Wetsuits, not exactly high fashion, but for UK surfers & wakeboarders a must have to protect us from the cold British seas and lakes. As a wakeboarder and somebody new to surfing I have come across a bit of a fashion dilemma.
When I’m wakeboarding I always wear board shorts, even if I’m wearing a full wetsuit I wear them over the top. I always have because at the place I learnt to wakeboard everybody else did it. At first it seems stupid but then after a while it just became the norm. The next thing I knew I was telling other people to do it, infact I mocked people whole didn’t do it. Maybe wakeboarders do it as an identity thing, it’s the difference between us and kite boards.
I haven’t given it a second thought until I started learning how to surf. In surfing board shorts over a full suit is a big no no. Infact if you turned up at your local beach in a full suit with board shorts over the top you’d be laughed off the beach. In surfers eyes it’s the equivalent of wearing socks and sandals.
The no board shorts style makes sense, because what is the point of wearing board shorts over a wetsuit? It’s like wearing a tie, totally pointless. As a wakeboarder it’s tough to say, but we are wrong. Board shorts over a full wetsuit is wrong.
The solution, get a spring wetsuit with no legs, that way it just looks like you’re wearing a wetsuit top and not a full suit. If you’re going to ride with a full suit, no board shorts guys. Suck it up!
