Re: [Paddlewise] cold water article

In a message dated 12/2/98 8:16:14 AM Eastern Standard Time,
waddinj_at_recorder.ca writes:

<< Thanks to George for his cold water article and many great links.  I
 tend to paddle year round unless the ice gets too thick to break
 through.  In the winter I always wear a wet suit and used to wear a dry
 suit until mine got ripped.  >>

John brings up some good points --- and appropriate in light of the death of
"Rhino" Hancock on Lake Erie last Saturday.  The most important question on
wet suits and dry suits --- and I'm not trying to open a thread on this,
necessarily --- is are you confident in swimming whatever you're wearing?  And
<do> you swim what you wear periodically, as the water temps decline, to make
sure you're still confident that your equipment of choice will keep you
functional in cold water?  Not comfortable, but functional.

In a cold water clinic which the Chesapeake Paddlers ran last January, anyone
who wanted to paddle that day had to first swim their gear for 10 to 15
minutes --- a sorta worst case scenario representation of a cold water rescue.
(The water was in the high 30s F., and we had a lot of backup emergency help
which, fortunately, wasn't needed.)  It's a very good idea to get in the habit
of seeing what it would really be like to have to swim before you <have to
swim>!  The few folks who were counting on wet suits at that workshop soon
became converts to drysuits, and a few of the folks who were already using
drysuits found problems with their specific drysuit systems --- the ones
they'd been counting on --- in a controlled enxironment.

So, John, have you swum chunky water much?  Gonna get a drysuit or repair your
old one?  Works great, especially when it's zipped up.

____________

Off post: thanks to Chuck Sutherland for the NOAA environmental data on last
week's Lake Erie incident.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer indicated that the
official water temp was 50 F., but also stated that this temperature was taken
at the water intake, 35 feet below the surface.  Chuck's info states that the
surface temp was 45 F., air temp about the same, and windy with gusts.
Survivable with a drysuit, at least for quite a while --- but not if it were
not zipped up, as may have been the case with "Rhino".  For what it's worth,
folks --- equipment won't help you if you don't use it correctly.

Jack Martin
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