XCEL Infiniti Drilock GF 3/2

It’s a heady world, modern neoprene. Awash with trendily misspelt monikers, esoteric construction techniques, indecipherable acronyms and lurid design, it takes a rare wetsuit to pokes its hood above the froth and be noticed. So when the 2008 SIMA ‘Wetsuit of the Year’ arrived at HQ a few months back, we though we’d better tell the world what all the fuss was about. After all, it was SIMA-endorsed. However, with our journalistic training limited to English, the elastic language of XCEL’s copywriters soon stretched well beyond ASL’s collective literary talent. Flummoxed, or rather fusioned in a drilock of pressure-bonded seams and ultrasoft ultrastretch neo, we resorted to what we knew and just took the damn thing surfing.
 
However Queensland’s tepid pointbreaks are no place to put a wetty through its paces. Sure, they’ll try the tempers of the most mild-mannered surfer, but apart from softening collisions with other surfers and warding off skin cancer for another 24-hours, it was a lost cause. We had to head south. Far south. So we jumped on a plane to Melbourne, then another to Hobart. Then drove south for two hours, and hiked another one and a half.  And there we were: as far south as you can be in Australia, 43 degrees 39 minutes south of the equator to be exact. Well into the roaring forties, these were latitude where whalers once steeled themselves in layers of thick wool and oilskin against the Antarctic gales while their quarry kept inches of blubber between themselves and the Southern Ocean. It was an ideal testing ground. So far, the suit had performed flawlessly, but as I pulled it out of my backpack and actually contemplated hitting the frigid four foot lefthanders, the three-two ultrastretch neo seemed, well, a little ultrasoft. Certainly, the dazzling apricot interior wasn’t helping.
 
On the outside it’s a different story. Blissfully free of any reptilian or space-age eczema, its refined blue-grey cut is all business. Classy yet practical, the kinda thing the Phantom might pull out for a job interview. The chest zip was another matter. Anyone unfortunate enough to have spent time in a straight-jacket, or owned a prototype chest-zip or zipperless suit, should understand my reluctance at having to access and exit one of these wetties alone in the Tasmanian wilderness. I could see the nightly news already: my bruised and battered body found weeks later on the rocks, encased in a twisted tube of neoprene. Thankfully, wetsuits have come a long way in recent years and the XCEL’s closure design and super flexible rubber made getting into and out of this suit a walk in the park. Granted, this was comparing it to my recent 90 minute hike through the Tasmanian wilderness, but still…
 
Out in the water, the cuffs and ankles do a great job of stopping water flowthrough. Apparently it’s all thanks to drilock concave seals, though being super-tight may also have helped.  Whatever, the combination of seals and chest-zip virtually eliminated flushthrough, the neoprene was super stretchy and overall it was a very warm suit for a 3/2, making for a comfortable 3 hour surf without any more than numb feet and hands.
 
Though I didn’t have this suit long enough to report on it’s lifespan (which, for Over $600, you’d hope was considerable…), XCEL suits have a great rep with professional surfers for design, durability and flexibility. All up this was one of the best wetsuits I’ve worn, albeit also the most expensive. If you’ve got the dosh to treat yourself this winter, you won’t be disappointed.
 
www.xcelwetsuits.com

RRP: $624.95
Design: 5/5
Durability: 4.5/5
Functionality: 5/5
Value: 4/5
 
 
Total: 18.5/20