Don’t wear the PFD
The air in the drysuit will float you like a cork. I would not recommend this in extreme conditions, but I think it would be perfectly fine on flat water.
Wet suit failure?
Ever have a dry suit seal or zipper fail? Or tear the fabric on a reentry or on a foreign object in the water? I would not advise treating your dry suit as a PFD. You are in a world of hurt should your suit take on water. It can and does happen. Been there, done that, although it was in a diving scenario as opposed to a kayak. I was very glad I had a BC vest (diving equivalent of a PFD) on.
Short Answer
NO…
Not perfect but
I have three or four breathable tops. An older Stohlquist Gripp drytop with Goretex Immersion, an Immersion Research shorty with their breathable Entrant material, a Kokatat Goretex drysuit and a Kokatat SuperNova (semi-dry) with Tropos. The least breathable of them is the Stohlquist top, but it is also the most robust and hardest wearing Goretex I’ve ever encountered. The Entrant is surprisingly solid but does leave me fully sweated underneath. And the full suits are for a different level of concern, so while they probably breathe the best of the lot but still imprefectly, I also would rather be sweaty in there than wet.
No matter what you do, if the air is warmer than the water by a good degree it’ll be tough not to get sweated up. So I just carry a full change of clothes and switch out all layers at the halfway point of a long day.
Anything can happen
I suppose each of us has to assess the amount of risk we are comfortable with.
As a diver you may appreciate this story. My cousin, who works in aquaculture, was inspecting the predator nets and anchors of a salmon cage anchored in Head Harbor, Campobello Island, NB, CA in the Bay of Fundy. As he was decending hand over hand down one of the anchor lines a flap of net that he did not see snagged the regulator on his scuba tank. This pulled him into the anchor rope which struck the valve on his dry suit, filling the suit with air. The suit ballooned, enough to pull apart the buckle on his weight belt which caused him to become very bouyant. Trouble was his regulator was still tangled in the netting so he ended up feet up tethered by his regulator. This pulled on his airline and was dislodging the mouthpiece from his mouth. To complicate things the pressure from the ballooned suit was making it very difficult for him to unbuckle his tank. He finally got it unbuckled and popped to the surface. What sucked then was having to don more dive gear and go back down to retrieve his belt and tank.
No matter how
breathable your drysuit claims to be, your base layers definitely make or break how comfortable you feel. You want something that will wick the moisture away from your skin, but is not so over insulating that it actually makes you sweat more that the outer drysuit does. A lot of it depends on your body as well as the temp and your exertions, so sometimes you have to experiment to get the right combo for the weather.
Try non-breathable
As much as you can still sweat in breathable fabrcs, try a non-breathable article and then you will know how bad it can be. At one time in my paddling career I bought NRS non-breathable dry pants. I figured since my lower half really doesn’t sweat like my torso, this would be fine. I used them twice and never again. I first thought water was comming down the spray skirt tunnel. The second time I thought I peed in my pants. You won’t believe how much a non-breathable chamber will capture moisture as well as convert a lot moisture right from the air into condensation.
I don’t own a dry suit, but
I do have a Stohlquist FreePlay dry top. I’m really pleased with it’s performance. I’ve worn it in a lot of varied conditions and during some 3-4 hours paddles. It has kept me comfortable, but not overheated. Of course, you will work up a sweat.
The bottom half (NRS Black Rock dry pants) gets a bit damper.
Lucky!
Good thing he wasn’t at any depth. Could have been serious issues coming up as fast as he must have. I once was diving on a wall in the St Lawrence river and one of the guys on our boat had his light fail at 150’while on the way up from 160’. He couldn’t see anything (it’s totally black at that depth) so he came up the wall WAY too fast, and ruptured all the veins in his eyes and was bleeding from the nose as well. He didn’t get bent, but he was done diving for 6 months due to damage to his retina from the rapid ascent.
Stohlquist FreeFall (Eclipse TTL)
I have the Stohlquist FreeFall w/ the Eclipse TTL fabric… Very heavy duty and well padded, yet breathes well and keeps me comfortable.
Kokatat Tropos Meridian
w. the full gaskets @ neck & wrists & booties.
Only had mine out seven times in December and this month, but even in stretches of brisk paddling no overheating. Just took my scull cap off for a few minutes to cool out. We after all lose a lot of heat thru our heads.
Nothing sweaty afterwards either except a bit in the feet but given that I’m wearing wool/capilene socks in Chotas, that’s acceptable to me.
Admittedly I’m a small person so maybe don’t generate as much body heat and lose it faster (smaller body mass 'n all that).
I wear three layers of diff types underneath anchored by medium weight union suit of Capilene fleece. Agree that wicking and warm layers are key to warmth without wetness. Dancewear & bikewear can be good layers next to the skin.
