With all that time and money I would go somewhere nice and sunny, with golden sandy beaches ..... But each to their own, maybe they got fed up with having ten fingers and toes ?
I know an Irish fella that kited in a drysuit at his local when he needed to get his fix, but seeking out stupid conditions like that, WTF?
At least they didn't disgrace themselves with boardies over the top of their drysuits.
The idea was to kite from USA to Russia. Only managed to do 2/3 of the distance. With the money we spent you could have made 100 luxury kite vacations to Maui or where ever.
Once you kite in this circumstances you really don't care about style and board shorts. What you wear and carry with you is life supporting.
It was a great adventure!
Wasn't this done by a windsurfer 20 years ago?http://www.windsurfing-legends.com/arnaud-de-rosnay.html
Monumental effort none the less.