Re: [Paddlewise] "Shrunken Skirt"?

Yes, neoprene will shrink over time although some of the complaints
about this regarding wet suits is a weight gain.  :-)

You might try wetting the neoprene sprayskirt as this will stretch it
out a bit.  You mentioned having to get someone else to put it on to
your cockpit rim and then you got into the sprayskirt.  Were you later
able to pop the skirt off the rim without assistance?  If not, you were
perhaps in danger of not being able to release it were you to need to
wet exit.

I saw something along those lines when I first started paddling.  It was
a small group with two instructors one of them Chuck Sutherland who has
appeared on PaddleWise in the past.  The other instructor will go
un-named.  He was a wise guy and got a slim woman to put on the tightest
sprayskirt imaginable both in how it fit her and how it fit on the
cockpit rim.  I don't think any of us noticed just how tightly it was on
the cockpit coaming.  We went out for some more instruction when Chuck
looked over at her and asked "can you release that sprayskirt?"  She
tried and couldn't.  Chuck then got alongside her and with all his
strength (he is a big guy) tried to release the sprayskirt with no
luck.  He then asked her to paddle slowly back to the dock with me on
one side of her and he on the other.  If she had somehow tipped he would
have just turned her boat back over.  We got to the dock and she and the
wise guy instructor pulled her boat bodily out with her in it.  Then on
the dock with all the leverage of being on terra firma, they managed to
get the sprayskirt off.  Chuck really laid into the guy for that caper.

Anyway, don't venture out with a sprayskirt you can't release; odds are
that if you can't put it on yourself, you might not be able to release
it.  Seems obvious but...

ralph diaz

Joe Brzoza wrote:
> 
> I had the same problem with a wetsuit.  Hadn't worn it for years, and then I
> went to put it on and it seemed to have shrunk a couple of sizes.
> 
> Couldn't have been that I put on weight...... Nah.....
> 
> Seriously though, I have been told that neoprene shrinks if it hasn't been
> used.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom W... [mailto:gadfly_at_tscnet.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 3:50 PM
> To: PaddleWise
> Subject: [Paddlewise] "Shrunken Skirt"?
> 
> Hi,
> 
>         Okay, I finally got out in my kayak Sunday. for the third time since
> my
> brain injury, I could not get my neoprene skirt over the cockpit coaming...
> 
>         It has been about a year and a half since I could get the silly
> [ooops-important] thing on.  Is it possible that over this time, it might
> have shrunk?
> 
>         After getting out of my boat, I took the skirt off my body, and
> asked
> another fella to give me a hand putting it on the boat, and then put my
> cockpit cover over the whole shbang...
> 
>         Has anyone else had this problem?
> 
>                 TomW...
> 
> 
> <gadfly_at_tscnet.com>
> 
> homepage:
> http://www2.tscnet.com/~gadfly/
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