I stop when the water temp drops below 32F
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I think I mentioned that my Dad was also a SeeBee in WW 2 in New Guinea and the Philippines. He grew up on a farm in Florida and built or expanded 4 houses that I was aware of after the war.
A country boy for sure.
There are dry tops, and there are splash tops. If you are in a kayak with a skirt and a reliable roll, a dry top may be all you need - just donāt come out of the boat. If it is a splash top you need neoprene since it is going to get wet.
Iāve never had one, and never see other people with them, so I suspect you are right that they donāt seal up water-tight.
At 40 degree air temperatures overheating isnāt too much of a problem - at least for me. It is more of a challenge when the air temperatures are in the 50ās-60ās and the water is in the 30ās-40ās. There is definitely a balancing act between having enough insulation in the event your swim, and not roasting when you are paddling. Personally, I tend to go a little light from the start, but I have seen people pull over to remove layers as the day warms up.
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Iāve been using a splash top when practicing rolling, and itās my turn to stand in the water. My neoprene is already wet from rolling, so the splash too pulls on over everything to keep the wind off. Iād do the same thing if we went on a paddle after rolling practice. Otherwise the wind hitting the wet neoprene is really chilly.
Before we began rolling Iād only ever used the splash top a couple of times when out paddling and it got cool or windy or began to rain. It does really make a big difference in comfort in those conditions.
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Doggy_Paddler,
Iām thinking of getting a compact lightweight paddling jacket to wear over neoprene, sheerly to cut chilling from wind. Thanks for the comment in your last paragraph as real-paddling verification of its effectiveness.
Itās not for immersion protection, in this case.
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No, itās definitely not for immersion protection - itās more like a windbreaker or rain jacket. I advise going up a size so it can fit over your PFD, and also one that pulls easily over the head is way more functional.
Sizing to fit over the PFD is exactly what I planned, to make donning and doffing the jacket faster.
Ideally, itād be an anorak style with a long zipper and a hood.
Itās starting to sound like a storm cagoule, which also fits over the spray deck and cinches to the coaming.
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The one I have looks like this:
Itās not a cag, but it does have a generous front opening that makes it easy to pull on, and it can be tightened around the midsection.
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No sprayskirtāthe boat is a surf ski.
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I find a drysuit more flexible for being comfortable both in and out of the water when wearing the proper insulating layers. By contrast, for me personally, if I am exerting myself I quickly overheat while wearing a wetsuit and quickly become cold at rest, especially when taking a break on a beach on a windy day without wearing a windbreaker or some other insulation layer over the wetsuit.
A wetsuit is generally designed to keep you warm when you are in the water, as your body quickly warms up the small amount of water that enters the wetsuit. The proper thickness is also important with a wetsuit. When I used to do winter oyster and salvage diving in the days before diving drysuits, everyone wanted to get in the water as soon as possible, as we were freezing standing around on deck.
I really havenāt found much difference in doing rescues with either a wetsuit or drysuit.
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When out last week, the water temp was still relatively warm in the upper 50ās. But, the cold morning (north) wind made my hands feel cold, of course not close to being incapcitated. I am not ready to start wearing neo mitts yet, since these create their own challenges in dealing with stuff in rough water. Decided to order a pair of pogies to protect the hands from the wind (pogies donāt protect much if at all from water temp). Iāve never used pogies before. Will be interested to see how these perform in the coming weeks of colder air temps but still relatively āwarmā water.
Itās been over 10 years since I last paddle surfed in slush. But, I am good as long as the water is not solid.
sing
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So, waders are not the āimmersion gearā (if at all) of choice when far from shore. Looked like a ākayak fisherman.ā Donāt know if he tried a re-entry. But, the weight of a filled up wader would make re-entry difficult once you get above the waterline.
Again, if you survive, it is a good learning experience.
PS. I am also a kayak fisherman. I wear a wetsuit of differing thickness, depending on water temp. Actually, I wear a wetsuit when surf fishing on ābigā wave days as well. My waders are strictly for stream fishing.
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Yesterday I had a diver on the Chesapeake clean my prop. Water temp in the low sixties. Heās wearing a 7mm wetsuit with hood. He said ours was probably the last boat heāll do and call it quits for the season. He really, really gets cold fast, no matter what heās wearing and was only in the water about a half hour. I was a bit surprised to hear that from a pro but, it did reinforce that everyone is different and the tables and charts are suggestions but individuals vary a lot in their ability to cope with cold water.
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I was considering going out today because wind is isnāt blowing 10 to 15 mph. Thatās cool. The last two years I finished on 10 Nov.
My hands are affected first even when the rest of me feels warm enough. That cold wind often is THE difference in being comfortable (or at least not chilled) and wanting to get back to land ASAP.
