WETSUIT LEARNINGS

HISTORY
Surfers prepped for the frigid seas with frantic, almost tribal dances around beach fires, some taking to the water in wool sweaters (occasionally soaked in oil) and/or clunky, immobilizing scuba suits -- anything to stave off impending numbness. Waveriding was commonly conservative; the rational being that not falling and thus staying dry was paramount to getting radical. Enter Jack O'Neill, an inventive San Franciscan and window salesman by trade whose unwillingness to freeze his nuts off would revolutionize watergoing.

Following numerous aborted stabs at a functional, mobile suit, O'Neill found himself aboard a DC-3 passenger plane, studying aisles lined with a peculiar rubber-like substance: neoprene. O'Neill quickly ordered heaps of the stuff, began hand sewing it together and, in 1952, started up San Francisco's first surf shop along its Great Highway. Sales were brisker than the afternoon onshore winds that churned Ocean Beach. Later, he took to the road to market his invention, setting up ice-filled tanks in which he'd submerse his kids for hours to get the point across. Onlookers were stunned and overnight surfing became a year-round affair. O'Neill later moved his headquarters south to Santa Cruz, where both remain today.




sources
http://www.surfline.com/gear/the-wetsuit-primer---a-hood-to-booties-look-at-the-gear-that-keeps-us-warm_40381/
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