Excellent advice, Nate
Winter weather really reduces one’s margin for error. What would be minor incidents in summer can be life-threatening when it’s cold. There’s no substitute for experiencing it first-hand to give you a real perspective on the risks involved. That’s best done with a group of experienced winter paddlers.
with your sit on top kayak
you will actually dress for immersion once you get out there in the winter wind and snow. The second time for sure. It’s all fun and games until you come to the parking lot at ocean side and step out of your warm car with your coffee cup to examine the situation 
agree
Agree with both of the above posters.
I’d suggest looking at news reports from the past several winters locally and notice that there a usually several deaths with paddlers in the winter.
It’s not worth getting dead to go out alone. Cold water can be a quick killer.
Bill H.
RI Canoe & Kayak Assn
I think it’s great that you love kayaking enough to want to do it year-round. However, in this part of the world, it is absolutely crucial that you have the proper skills, gear and experience in order to safely sea kayak in the wintertime. Please consider joining a paddling club and also getting some good instruction.
RICKA is a large paddling club with members in RI, CT and MA. We welcome new members and hold trips, classes and training in sea kayaking, flatwater and whitewater. Check us out at http://www.ricka.org and http://www.rickaseakayaking.org/.
We also classify our sea kayak trips by level of difficulty, so you can choose trips that are appropriate for you: http://www.rickaseakayaking.org/levels.htm
As a year-round sea kayaker, I can tell you that I wouldn’t paddle with you in the winter until I’d paddled with you in the summer. Safe winter sea kayaking in New England requires going with paddlers you know and trust. The fact that you’re even considering sea kayaking alone here in the winter tells me you have no idea what’s involved.
Hamilton Wood’s body was never found: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090228-NEWS-90228012
What the articles don’t mention is that he was wearing a wetsuit, not a drysuit, and the kayak was found with the paddle set up for a paddle float re-entry, which is a piece of cake in warm water. The conclusion was that he was so incapacitated by the cold water that he wasn’t able to get back into his kayak.
So he thought he was safe because he was wearing a wetsuit and could do a paddle-float re-entry, but didn’t take into account the cold water. The ironic thing is that the Coast Guard did check on him earlier, but he said he was OK and refused rescue. As I recall, his brother said he’d been paddling for years, but liked to go by himself. There is something to be said for collective wisdom…
try a different forum
www.sit-on-topkayaking.com
People who actually paddle SOTs in your neck of the woods.
and yes you can buy a wetsuit that will keep you safe in winter ocean temps. There is a large contingent of east coast surfers and waveskiers that can give you advice.
Just asking - really don’t know
– Last Updated: Oct-18-10 11:24 AM EST –
I don't know about the surfer type garments myself because I go straight to the dry suit, but am aware that if you are willing to spend more bucks that for a basic Farmer John type wet suit you can get into something that is more effective than the usual paddling stuff. What I don't know about with these suits compared to a dry suit is.... and maybe you could help with this part because winter is coming and this will keep coming up...
Once the full body suits you are talking about are wet, do they block wind chill as well as a top layer like a drytop? Or is a dry top still advised if someone is not going to be in the water a lot? Also, how do the full arms work out for a decently long paddle in terms of chafing or whatever, say a four hour day including stop for a snack? And how do they handle sweat or overheating if you don't get pretty wet?
I looked around and it looks like the more hefty garments go for $250 and up. Are these the ones that would cover air in the 20's - 40's before wind chill and water in the 40's? I agree that it important to get feedback from local paddlers. But this debate shows up every year about this time, and it'd be nice if those of us who don't know these garments well had a better idea of how they work out.
budget options for cold water clothing
If you do decide to go the drysuit route, it is possible to get a used suit in good condition for about half what a new one would cost you. I just got a used goretex suit in my size for $400 (would have been $950 new) from someone who advertised on the P.net classified ads. Kayak Academy sells used drysuits from their rental stock in a variety of mens and womens sizes on their website for decent prices.
For wetsuits, Sierra Trading Post sells a wide variety of paddling and diving neoprene clothing for pretty good discounts, though sizes are spotty since these are discontinued lots.
I agree that what you use will be personal choice, especially for day tours (multi-day touring would be strictly drysuit, I think.)
Wetsuits
The right kind of wetsuit will protect you from the cold water and be flexible enough for paddling. Look at the selection here:
http://www.oregonsurfshop.com/fullsuits/
Be sure you get a wetsuit designed for surfing in winter in cold water. Ordinary paddling wetsuits will not do it. The downside of wetsuits is that if you are submerged and have to float around a long time before rescue you will have less survival time than you would have in a dry suit with proper clothing underneath.
Sing is the man to ask around here …
A paddling jacket like the Powerhouse by NRS will block the wind, it’s what I do. A really nice wetsuit for very cold water will cost about $300 -350. Arms are super stretchy, I wear a rashgaurd and have no chaffing issues.
