“You really have to solicit the worst-case shark-attack scenario,” says Neil Andrea, CEO of Neptunic. “The reality is that a shark bite is so dynamic that our redesign demanded a real-world test. Mathematics and theory of materials can’t tell you enough.”

That real-world test? Enticing an agitated Caribbean reef shark to frantically and repeatedly bite Andrea’s arm.

Neptunic Shark Suits are trusted worldwide by aquariums, dive operators and filmmakers to protect them as they work closely with some of the world’s most dangerous sharks. It is a responsibility that Neptunic takes very seriously. As Andrea emphasized, “Our redesign was inspired by our desire to keep divers safe — divers who spend all day, every day, underwater, surrounded by sharks in a working environment.”

This year marked the first major redesign of a product that traces its heritage back to medieval times. Recent advances in materials and fabrication allowed the shark suit’s weight to be decreased while the mobility and strength increased.

Andrea is secretive about exactly how the stainless-steel mesh suits are manufactured to give both protection and range of motion, but he will divulge that it takes a specialized machine 70 hours to individually weld enough chain mail to make a suit — ring by ring, link by link, almost 500,000 in total. And it takes a skilled craftsman another 40 hours to cut and assemble that suit completely by hand.

The shark-bite test was the most important and final step in the manufacturing process for the NEXXT Generation Neptunic Sharksuit. How did it feel to be bitten by an 8-foot Caribbean reef shark? Andrea remembers with a wince.

“It hurt! The shark bit down once; it bit down twice. And on the third bite, it really clamped down. It was violent and powerful, hard to really explain. I hopefully won’t be doing it again for a while. The shark suits are designed for accidental bites, not full attacks. The redesigned suit held up, and I swam away unscratched. To me, that is a huge success.”