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How Wetsuits Make Modern Ocean Sports Possible

By John V

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 26Feb2012 Word count: 493 Viewed: 58 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Before the era of specialized gear like wetsuits, diving suits, and gender-specific fits, ocean sports enthusiasts going out in the winter had three choices: suffer the cold, wear on-shore clothes until they were soaked, or don't go in the water at all. Since the third one was clearly not an option for the most passionate surfers, divers, and swimmers, they had to make do with either their bare skin or a makeshift cold-water outfit. For surfers who chose the latter, this meant going out in long underwear, wool, and cashmere - an amusing image today, but better than the alternative of not surfing for half the year.

These adventurous surfers' clothing choices were reminiscent of the gear worn by the men who first scaled the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest. Sir Edmund Hillary, his Tibetan sherpa guide Tenzin Norgay, and the rest of their crew did so in climbing and cold-weather gear that is laughably outdated by today's standards. Yet equipped with wool sweaters and heavy steel oxygen tanks, they managed to create a new threshold of excellence in humankind's pursuit of overcoming nature's greatest challenges. Watching surfers clad in nothing but wet suits, screaming down the breaking face of a 60-foot mid-ocean wave, is to perceive a more contemporary act of defiance in the face of nature's greatest obstacles.

As people have taken to adventuring in water, in the form of sports like diving, surfing, wakeboarding, they have relied on wetsuits to help them overcome environmental obstacles like frigid temperature, strong tides, and even the occasional run-in with a startled or upset sea creature. While modern wetsuits are designed to the highest standards of heat retention, durability, and comfort - a far cry from the antiques borne by Hillary and his team - one can't help but be reminded of their slog up the mountain. The wetsuit seems to empower its wearer, leaving the casual observer impressed and humbled by the challenging conditions that a wetsuit-clad surfer or diver will endure.

The reason wetsuits are such an effective tool for ocean sports is that they provide several key advantages over bare skin or other forms of active wear for water. Small bubbles in the neoprene fabric insulate the wearer's body against the cold, and they also make the wearer slightly more buoyant. The suit also acts as a protective layer against abrasion from a surfboard, stings from jellyfish, and Ultraviolet rays from the sun.

Legend has it that the first commercially produced wetsuits were frowned upon by surfers for almost a decade after their initial rollout. Now they are an accepted part of ocean sports culture, and have been configured to meet the needs of all kinds of users. From girls wetsuits, to PFDs, to wakeboarding vests, warmth, safety and comfort are accessible to all who seek to jump in the water and go.

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