On July 11th 2016, during the annual Mares Distributor meeting, champagne was poured and a toast was made. To an exciting and successful partnership Between Mares and the distribution team! After a few opening words, The announcement was made. At first I personally sensed that Mares had acquired a rebreather company. I felt the project in the pipelines for quite some years now and with SSI joining the team, it was overdue.
And so, after the imaginary drum roll, Gerald Skrobanek, The Mares President announed that they have acquired…Revo bvba!
I, for instance, was shocked! Being in the diving business, and having completed more than 5000 dives, out of which more than 1000 Tech Dives, I have always been on the path of searching for the best equipment to take me to new places and new skills in the diving world. More than a year ago, me and my diving buddies have debated the next chapter of our diving careers and came to the conclusion that due to the high price of helium, open circuit was becoming more costly in the long run… Especially that most of our dives have become deep tech dives; We needed less Oxygen exposure, more bottom time, and more efficient deco. To sum it all in one word, we needed to invest in “rebreathers”.
We started looking at options, specs and prices. We studied the ISC Megalodon, JJ and Revo. I have a Poseidon MKVI but I didnt dive it for a while. I wanted a unit that can give me broader options hence the choice of these units.
Being in the business of diving, I have many colleagues who are rebreather divers. Mohamad Khattam, Meg Diver and instructor, gave me a good step by step overview about the Megalodon. Gerard Ghammachi, a JJ diver, gave me an overview on the JJ machine and Simon Nadim, a Revo diver and Instructor, gave me a step by step breakdown of the Revo. I was fascinated by the Revo for many reasons and I will try to list just a few of them:
1- The unit is fully backmounted with integrated counterlungs inside a stainless steel housing. This gives me more freedom of movement by having my front torso free of the traditional counterlungs. It is also important to note that the counterlungs being one of the most important part of the closed circuit, are protected inside the stainless steel casing.
2- The unit contains dual Radial Scrubbers!!! Dual Scrubbers means redundancy. We have all heard what a poorly packed or failed scubber can do to a diver…having 2 scrubbers in series means 2 things. First if something happens to the first scrubber, the second scrubber will filter my CO2. Second if everything goes to plan, all I have to do is throw the content of the first scrubber out, make the second scrubber my first scrubber and then repack and install the initial scrubber as my secondary scrubber. Sounds complicated but it is fairly easy.
3- RMS…RMS…RMS…wow, just imagine what it is like to have your revo tell you what your scrubber life is! No more do we have to throw good sofno away!!! RMS is a great feature, and it works!!!
4- Sizes! The Revo comes in 3 sizes, Micro for women and smaller frame divers, Mini for standard guys, and Standard for larger frame people.
These are just some of my reasons, I still have a lot of personal reasons why Revo was my rebreather of choice but I will not bore you with the specifics.
So, after a few days the announcement was made public:
“MARES is excited to announce that effective July 1st 2016 they have signed an agreement to acquire 100% of REVO BVBA Belgium, one of the world’s leading Closed Circuit Rebreather (CCR) manufacturers.
After the successful introduction of “Extended Range,” a new line of diving equipment specifically designed for Advanced and Technical diving, the rEvo CCR will complete the MARES XR Line offering anyone the opportunity to not only go beyond the limits and extend their range – now they can do it silently getting even closer to the marine life.
For a long time, Rebreathers have been exclusive to only the extreme Technical market. Mainly this was due to the cost and complexity of the unit. The objective for acquiring rEvo is to broaden the rebreather community by making rebreathers more affordable while maintaining the quality and performance.
rEvo, Brugge/Belgium, will continue to market and sell the Rebreathers, and MARES will support the company with their research and development, manufacturing facilities and their worldwide distribution network.
“We are excited! Both rEvo and MARES are driven by innovation and technology. We are convinced that this acquisition will be a ‘game changer’ to bring rEvo and Rebreather diving to a whole new level,” stated Paul Raymaekers, rEvo Managing Director.
Gerald Skrobanek, MARES President, “The addition of rEvo is just another example of our continued quest for quality and performance. rEvo will simply strengthen our brand and complete the XR Line and our product offerings.””
We were Bombarded with calls, emails and questions. We have been working hard and now everything is ready! Great News!!! Expect a price reduction on the Revo Rebreahers!!! After all, we want more people to get into the rebreather diving field, and we want to encourage instructors become Revo Divers! I will be posting the new prices and specs soon! For the time being, feel free to get in touch with your dive center or any of our stores to get more information!
Elie Kmeid
