Jack O’neill
Surfing pioneer whose design for an insulated wetsuit turned a niche sport into a popular lifestyle
JACK O’NEILL, who has died aged 94, helped to popularise the wetsuit, thereby transforming surfing from a sport for the hardy few into a lifestyle practised the world over; in so doing, he created a hugely successful business supplying clothing and equipment to those eager to ride the waves.
While working as a window salesman after the Second World War, O’neill settled in San Francisco. He had bodysurfed as a boy growing up in California and took to the water once more as a release from the stress of his job.
Yet the pastime was illegal, because of the strong currents in the Bay area. Moreover, unlike the balmy oceans of Polynesia, where surfing had begun, the waters of northern California were cold. O’neill and the few other likeminded souls could not remain in it for more than half an hour. Even then, the aim was to remain flat on top of the board, as a dunking would chill them at once. O’neill remembered running on the beach to get warm before starting and huddling around a burning tyre afterwards.
Some enthusiasts experimented with grease-soaked sweaters and long-johns, as used by British commandos during wartime underwater raids, while in 1951 the US Navy declassified its early frogmen’s suits. But these were thin affairs of latex which offered little protection and tore easily. None the less, O’neill began to sew together parts bought second-hand. He also discovered that foam rubber made a serviceable barrier against the cold. His breakthrough came in 1951, when he learned of the existence of neoprene. This was a rubber-like substance invented by a physicist at Berkeley university. Instead of keeping water away from the skin, it worked by thermal insulation: bubbles of air in the neoprene captured the body’s heat and kept it warm.
Undeterred by those who told him he would only sell five suits to his friends, O’neill opened his first “surf shop” in a garage in San Francisco. It took time to perfect the wetsuit, as the neoprene was smooth on both sides and using talcum or flour to peel it off proved too sticky.
Once he had fitted it with a nylon jersey lining, however, sales took off. By the 1960s his business was helping to facilitate a boom in the sport, enabling surfers to stay out longer, to swim even in winter, and to stand up on their boards. (O’neill was also among the first to make lighter boards from foam rather than wood.)
Stars such as Kelly Slater, and the music of the Beach Boys, began to transform the sport’s image from one for beach bums into a global industry. Surfing will make its Olympic debut at Tokyo in 2020.
O’neill claimed that no one was more surprised than he by the growth in the pastime’s popularity. But he was a brilliant marketing man. His piratical image was aided by his bushy beard and by the eyepatch he wore after losing the sight in an eye after a surfing accident in 1971. Nor did he scruple to dress his children in wetsuits and put them in ice baths at trade fairs. His firm’s slogan was “It’s always summer on the inside”.
Jack O’neill was born on March 27 1923 in Denver, Colorado, but after a spell in Oregon, where he began to bodysurf, he moved with his family to Long Beach, California. He flew as a pilot with the US Navy during the war and afterwards took a degree in business at the University of Portland.
By 1985, when his son Pat took over, his company was the world’s largest manufacturer of recreational wetsuits. (Its closest rival was Body Glove, whose founder Bob Meistrell disputed O’neill’s claim to have first developed the suits.) It has since expanded into winter sports too.
Though he rarely gave interviews, O’neill was known to be a keen sailor and hot air balloonist. He was credited with inventing the sandsailer, a three-wheeled craft used for racing across beaches. For more than half a century he lived in Santa Cruz, California. He replaced the stairs leading down to the basement with a trampoline, encouraging his children to bounce down before jumping into the sea outside.
He was proudest of Sea Odyssey, an educational programme (named after his 65ft catamaran) which seeks to teach schoolchildren about the marine environment. Since he established it in 1996, it has been attended by more than 100,000 pupils.
Jack O’neill’s first wife, Marjorie Bennett, died in 1972. He is survived by his second wife Noriko and by three sons and three daughters of his first marriage. Another son predeceased him.
Jack O’neill, born March 27 1923, died June 2 2017