Gear
Nothing enhances the surf experience like having the best gear and technology under your feet and wrapped around your body. We thrash the best gear available so you can make better purchasing choices and ultimately surf better. Check out the latest technology for boards, wetsuits, fins and any other hardware you need to enhance your next session.
New Zealand Surf Journal asks Primal’s lead surfboard shapers, Glen Carkeek and Steve Hamlyn, to share their insights on what’s coming next in surfboard design, technology and manufacture. With a combined 60 years of experience in the shaping bay and a bunch of shaping innovations already under their belt, we’re......
Lying on a table in Seventhwave’s Ferrymead factory in Christchurch is a fluffy orange wetsuit that doesn’t look anything like the wetsuit manufacturer’s flagship Yamamoto suits. Sarah smiles, she lifts the wetsuit up and explains the prototype to me. “I haven’t surfed in this one yet,” she admits with a......
New Zealand company Kathmandu yesterday entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100 percent of the Rip Curl Group Pty Limited for NZ$368 million. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. The sale should come as no surprise, Rip Curl’s founders, Brian Singer and Douglas......
I knew it was Jay standing there in the parking lot. It wasn’t because he wore the hair of a rocker, or that he stood in dusty jeans with a plain, unbranded mushroom-coloured jersey. It was the fine gradient of foam dust on his fingers that gave him away. Since......
At the start of 2019 Rip Curl launched an all-new wetsuit aimed straight at the top end of the market and billed to incorporate technology that would change the wetsuit game forever. We got our hands on a Flashbomb Heat Seeker 4:3 and thrashed it to death. Here’s what we......
We were blown away by the value for money with our Need Essentials steamer produced by a company that prides itself on stripping away the costs of traditional surf wetsuit production. By minimising packaging, branding, expensive advertising campaigns and retail markups, Need Essentials is able to deliver a high-end adult......
O’Neill has turned the technology dial right up with the material used in its Hyperfreak range and if this zip less 4:3 suit is anything to go by then they’re on to something. We’ve thrash tested ours for more than two years now. This is what we discovered … When......
Some of the design elements of the Quiksilver Highline Plus 2mm hood have tackled the biggest issues most surfers have with pulling on a hood for winter. These features stand the Highline Plus hood head-and shoulders above conventional hoods. In our experience, most of the hoods out there only do......
Surfboard shaper Luke Hughes tells us about the difference between epoxy and PU boards as he walks us through his popular Zorkn model. He shows us how epoxy construction has opened up a slew of options when it comes to flex management and design. Epoxy surfboard construction has been around......
“Surfers are self-centered arseholes sometimes.” I’m sure the surf obsessed among us recognise this sentiment. It’s in that moment when your partner catches you looking out the window at the toetoe plants for wind directions, and checking the tides at the most inconvenient times of the day. I suspect this......