wiggys bags used around the world

WIGGY’S BAGS USED AROUND THE WORLD

Hi guys,

I live in Portugal and am coming to New York in October for about a week.

How long would a parcel take to get to NY? I’m asking because I plan on taking everything back with me. By the way, my son and I have been luvin your bags for more than 10 years. We have 2 Ultima bags bought years ago when Wiggy a made the switch to boat foot. They are still performing as new all these years later. So, here’s a sincere thank you from both of us from the other side of the pond.

A. Rawlerson

Wiggy sleeping bag sales have grown steadily over the past 35 years in Europe because customers are all ways spreading the word. Most sales have been in the Scandinavian countries. This is because they are dog mushers and learned about Wiggy’s from American dog mushers.

Many of these dog mushers have also bought parkas and bibs.

Some buyers have also been military as well. More of the military guys should buy Wiggy’s because their issue sleeping bags are of the “no sleep” variety. But that does not surprise me since the US military issues similar “no sleep sleeping bags”.

In 1987 while I was still in South Carolina I started selling sleeping bags to Brigade Quartermasters Company who in turn sold them to the US Army. It amounted to several hundred Ultima Thule bags that replaced a North Face bag they could not get from North Face.

That same year I was contacted by a woman who owned a backpacking shop in Virginia Beach who needed 300 Super Light bags for the USN SEALS. One of the SEALS was transferred to San Diego SEAL base and he introduced them to my bags.

By now I was in Grand Junction and the San Diego base started buying directly from me. This base sends all the trainees to Alaska so they opted for the two bag system.

Through the latter half of the 1990’s if you were a SEAL, you were issued a Wiggy’s FTRSS [two bag system they termed a Fortress System].

Things changed by 1999 when a chief cook and bottle washer was sent to Kodiak station to run the show and he started buying Sierra Designs “no sleep sleeping bags” that had primaloft as the insulation, this proved to be a disaster when in 2001 I believe [I published the article from the Anchorage Dailey News] when 16 SEALS had to be medevacked to the hospital in Anchorage. 12 had frost bite or were hypothermic. Had they been in Wiggy’s bags this would never have happened.

That said the SEAL base in San Diego hasn’t bought sleeping bags from me in years. I “know” every SEAL who has been issued whatever has been purchased has not been very happy with the bags issued them. SEAL’s may be very tough guys but they are still human and react to temperature as those of us who aren’t SEAL’s do.

The problem is and has been for many years is the fact that GSA contractor representatives are told to get orders with cheap poor quality products so that is what is presented to the buyers.

There were GSA contractors back then but they bought from me direct anyway. I guess I should have opted for a GSA to pay the government to buy from me.

And of course, the grunt gets the s**t end of the stick.

Periodically I get a note from a SEAL who is still using his issue Wiggy bag and it is maybe 20 years old. Between the email I received today and the SEAL’s who write to me “planned obsolescence” is not a factor.

Anyway, I have been living and prospering without the military for many years, but I feel sorry for the grunts not having a Wiggy bag unless they buy one themselves.