Reviews
Surf gear tested, thrashed and reviewed so you don’t have to take the risk … We test boards, wetsuits, boardbags, fins and more …
Combining the talents of filmmaker Stacy Peralta, with the inimitable Gerry Lopez is a recipe for success. The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez explores the life of one of the most influential surfers and surfboard shapers of all time. Gerry is presented as an entrepreneur, a family man, a......
After more than 10 years of swimming around lineups with this housing we decide to give the DC-5 housing from Aquatech a thorough review. The DC-5 is designed for the Canon EOS 5D range of cameras and we ran in ours a 5D MkII, 5D MkIII, 5D MkIV and the......
Can Darren Handley’s Phoenix EPS breath life back into a 40-something’s small-wave froth? Well, it worked for Mick Fanning. We’ve been looking for this board for a long time … but does it meet our small-wave expectations? Like a lot of surfers in their 40s and with a bunch of......
We test out Billabong’s custom design your own wetsuit concept using two of its women’s Synergy 4:3 steamers. Yep, you can choose your own panels and colour ways – be the designer of your own suit. Seems so good it surely can’t be true … The idea of choosing the......
We’ve come to expect a lot from a top of the line winter wetsuit, but we didn’t expect Billabong’s Furnace Comp 4:3 chest zip steamer to catapult itself this far into the very top echelon of technology leaders. Billabong has changed. The brand used to be so cool that it......
C-Skins is relatively new in the New Zealand market, but if the brand’s ReWired 3:2 chest zip steamer is anything to go by then we expect its going to play a bigger role in years to come. We put the new steamer to the test from February right into the......
Hughes Surfboards, Link model, is the result of multi-generational shaping minds, but is this the board that’s been missing in your surfing journey? We send the 40-something-year-old Derek Searancke out on one to find out. My scenario is not uncommon among a generation of surfers entering their late 40s. Given......
Love them or hate them, booties are like the necessary evil when it comes to year-round surfing in New Zealand. Solite reckons its Custom 3mm heat-moldable booties have taken winter surfing to a whole new level. We bought a pair to find our for ourselves. But before we get into......
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......