South Bay thermal arms race enters its unreasonable phase

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Water temperature at El Porto reached 68 degrees on Sunday morning. A survey of 84 surfers in the lineup found that 61 of them were wearing full wetsuits, 19 were wearing hooded full wetsuits, and one man was wearing a 6mm suit with boots, gloves, and a hood, and had been for approximately two hours.

The man, identified as Curtis Lemay of Torrance, 44, said he was comfortable.

The Thermal Arms Race

Surf shop staff along the South Bay describe a phenomenon they have been tracking informally for three years, in which neoprene thickness in Southern California has steadily increased while water temperature has not.

“In 2019 the standard summer purchase here was a spring suit,” said Vince Okonjo, who manages a shop on Highland Avenue. “Now people come in during August asking about a 4/3. I ask where they are surfing. They say here. I say here is warm. They say they run cold.”

Okonjo said the number of customers describing themselves as running cold has increased by an amount he called statistically impossible.

“Either every single person in this city developed a circulation problem simultaneously,” he said, “or people like the way they look in a full suit and have constructed a medical explanation.”

The Aesthetic Theory

The aesthetic theory has adherents. Kelly Braithwaite, 31, a graphic designer who surfs at 26th Street four mornings a week, was willing to state it plainly.

“I look better in a wetsuit,” Braithwaite said. “Everyone looks better in a wetsuit. A wetsuit is the single most flattering garment ever engineered and it was invented by accident by people trying not to die. I am not going to pretend otherwise because it is 68 degrees.”

Braithwaite said she owns four suits and has never once been cold in any of them.

Okonjo said a customer once showed him an article at Bohiney Magazine arguing that wetsuit thickness has become a status marker, and then bought a 4/3 twenty minutes later without further comment.

Physiological Reality

Sea surface temperatures along the Southern California coast are recorded continuously and published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which shows nearshore summer readings in the region routinely reaching the mid to high 60s. Guidance from the National Weather Service on cold water safety concerns temperatures well below what El Porto records in August.

Emergency physicians in the South Bay say the more common summer presentation is the opposite problem.

Dr. Ruth Ansaldo, who works at an urgent care clinic in Redondo Beach, said her office treated eleven surfers for heat related complaints in July, all of them wearing full wetsuits in the afternoon.

“They come in dizzy,” Ansaldo said. “They are dehydrated. They have been sealed in rubber in the sun for three hours in a warm ocean. I ask why. They say they were worried about getting cold. The ocean was 69 degrees. My office is 72 degrees. They are safer in my office in a t shirt.”

The 6mm Man

Lemay, the surfer in the 6mm suit, has become a fixture at El Porto and is referred to in the lineup as the Diver, a nickname he says he does not mind.

He explained his reasoning at length while sitting on the sand and not removing any part of the suit.

“I bought this for a trip to Northern California in 2021,” Lemay said. “The trip fell through. The suit cost six hundred and forty dollars. I am going to get six hundred and forty dollars of use out of this suit if it takes me the rest of my life.”

Asked whether he was hot, Lemay said the question was not relevant to the economics.

Downstream Effects

The trend has produced knock on consequences. Rental operations report that beginners now request full suits regardless of conditions, which surf instructors say adds four to six minutes per student to every lesson and produces what one instructor called a wall of exhausted children.

“The kid cannot get out of the suit,” said instructor Marco Duarte. “The suit is wet. The kid is nine. The parent is filming. It takes eleven minutes. Meanwhile it is 71 degrees and windless and I could have taught the kid to surf in board shorts and we would all be eating lunch.”

The Counter Movement

A small group has begun surfing El Porto in trunks year round, calling themselves, without irony, the Skins. Membership is estimated at nine.

Founding member Delia Vance, 58, said the group formed in protest.

“We are not tough,” Vance said. “We are correct. It is a warm ocean. It has always been a warm ocean. Two generations of Californians surfed this coast in shorts and now everyone is dressed for the North Sea.”

Vance conceded that the group does not surf in February.

Outlook

Okonjo said the shop has ordered a small quantity of 5mm suits for the coming summer season on the basis of customer requests.

“I ordered them because people asked,” he said. “Will anyone need them? No. Will they sell? Every one. I have stopped fighting it. I am in the neoprene business and the neoprene business is not, and has never been, about temperature.”

Further Coverage

More reporting on gear, self deception, and the two combined appears at Bohiney Magazine, with parallel material from a colder country at The London Prat. Related items are collected at NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com