Ok - its been almost 4.5 hours since I’ve been in the icy waters of Lake Michigan with Mr. Kwikle, and the tips of my fingers have STILL not thawed out completely. I’ve decided that buying a pair of nordic blues is going to be slightly less expensive than amputating a couple of digits. Can anyone help me out with sizing though - my hands measure 8 inches from wrist to the (frozen) tip of my middle phlange, and about 3.6 inches wide. I plan on wearing mid weight liners also.
Thanks in advance folks!
scubacenter.com
Call or email scubacenter.com great place to get them, less expensive than from Sweeden! They know sizes.
Size It As You Would Regular Gloves
The Nordic blues come a little big to accommodate the built acrylic liner. Cut that sucker out. It gets tangled up and is a general pain.
I think using liteweight fleece or thermax liners will suffice and allow for a better grip. I’ve tried thicker fleece liner gloves and they inhibit grip besides being a pain to get the glove over. It also helps to trim the liners just above the base of the palm so the there are no wrist cuffs to get caught in the latex wrist seal. If you want more warmth, simply don’t burp all the air out. The air acts as an insulator.
I won’t lie about it. It takes about 5 minutes for me to get the gloves on right. But once they on, I am good to go for however long I am out there. And, I’ve been out the whole winter season. Did almost 4 hours straight of surf yesterday. My hands were fine but others had to take breaks to warm their hands up.
sing
Which gloves?
I see at the Nordic website they have a few different glove options. The regular gloves look longer at the wrists…and…there are gloves with shorter tapered gaskets. What are you kayakers using?
Regular Wrist Seals…
similar to those found on drysuits/drytops. No rings.
sing
i looked at their site …
couldn’t find nordic blues anywhere on their site. i did e:mail them … we’ll see what they say.
Not the biggest but the next biggest
would seem apt> You can make you own using atlas gloves from
http://www.seamar.com/atlas/495.html
and gaskets from os systems.
I know what you mean,
Bob–my fingers get pretty frozen sometimes too. I’ve not yet bought drygloves out of a lingering fear that anything that is so hard to get on might be hard to get off in an emergency when finger dexterity could be crucial. So I’ve stuck with thick neoprene gloves that can be yanked off if needed.
I had the honor of being present on the day Sing got tired of his glove liners and cut them out. You don’t think he actually got out of his kayak to do this, do you?
Anyway, finger dexterity is a moot point when your hands are frozen. I may follow you into the Nordic Blue realm.
Sanjay
They run true to size
– Last Updated: Mar-28-05 11:30 PM EST –
Measure your hand in the standard manner (measuring tape wrapped around your palm) and buy that size. If you're in between sizes, go larger. I have size 10 hands and find that I need an XL in order to have enough room in them.
Anyone have the “ML” size?
While my hands are by no means small, (I’m 6’1") I’ve found that many mens “large” gloves have fingers that are ridiculously long, and I strugle with the smaller palms on many of the medium size gloves - my nrs reactors being a case in point.
Appreciate the responses, and will definitely cut out the liner as a matter of course.
Call Them With Your Hand Measurements
if in doubt, go with the larger size. As I mentioned, the burping can be done and the glove fingers will sort of wrap tightly around your digits if you like it that way, though you’ll lose the extra air insulation. The grip of the nordic blue rubber is very good on paddle looms. You may have extra length on the finger tips, but I doubt you would need the fine finger tip dexterity out there while paddling.
As to Sanjay’s concern about getting the glove off quickly, I can actually grab the finger tips of one hand with the other and pull the glove off. If you want to anticipate this emergency procedure, better carry neo back up gloves 'cause the dryglove won’t be dry when you put them back on. As you know, in sub 40 degree water, your fingers will get numb pretty quickly.
sing
more opinions
i got the nordic blues this year and have been very happy with them. as brian said, they run true to size- i have sort of short, wide hands and the large is fine. no problem with the tiny bit of extra length in the fingers. i ordered them from the minneapolis dive shop and they were great.
i use expedition weight capilene glove liners, which seem to keep my fingers very warm, after a brief warm up period. basically my fingers seem to stay cold (but not get colder) for about 20 minutes, and then get very comfortable. i’ve sort of worked out this system of putting on the liners and gloves, then pulling the gloves with liners off my hands a bit, and then pulling just the glove gasket back. takes a little practice, but i can get a dry seal every time now. i’ve also used them with fleece gloves, which are a bit harder to get a seal with.
i’ve also found a bit of surfboard wax on the paddle shaft to be nice for grip.
andrew
Try trimming the liner cuff…
…or sewing it back over itself to shorten it. If you shorten the cuff enough, it won’t pop out under the seal when you pull the gloves on. I’ve even done this with the stock liners on some orange Atlas gloves that I made into dry gloves.
by the time you get all this figured out
it will be warm enough to paddle without gloves.
:>