Also, the last few weeks after getting out, I always quickly felt chilled even though it might not have been noticeable while paddling. Being able to carry the boat to the trailer immediately, and then changing out of wet/damp neoprene is crucial. Our bright sun helps, but even that can be overwhelmed with wind chill on wet clothing.
A very lucky fisherman. Especially since it looks like the required PFD was attached to the fishing kayak and not the fisherman.
I call spring the ākilling seasonā because of the āsiren callā of warm/hot air temps and COLD water temps. Fall is the āspankingā or āschool of hard knocksā season because while the air is chillier, the water temp is still relatively warm.
Here were two local kayakers that got a spanking. The day of the incident, we were getting offshore winds of about 20 knots plus, against residual incoming swells. The location of the incident, Pavillion Beach/Ipswich MA, is also at the mouth of the Parker River which has a very strong tidal flow. A bit offshore is a sandbar/shoal than jacks up the incoming waves. A great play spot if you are dressed appropriately and have some rough water skills. I used to āsurfā this spot in my SOF with some other longboaters. Had some combat rolling practice there but I remember thinking that I would not want to come of my boat out there without others to assist if need beā¦
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Went paddling Saturday (Lake Michigan), wearing a drysuit over fleece. I got the outside of the suit wet enough beach-launching that I wasnāt too worried about overheating, also I dumped about five minutes into my paddle (goofing around a bit, also playing around adjusting my paddle stroke and getting used to a new paddle).
As I went in, I thought, oh, this isnāt bad. Self-rescued, went on with my day.
Then my wife (a year-round swimmer) convinced me to go swimming yesterday. Holy moly, 54 degrees really is cold when all youāre wearing is a swimsuit. 5 or 10 minutes in the water was good for acclimatizing (I think?) but I was super-glad for the drysuit over the weekend.
I got mine at the REI used sale FWIW, but it seemed brand new.
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We females may complain sooner about feeling cold in our extremities, but studies have shown (and my experience has confirmed) that we can withstand cold better and longer than men without serious or fatal consequences. In fact, data shows men are twice as likely to suffer from frostbite and more than 4 times as likely to succumb to hypothermia overall, with males between the ages of 10 and 14 being 9 times more apt to die from exposure.
There are biological reasons for this. Female metabolism, in general, has evolved for slow endurance, males for sprint energy. Our female bodies are engineered to preserve core organs including a potential fetus within. We have higher fat ratios than men of equal fitness for one thing, and those insulating layers are over critical body parts.
When the temperature drops in our environment, our circulation pulls back from our extremities to conserve heat in our trunk and to avoid it radiating and being lost at those far exposed parts of our anatomy. So we are the first to complain that our hands and feet our cold (something that needs to be kept in mind during cold water rescues ā we ladies will lose hand strength and function quicker than most guys in the same situation.) BUT, since even the fittest female is still better padded around core organs than a man at the same level, we may be uncomfortable, but we will retain more heat and for longer than a man, whose metabolism will continue to pump blood to his extremities (so he is ready to run or heft a spear.) As his body keeps radiating out through all those remote capillaries, his core temp will drop much faster than his female cohort in the same situation. The reason that women are half as likely to get frostbite, even though we have less overall body mass is, that though our feet and hands may feel cold earlier, our conservative metabolism keeps just enough heat circulating that our tissue withstands freezing longer.
You can check my data sources ā the stats are from CDC and NIH reported studies. And I found this aspect of male/female cold tolerance to be true during my years of recreational Alpiine mountaineering and instructing and guiding Nordic ski touring and winter backpacking. There are some complications to this, one being that men tend to sweat more and the gender has much higher rates of hyperhydrosis (excessive sweating). That is not a danger factor in immersion, but any level of general sweating does contribute to chilling discomfort from dampened clothing above the surface. And one effect of hyperhydrosis is a tendency to have oneās feet sweat all the time. My mountaineer boyfriend in my mid-twenties was a very heavy sweat-er and lost all ten of his toes after having to bivouac overnight near the highest point in the Andes ā though he was in good shape and was wearing thick wool socks inside double insulated boots, as usual his socks were soaking wet from the effort of the climb and they froze. His older rope mate was less fit and had on thin boots but suffered only slight frost nip on one toe.
And, again in my own anecdotal experience, because women feel cold in their extremities (including ears and noses) more quickly than male companions in the same conditions, they are far less likely to fail to wear, remove or lose their mittens, hats, gloves, etc., or resist stopping to warm feet that have become so cold as to be painful. In all my years of trip and training guiding, though women made up about 30% to 40% of my clients and students, I never had to do a āstop and warmā or a hypothermia rescue of a woman but it happened often enough with guys that I eventually became extra vigilant about pestering them to keep their hats and gloves on and watching for behavioral signs of confusion, belligerence or lack of coordination.
So there are behavioral tendencies that add to the gender disparity, but there are fundamental evolutionary differences.
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