Thanks seadart
I am more open to the idea of wet wear in winter than I come off as, but that’s because what most people look at is the basic 2 mill paddling wet stuff. That’s just not a plan for air temps that will be dipping into the 20’s and ice chunks floating on the rivers. We regularly see paddlers out on the Hudson up here in the depths of winter wearing at most a 2 mill neoprene shorty and a splash jacket, particularly the go-straight-fast fitness guys who are out in Epic boats and winging away. Then there is the January thaw and for a week you can see people out in shorts on 38 degree water…
The ocean water will hold a bit warmer, but not the air.
Employ Critical Thinking Here
I noticed that you have a variety of opinions to choose from here. Since many of the responders are technically more knowledgeable than I, I will offer no technical information, but instead how I think about this topic for myself. There are things in life that you can do and learn from your mistakes. This is one thing where one mistake can mean “game over”. I always err on the side of caution when one mistake can be fatal.
I have always found Brian’s advice to be right on the money.
Be safe…Lou
Surfers paddle and sit partially
– Last Updated: Oct-19-10 3:16 PM EST –
submerged ... Wetsuits work and are not useless if they get a small tear.
Edit to add ... I KNOW... you can repair them.
I’ll add to that
It’s very often a series of small mistakes that can add up to “get you”, but not always. None of them usually announce their arrival until it’s too late.
Lots of great advice here. Skills and judgment are the most important, that piece of kit between your ears. They make the other kit work. Get with the clubs, gain some experience.
Sit in kayaks are far and away warmer. Try some models in the clubs.
SINKS are only warmer —
until you swim, and then an SOT is much warmer because you are up and out of the water in 10 -30 seconds and dressed for the conditions-even if you can reenter and roll your flooded SINK you have to spend a lot of time pumping out the boat.
Drysuits are only warmer until they leak from a small tear or poor fitting gasket - then you are dead.
There is a lot of wisdom often repeated here from experts who very seldom paddle in rough conditions or cold water.
Dry suits work fine and they’re durable
A piece of duct tape will seal a small dry suit tear, IF you ever actually get one and it’s easy to patch the fabric should you need to. IMO, the fear mongering over dry suits tearing is baseless, as they’re very durable…at least Gore-Tex suits are.
Can it happen? Sure. Does it happen with any regularity? No. Is it automatically a disaster if a dry suit gets torn? No. Has any kayaker ever died because of a torn dry suit? Not that I’ve ever heard of.
More baseless fear mongering
A sink is a lot warmer in cold weather than sitting exposed on an SOT. Pumping one out is not a big deal as long as you’re not foolish enough to paddle alone in the winter and if you can roll, it’s largely a non-issue.
Please cite even ONE INSTANCE of a paddler dieing due to a torn dry suit. Can you? I’ve had intimate encounters a fair number of barnacle-encrusted rocks while wearing a dry suit with no more damage than a few scuffs to the suit, though my flesh underneath was not always so lucky. I’ve never had a rip in a suit. I’ll take that experience over theories any day.
I’ve spent a lot of time IN cold water in a dry suit and considerably more paddling ON cold water in a wide variety of conditions. I know what it can do to you, even when you’re going out fully intending to be in the water repeatedly and for significant periods of time, and dress accordingly.
If you want to wear neoprene, be my guest, but I won’t.
Not really
– Last Updated: Oct-20-10 12:25 AM EST –
Neither of my boats take on a lot of water in a re-enter and roll, in fact the Explorer comes up pretty much dry. No pumping needed, just skirt up and off. Granted that repeated tries can get some water in there, but there are ways to make that first try more sure depending on the paddler's condition and equipment available.
I am not saying that there aren't boats that would take on water, but when I've been in groups of paddlers working on a re-enter and roll probably most don't have to pump out.
As to dry suit fragility, my experience is simply that they are not so fragile. I and others I know beat the hell out of them, in rocks, in WW runs etc and no one in our group has yet seen a catastrophic failure. I know of one or two near misses that have occurred outside of this area over the last few years, but it is literally one or two.
Granted the Hudson River in the middle of winter doesn't have pounding surf. But the water and air temps are considerably colder than most of the west coast.
Tearing a Drysuit
– Last Updated: Oct-20-10 10:27 AM EST –
I've gotta wonder how often drysuits get torn. I think Daggermatt's son recently wore out a drysuit that'd been beat to heck in whitewater for years, but that's more extreme abuse than any sea kayaker could ever accomplish, even intentionally (just look at daggermatt's boats and try to imagine a sea kayak getting hit that much). Because of that, and also because this thread is about getting a relative newbie onto the water in winter, I don't think the issue of crashing into jagged rocks in surf is really on-topic. For the average sea kayaker, I just bet that that a one-in-a-million tear in the fabric would occur close to shore in less-threatening conditions.
I'm no sea kayaker, but making the implication "don't trust a drysuit" to an average paddler in average conditions sounds way off the mark to me.
was dragged over a reef upside down
my shoulder and arm had broken skin. The goretext was only lightly scuffed. I have been less worried about the robustness since.
You’re absolutely right
It’s just fear-mongering, often from people who simply don’t want to spend the money for a dry suit and are looking for a rationalization for not doing so.