WINTERMISSION 2.0: O’NEILL

O’Neill claims their Wintermission entrant is like ‘surfing naked, but better’ and after being put through its paces during our brief stint down south, none of us felt inclined to challenge this notion.

Once again the ultra-light elasto-skin of the O’Neill earned itself the prestigious hi-fi award. 

Reef singled out the grey number on day one and slid straight in (noting the ease of entry, thanks to its flex). He’d already banked a handful of clips earlier in the morning, but took it to another level in the Hyperfreak.

He literally went berserk, doing the best surfing of the trip during his half an hour in this suit. He pulled a few full rotations, lofted high above the reflective ramps, throwing a turn here afterwards – there was, after all a QS to surf in a few days.

“This one just has so much movement, it’s so comfortable,” he said peeling it off. “I reckon it would be perfect for competition, when you might not necessarily need the warmth, but really need the performance.” 

Like last year, right out of the box we knew O’Neill’s suit was going to dominate the performance category. They call their exclusive ‘pre-stretched’ neoprene ‘TB3x’ with foam rubber core, “the lightest, softest material ever created”.

They also took high honours in our US-centric wetty testing, “You’ve Got Winter” late 2018. 

O’Neill uses water-based glues and full TB3X taped internal seams for maximum stretch and comfort.

This suit has since had a few successful runs out of StabHQ for a thorough post-production evaluation…

Shop it here!