The man, the myth, the legend who developed the wetsuit sadly passed away last week, aged 94. Jack O’Neill has long been recognised as something of hero in the water sports world, largely thanks to his dedicated work popularising the wetsuit and launching a hugely successful brand that Wetsuit Outlet proudly stocks today.
"I just wanted to surf longer..." Surfing is what it is – a sport enjoyed the world over – thanks to him, as people couldn’t stay in the water for more than minutes at a time, without the clever neoprene creation. When asked what started his wetsuit creation, he explained: ‘I just wanted to surf longer’.
Credit: O'Neill
As a child, Jack loved bodyboarding in his native Oregon and southern California, but after moving to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach in the fifties, he grew frustrated with the cold sea and wanted to surf for longer periods of time. He experimented with different materials for the suit, eventually settling on neoprene, which was being used in the US Navy at the time.
Few believed Jack could ever market his suit to the masses: "All my friends said, 'O'Neill, you will sell to five friends on the beach and then you will be out of business,'" revealed Jack.
But he soon proved them wrong and opened a local surf shop in his garage.
When Jack moved to Santa Cruz a few years later, he opened a second franchise. Little did he know how popular the idea of the wetsuit was to become, and by the time the eighties arrived he had become the biggest wetsuit manufacturer in the world. “Nobody is more surprised than I am about how this business has grown," he explained.
"The ocean is alive and we've got to take care of it"The brand we know and love today took the globe by storm, even earning Jack the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Northern California Region in 2002, but his proudest achievement was always the O’Neill Sea Odyssey. An environmental education programme set up for children, Jack would take kids out in his catamaran to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary so they could learn all about the ocean.
After a surfing accident in the early seventies, Jack lost sight in his left eye and took to wearing a distinctive eye patch, only cementing his image as a true ocean tycoon.
Credit: O'Neill
O’Neill is survived by his second wife, Noriko, and his six children. He died peacefully on June 2nd, with his beloved family around him and waves lapping at the deck. We couldn’t imagine a more fitting send off…
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