Palm Equipment USA - how the *&^! do you buy Palmstuff

[kayaker]

Don and ACC:
In doing the footwork to replace my bouyancy aide before it expires, I have discovered a hallway that leads to a dead-end.... Palm PFDs.

ACC: Terrell was a great contact, thanks for the suggestion. He was helpfull.
After Terrell and I swapped a few emails, Don has nailed the situation on the head:
The deal with Palm PFDs is that we aint getting them. Theres no way to get one in the US due to UL and USGS certifications pending, etc...
Supposedly, the Rivertech PFD will be in the states in three months.... whatever... I'm looking at Astral, MTI and Stohlquist now.

I appreciate the suggestions and alternates from everybody, looks like I'll just keep using the PVest for now and like it.

[ACC]

that's cool that you at least have a definitive answer now, kayaker.

As far as other options, I own a stohlquist and have used the astral and p-vest extensively. I think I would go with the astral out of the three because it has a nice large pocket in the front and now it has side rib impact protection. The downsides to that vest are that you have to throw it over your head every time you put it on/take it off, its knife attachment point isnt the best, and it rides a little low to use a salamander hip bag with (but astral makes a rope that fits in the pocket). Good luck finding something that works best.

[openboatergirl]

Hey Kayaker. I am not a regular Mountainbuzz visitor since I'm an east coast paddler, but a friend of mine emailed me about this thread because I work for Palm USA. I just wanted to jump in to try to help clear up the confusion about Palm product on this side of the pond. Don is right about Palm PFDs not being available in this country yet. US Coast Guard approvals have been slow in coming, and we've been limited as to what designs we can get approved. And the truth is that we're too gun-shy of some ugly lawsuit to risk selling the non-USCG vests here. We have production time slotted this spring for two models, the Tour Tec for men and the Stella for women. We'll post them on our web site once they are available to distribute to our dealers. We are in the middle of merging the USA site into the main Palm Europe site to make it easier for people to find us, so the site will look different later this spring. As regards the lousy email address, you caught us red handed there! I alerted our IT guy, and he confessed that it's an address he wasn't watching and it was jammed with an overload of spam emails...I guess we need more viraga and lower mortgage options at Palm USA. But the telephone number listed on the site does work -- I'm not sure what the problem was there. If you want to call us to get further updates for the Palm PFDs, use our toll free: 800-783-4684. We are a small dedicated company that is trying hard to get product to our dealers and I'll be the first to admit that we've had some tough times with different supply issues over the past year, and now we're guilty of not updating our web site as often as we should. Sorry to let you down! But I can assure you that Palm is definitely alive and well, and we're trying hard to grow the distribution of the brand in North America. MTI has been around since 1991, and is one of the top PFD brands for the rec market, so Palm has a steady US company to support it going forward. There's a lot of good PFD brands out there, with different features, fit, and price tags. We hope that you will give the Tour Tec and the Stella a chance once we can get it out there to our good and loyal dealers. Thanks for hanging in there for anyone out there who is a Palm fan!