The Zissou won National Geographic Adventure Magazine's “Gear of the Year” award and Outside Magazine's “Gear of the Show” award. Although we're optimistic about hydrophobic down coatings, the Zissou, which uses low quality 600-fill down and costs far more than similar bags without the treatment or the hype.
Hydrophobic Down
Hydrophic Down is intended to handle accidental wetting, humidity, and perspiration. It attempts to take down, the best insulation on the planet, and make it better. This is great because down is virtually useless when wet and takes a troublesome amount of time to dry. Improving its performance in wet conditions could keep us outdoorsy types warmer when the conditions turn for the worse.
Can hydrophobic down insulation adequately replace synthetic insulation for use in wet conditions? In order to do that, the bag would need to insulate as well as a synthetic bag and have features that equal or exceed the synthetic bag's. It must be as light, as compact, as comfortable, as durable, and equally warm when wet. Using hydrophobic down on high-quality down fills (800+) could be useful, but only if employed by the best sleeping bags. For example, a sleeping bag's weight and warm would, in most circumstances, be more important than whether or not the bag had a hydrophobic coating.
As of today, our testers have spent over 14 nights in the Zissou. Almost all have been int he open air in cold and wet environments. Along river banks and on multi-day backpacking trips in the rain. Most recently, this author slept out in the pouring rain in the Canadian Rockies (temps in the upper 30's F). Our testing shows that the bag, when wet, retains its loft longer than traditional down. But it's no where near as warm as a synthetic bag when wet. The National Geographic Adventure review claims the bag “stays dry seven times longer in wet conditions than untreated down.” Having slept in over 50 down bags and over a dozen synthetic bags, in wet conditions all over the world, this author can confirm that DriDown does not stay dry seven times longer than untreated down. In real world conditions the difference is slight. Over the same period in the same conditions we estimate that the Zissou retains roughly 25% more loft than a traditional bag. Though less than we expected, this is significant! When used in lighter and more compressible 800+ fill powers DriDown could be an excellent addition to a well designed sleeping bag.
All things considered, a hydrophobic coating is just one of many components that make up a sleeping bag. We're optimistic about the future of hydrophobic down and believe that coated down serves as more of a finishing touch to an excellent bag than as the single component that makes a bag great.
Beyond the hydrophobic coating, the Zissou 15 weighs a hefty 40 ounces- that's 40% more than the lightest similarly warm and similarly featured down bag we've tested. The Zissou's features leave room for improvement, too. The hood pull cord is very difficult to pull one handed and many other bags have hood that are more comfotrable when fully cinched. The bag's cut is about average for an all-purpose “budget” down bag.
Value
The Zissou is expensive for its performance.
Quilt style sleeping bags are warmer for their weight, more versatile, more comfortable in a wider range of conditions, and lighter.
