Join Finisterre ambassador Sandy Kerr and photographer Mike (Guesty) Guest as they paddle out into solid overhead Thurso to put our prototype 4/3 natural rubber hooded wetsuit through the spin cycle for the latest edition of our Wetsuit Tester Programme.
Into The Spin Cycle: Wetsuit Testing At Thurso
27.02.26
4 min read
Written by Danny Burrows
Photography by Mike Guest
Thurso is a lair of cold-water caverns, evoked when North to North-Northwest groundswells pair with Southeast offshores. It may be fickle, exposed as it is to ever-shifting winds and swell, but when it’s on, its world class.
These are familiar hunting grounds for Finisterre ambassador Sandy Kerr and photographer Mike (Guesty) Guest, and last December, when the charts aligned, it proved the perfect laboratory for them to put our prototype wetsuits through their paces in the third edition of our Wetsuit Tester Programme.
“We scored some really fun waves,” Guesty says of their week-long mission. “A punchy left-hand slab with just the two of us out, and solid head and a half sessions at Thurso East with proper long period energy running through them.” Both Mike and Sandy wore our tester natural rubber hooded 4/3 winter suit, which according to its designer, JonMikel Rodriguez, “absolutely shines in 11 to 15°C water temperatures, with cooler air and breezy winds.”
As well as incorporating a new natural rubber material, the suit packs some game-changing developments on our existing range of suits. These include a flexible, double-lined hood with refined cinch cord construction; curved seams in the arms and legs for enhanced dynamic flex and comfort; a refined lumber panel for extra warmth; dynamic seam designs in the back of for enhanced flexibility and sitting comfort (let’s face it, we all spend more time sitting on our boards than riding them); and the removal of the smooth skin on the suit’s chest and back for superior flexibility and movement.
But the most outstanding pivot, as far as Sandy and Guesty and many of our other testers are concerned, is the new U-zip and internal 360degree vest, that fits snuggly around the chest, shoulders and back, to minimise flushing. “I'm like, 60 kilos and I feel the cold,” says Sandy. “If you take a big flush-through in the first half an hour of your surf, it’s gonna take an hour off your session.”
Guesty seconds Sandy’s love of the U-zip: “It really matters when you’re floating around for long stretches waiting for the right wave to shoot.” On the same trip, while taken some time out for barrels, he discovered that the zip also keeps out ‘left hand’ flushes; a downside of traditional suits: “It hadn’t really clicked before. Traditional entries flush on that side, especially when you’re driving hard.”
It’s now late February, and the waters off Scotland and Tynemouth have dropped an average when he’s not crewing with the fire service, happily putting his 4/3 through the grinder. “The new wetsuit feel completely different to an old Finisterre wetty. It feels like everything has been refined and everything has moved along.”
With 100 committed surfers testing our 4/3s on the Wetsuit Tester Programme, we are collating a vast database of information on how the suit functions in real cold-water conditions, from Thurso to Nova Scotia. And by the time the new suits arrive on in store in the winter of 2026 they are going to be their best wetsuits that we have ever produced. “'We built our first wetsuit over 10 years ago with the help of the community,” say Finisterre founder, Tom Kay. “Since then, we’ve continued to push wetsuit innovation and sustainability, helping stay in the water for as long as possible. This year it's been a real privilege to be able to engage with our community once again to get their feedback on our new wetsuit and help us build a better product.”
Editor's Notes:
Sandy and Guesty are key participants in our new Wetsuit Tester Programme, which since late 2025 has put our new natural rubber wetsuits through their paces in the theatre of cold water. The subject wetsuit of the Programme was our new 4/3 hooded winter suit for men and women.
The latest Wetsuit Tester Programme is a continuation of a Finisterre tradition of testing core products in the environments for which they were designed. Our first iteration unfolded in 2015, with over 100 committed watermen enrolled in the programme. Then in 2018, we expanded the programme to women surf riders in our Women’s Wetsuit Tester Programme, which helped further the makeup of our wetsuits, from fit, function and components, to seasonal suitability and innovation in the natural rubber.
The goal of the most recent programme remains the same, leveraging the expertise of our ambassadors and community members to make our wetsuits the best that they can be in the harshest of ocean environments.
In the winter of 2026, we will release the brand-new range, informed by the experiences of our testers. It will include an internal split-toe pair of booties and six wetsuits split evenly across men’s and women’s, with 4/3 hooded and non-hooded U-zip suits and 5/4 hooded and non-hooded suits available.
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