Have you ever dreamed about a waterproof, breathable boating
top that would be as comfortable to wear as your favorite fleece
jacket? Well, it’s no longer a dream – the NRS
Motion Soft Shell Jackets are a beautiful reality.
What makes these tops a new innovation in boating technical outerwear
is the fabric. It’s a three-layer material, with the following
features:
The outer material is a nylon/spandex blend that’s treated
with a durable
water repellent (DWR) coating. DWR keeps water from soaking
into the threads, causing moisture to bead up and roll off. It’s
soft and stretchy, not noisy and stiff like a lot of nylon fabrics.
The middle layer is a urethane membrane laminate. It has a breathability
rating of 2,000 grams of moisture per square meter of membrane
per 24 hours (2,000 gms/m2/24 hr) and a waterproof rating of 10,000
mm. These ratings are in the mid-range for our NRS waterproof,
breathable fabrics and as good as or better than 70% of the fabrics
in the industry.
Let’s take a moment to talk about the standards used for
waterproofness and breathability. Different manufacturers of fabrics
use different standards and test methods for measuring these factors,
so often it’s an “apples and oranges” problem
of comparing fabrics. The ratings given above are fairly common.
The breathability rating is simply a measurement of the weight
of water that can physically pass through a square meter of the
membrane in a 24-hour period. 2,000 grams of water is over one-half
gallon.
The waterproofness rating is a measurement of hydrostatic pressure.
Translated into non-engineer speak, that’s the pressure
exerted by a column of water. In this case, it’s saying
that the weight of water in a water column approximately 32 feet
high or less would not force water through the membrane.
Now that we’ve caused your eyes to glaze over, let’s
get to the coolest feature of the Motion fabric: the inner layer.
It’s 100% polyester fleece! Just like that favorite fleece
top of yours. It’s warm, really warm and oh, so comfortable
against the skin.
To summarize, Motion fabric is very waterproof and breathable.
It repels water, is soft and stretchy, windproof, warm and comfortable.
It’s also pretty lightweight, only 435 grams per square
meter.
Then we wrap this great fabric into the Motion Soft Shell Jackets,
in both men’s and women’s specific cuts. You get all
the great features of the fabric, with the seams sealed with polyurethane
seam tape. You get a comfortable punch-through neoprene neck gasket
in all the tops and latex wrist gaskets in the long sleeve and
neoprene arm cuffs in the Shorty.
Throw in the 4-way stretch inner tunnel and the double-pull adjustment
on the 3-inch wide sticky grip waist and you’ve got one
sweet top!
