blueseventy hydra-vision goggles; pre-release review

Hi Guy,

Thanks for the opportunity to test the new hydra-vision goggles you kindly supplied with my recent goggles order. I’ve raced with them for two of our Thursday night weekly races here in Nelson.
http://www.nelsonseaswims.co.nz/. I do all the ocean sea swims around the country and would like to thank blueseventy for their sponsorship in making these swims possible.
First impressions where what a cool looking pair of goggles and I wasn’t the only one impressed as evidence by the small group of swimmers gathering around me at the local Thursday night sea swim to check out the fancy sunglasses I was strapping to my eyes.
I always feel that a pair of goggles without an adjustable nose bridge is a risky investment but having used the Blueseventy element goggles before I was confident that this wasn’t going to be a problem. In fact this is why I buy Blueseventy goggles as I can reliably pull a new set out of their case and without hardly adjusting the strap confidently race with them without having to worry about leakage problems. The same can be said for the hydra-vision, and because of the bigger eyepiece they seem to have an even better fitting for me and resulting In more eye suck producing the most comfortable pair of goggles I’ve worn.

I don’t usually go for the larger or bulkier sized goggle as I feel they just add to water resistance but the hydra-vision seems to have a low profile so it’s increased bulk just aids in visibility. On the Nelson sea swim nights, there is always at least one marker buoy that’s in a direct line with the sun making it very difficult to be seen but the Blueseventy hydra-vision has exceptional glare resistance and I have a wee chuckle to myself as I can swim directly to these buoys whilst the other swimmers are floundering around trying to see which way to go in the glaring sun. with the larger lens I thought that they might get fogged up more easily but this was never an issue.

The only apprehension I had about using these goggles was that the adjusting strap didn’t look to be as secure and firm fitting as the element goggle but after a few swims became familiar with the easy adjusting mechanism and have now found them to be perfectly reliable. However I still wasn’t confident enough to use them in the Wellington harbor swim as conditions were rough
and as yet I haven’t tired the goggles in rough seas so used the old reliable element goggles which I’d only just received from you and had only one previous swim with them. They certainly gave me no problems but with the limited visibility from the rough conditions can’t help wondering how much better the hydra-vision would have been? The Nelson sea swims have a 3.8km swim coming up on the 6th Feb so I’ll certainly be using the hydra-visions for this simply for their comfort value on the longer swim.

In conclusion I would not recommend the Blueseventy Hydra-vision to my fellow competitor as I want to be the only swimmer in the race with a competitive advantage.

Denis Cooper, Nelson, New Zealand