Jack O’Neill, surfing innovator, dies in Santa Cruz

Jack O’Neill, a giant in the surfing industry and the man credited with inventing the surfer’s wetsuit, died Friday at his home near Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz. The death of the eye-patched, bearded and rugged man, who lived out his last years in a house perched on the eroding cliffs along Monterey Bay, was confirmed by a spokesman for the company he founded in San Francisco in 1952. Mr. O’Neill devoted his life to the sport and the ever-improving quality of surfboards, and his shop in Santa Cruz thrived over the decades, but he forever will be known as, in the words of local surfer Peter Mel, as “the man who brought comfort to cold-water surfing.” After serving as a pilot in the Naval Air Corps in the 1940s, Mr. O’Neill moved to San Francisco in 1949 and joined a hardy bunch of bodysurfers who braved the chilly waters of Ocean Beach, wearing sweaters and other makeshift gear before retreating to the warmth of bonfires on the beach. The use of neoprene, a staple to this day, already had been implemented in the U.S. Navy based on a design by University of California physicist Hugh Bradner, said surfing historian Matt Warshaw. “When I was about 20 years old and just beginning to make surfboards, Jack drove up in an old Jaguar to see how I was doing,” said Bob Wise, who opened his first shop on Wawona Street, “right around the corner from Jack’s first shop,” in 1968. [...] I’ve got a bunch of boards around, and he says, ‘You know, you’ll never make any money making surfboards. Wise remembered one of his shop employees, Ralph Ehni, wearing an early O’Neill model for an Ocean Beach surf session in the early ’70s. In 1972, Mr. O’Neill lost the sight of his left eye in the process of testing one of the early surf leashes — cords attached to the body so boards wouldn’t wash to shore after a surfer wiped out. “The first leashes were made of surgical tubing, about 6-8 feet long, and they were attached to your wrist,” Wise recalled. Warshaw recounted one surfing contest when everyone was gathered on the beach watching the competition, and then came Mr. O’Neill from the other direction, lofting over the sand in a hot-air balloon, flying a banner advertising his products.