Latest on wetsuits.....

kooklife's picture
kooklife started the topic in Wednesday, 14 Apr 2021 at 5:12am

So its that time of the year again where the mornings are getting fresher and the offshores are starting to show. It looks like its been a couple of years since there was a discussion about it so I am looking for wetsuit recommendations.....

Whats everyone wearing/buying or not wearing/buying and why?

burleigh's picture
burleigh's picture
burleigh Monday, 25 Aug 2025 at 7:21pm
Hiccups wrote:
burleigh wrote:
Hiccups wrote:

Man, that poor hypothetical kid that comes face to face with someone wanting to rightly use their warranty. I mean, there's no way the shop wouldn't have procedures in place for such a situation, and heaven forbid if they have to call their manager over if they needed assistance. Nope, not a chance. Just hung out to dry, the poor tyke.

oh burleigh. Such a contrarian. Nice of you to go into bat for planned obsolescence, though, and also caping for capitalism's wager that the average consumer won't know about or can't be bothered with their rights as a paying customer.

Lmao. Hiccup now using ChatGPT for swellnet replies is hilarious

Yeah, bud. Just cos someone used a couple of 50 cent words that you don't understand, they must've used chatgpt. If I'd done that, there probably wouldn't have been any grammatical errors.

“Please write a reply. Make me sound smart with some big words but also make a couple of grammatical errors just in case someone calls me on it”

This is straight from your playbook Hiccup. Now back to the wetsuits

AndyM's picture
AndyM's picture
AndyM Monday, 25 Aug 2025 at 7:25pm

Haha, you really are the conspiracy queen Burls.

Supafreak's picture
Supafreak's picture
Supafreak Monday, 25 Aug 2025 at 8:48pm
poo-man's picture
poo-man's picture
poo-man Monday, 25 Aug 2025 at 9:28pm

Had a 7th wave suit about 20 years ago. Wasn't bad but wasn't great. I see quite a few South islanders wear them but rarely seen up north. From what I've heard their custom suits are good but a low percentage in the water even down south

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 10:06am
poo-man wrote:

Had a 7th wave suit about 20 years ago. Wasn't bad but wasn't great. I see quite a few South islanders wear them but rarely seen up north. From what I've heard their custom suits are good but a low percentage in the water even down south

I checked out the store years ago , by that stage all wetsuits were made overseas

Fliplid's picture
Fliplid's picture
Fliplid Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 11:42am

That's interesting Lankey Dean, from what I can see on their website they're still giving the impression the suits are made in NZ. Would be great if they are as I like the idea of supporting smaller manufacturers instead of the corporates which are basically now all owned by bankers and private equity

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 11:49am
Fliplid wrote:

That's interesting Lankey Dean, from what I can see on their website they're still giving the impression the suits are made in NZ. Would be great if they are as I like the idea of supporting smaller manufacturers instead of the corporates which are basically now all owned by bankers and private equity

I remember stopping by one afternoon, water is freezing on the south island ...
I from memory walked in checked out a suit think the tag read Thailand.
Person behind the counter err and ummed. When I asked if they were made locally.
No was what the response was ...
We design them here !

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 11:52am
Bnkref wrote:

Hey Lanky I jumped on that Florence wettie pre-order a little while ago. Got a 4/3 and 3/2 coming later in the year. Pricing was pretty similar to Needs. Hopefully they’re decent suits.

I almost did also......though I couldn't wait till mid November...
Can't fathom paying 800 us for a fancy one ...lol @bnkref

Fliplid's picture
Fliplid's picture
Fliplid Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 11:54am
Lanky Dean wrote:

I remember stopping by one afternoon, water is freezing on the south island ...
I from memory walked in checked out a suit think the tag read Thailand.
Person behind the counter err and ummed. When I asked if they were made locally.
No was what the response was ...
We design them here !

Ha, goes to show, always read the fine print!

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Tuesday, 26 Aug 2025 at 12:13pm
basesix wrote:
Lanky Dean wrote:

I've definitely gone away from getting the super tech suits, had serious issues with an oniell a decade ago ...won't go into details

@ basesix
I surfed with oneill suits for 30 years.
Oneill were the best suits
About 12 years ago I picked up a new mutant .
For whatever reason it was the worst made suit I have ever worn, coupled with the worst customer service on the planet....
So I decided to take it back to oneill headquarters in Santa cruz ....
We don't deal with returns ,repairs
I've had a long relationship with oneill.
No details here ... let's just say I cannot promote them anymore.... it's shock how bad the overall experience was especially given my history with oneill.

please, do!