004 Olympics. During the entire olympic games broadcast, but specifically the swimming portions Speedo released a series of ads that advertised the Fastskin 2 to all watching. The did this by combining the images of national swimming legends and their new suit. Since then it is hard to attend a swim meet of almost any size and not see some version of the Fastskin suit.Performance
When compared to the original Fastskin, Fastskin 2 eliminates up to 4% more surface drag on the male full-body suit, compared to 3% on the female variant of the same suit. At the 2004 Olympics 47 medals were won by swimmers wearing Fastskin 2 while swimmers wearing the second most popular swim suit won fewer than half that number.External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.