As to relying on the air in the drysuit in lieu of a PFD, that doesn’t jibe with the info which came with my drysuit from the Kayak Academy. They said to burp out the suit before getting in, either by squatting down several times w. the neck gasket parted, on land, or doing it in waist deep water. The goal is to get as much air as possible out before you get in the kayak.
I always wear my PFD.
NRS Triton
Is very breathable, compared to my non-breathing dry-top and non-breathing dry pants.
It keeps me very comfortable and I am sometimes able to wear my underlayers home if I haven’t been exerting too much during paddling.
I do it
Even if you get a tear in the drysuit material, the tear would have to be at/near the top of the suit for the water to displace the air in the suit. Gasket failure would be an issue when putting on/removing the suit, not while paddling.
I always have a pfd, if not on, then on the rear deck (after all, there’s snickers bars in the pocket.) Should I have a problem with the suit (HIGHLY unlikely) I have the pfd back-up.
I prefer non-wicking polypropelene
next to my skin for wear under a drytop. Wicking fabrics work by having non-absorbent core fibers with a hydrophilic (water-attracting) coating. Water moves across the temperature gradient and the water density gradient over that coating. However, inside the relatively humid interior under a drytop, a wicking fabric gets to feel soggy. Polypro has no water affinity, and so feels dryer.
Wicking fabrics are over-sold for paddling use. They work best for hard hiking in warm temperature and dry air, because they are very effective at getting perspiration into the surrounding air.
Fabrics
If I’m working hard my on a workout paddle I can outsweat any breathable fabric that I’ve seen in the past 17 years of paddling.
A couple of fabrics that do a good job keeping the tranpiration rate close to my perspiration rate are:
Eclipse by Stohlquist: www.Stohlquist.com
Entrant 3 by Immersion Research: www.immersionresearch.com
Goretex Immersion by Kokatat: www.Kokatat.com
Those have been the best in my experience. There may be more, just haven’t sweated them up yet.
I’ve seen some of the Stohlquist and IR garments on eBay! stores. Might want to do a search.
See you on the water,
Marshall
www.the-river-connection.com
eVent is excellent
and has better breathability than Gore. It is however a heavier fabric and that may limit it’s use some. They are working on that. I suspect Gore Tex has such a HUGE market recognition that companies may be reluctant to try other fabrics even though they may be better.
Only mesh does. But seriously,
Gore-tex is the most breathable waterproof fabric I have tried. I don’t even bother with anything else now, having tried “the others” too many times to find they don’t live up to their claims. Sometimes cheaper is only cheaper, not as good.
Yes, the PFD and sprayskirt tunnel will block vapor from getting out and evaporating, but that’s still a much smaller area of dampness than what you’d get with a nonbreathable drysuit. Remove the PFD at lunch and the dampness clears out quickly, too, even without unzipping the drysuit.
I haven’t had dampness from waist down due to the sprayskirt being on. The cockpit may be a sealed volume, but that volume contains MUCH more air than what would be inside your nonbreathable-wrapped legs. Hence, the cockpit can absorb more of the moisture without making you feel damp.
Something you don’t always hear…
– Last Updated: Jan-18-07 12:24 AM EST –
from a company selling a w/b item. The amount of breathability a w/b laminent or coating has is a direct result of how breathable the face fabric that it is afixed to is. Meaning, it is possible for two Gore-Tex XCR garments to have vastly different breathability characteristics and comparing two garments containing the same w/b system could be like comparing apples to oranges. If possible, it's best to ask for advice on specific garments rather than the w/b laminent/coating used.
Typically w/b laminents (GORE-TEX) are more breathable than w/b coatings (typically less expensive private label brands). But not always. And as previously mentioned, what you wear beneath, or linings within garments, have a direct effect on how clammy your skin feels, or how good (percieved) a garment breaths.
An example: The copmpany I used to work for had all their w/b jackets lab tested. Surprisingly the least expensive jacket made (w/b microporous polyurethane coating; $69) was the most breathable of the bunch, and the most expensive jacket (w/b GORE TEX XCR laminent; $199) was not the least breathable, but quite less than the $69 jacket. The lack of a lining in the $69 jacket made most customers feel that it was not as breathable, however the lab results did not say the same.
Thus; ask about the specific garment not necessarily the w/b syatem for better feedback.
I hope this helps more than it confuses.
-MEAT
I’ll say it
Breathability is pretty much a myth. I’ve worn breathables, I’ve worn traditional. Found no difference. But others say they do, so maybe there is a placebo effect I just can’t buy into.
depends
Nothing I’ve tried breathes enough to keep me dry inside – but that also applies to layers I wear on land. That said, I do notice a big difference in sweat accumulation between my non-breathable paddle jacket and my breatheable dry top. The breatheable dry top is much more comfortable over time.