>From: "Michael Daly" <michaeldaly_at_rogers.com> >Too many variable to determine easily. A good dry suit will allow >indefinite >exposure, as will a heavy wetsuit. Hi folks I have a problem with this statement, and I assume we all still talking paddling clothing here. Don't get a wrong impression of safety. Wearing a dry suit while paddling will still leaves the possiblity of hypothermia. Don't get or give people a false sense of security. A "good"(?) dry suit will definitley NOT give you indefinite exposure time! Suits worn for ice diving or cold water diving are not comparable with the ones one would wear for recreational on the water sports. A drysuit suitable for paddling is NOT a immersion or survival suit, like the ones you may find on ocean going vessels or drilling rigs as evacuation equipment (cold water diving suits are close to them). Those are made from thick neoprene (still most of them are dry suits). They are heavy, bulky, and warm, but also the last thing you want to wear for going paddling. Even in those suits survival time in cold water is by no means indefinite, just a heck lot longer than with any other outfit. A paddling, sailing, or surfing dry suit is nothing else than a jumpsuit made from waterproof fabric with latex gaskets around the 5 holes were various body parts stick out. If it works, it will keep you dry, nothing else! That's it! Warm keeps you whatever you wear underneath it. And yes, with such a dry suit you will still have to dress for water temperature and not for air temperature to be safe. Most of use wear various layers of fleece and tech-fabric under it, looking for a solution somewhere between staying warm in the water for some time while swimming, but not to warm while being dry and paddling. It's a compromise, most likely leaning towards the dry site of the equation. Therefore hypothermia can and will get to you also in such a outfit. Later than it would hit you when just wearing fleece or cotton, and maybe later than wearing a wet suit, but at one point it will get you. No matter what you wear, you have to get out of the water as fast as possible, and out of the wet clothing and into dry stuff ASAP. My 0.02$ Ulli P.S. There are publications from a guy in England who tested some of the combinations(swim vs wet vs dry suit) for the Navy. Don't remember his name right now, but he is big in hypothermia research. However, his data shows that a drysuit is not that much better than a wetsuit, but as far as I remember it wasn't clear what people wore under it and what kind of wet suit it was (sure not a 3mm farmer john). Run a medline database search with the keywords hpothermia, cold shock , immersion and his name will pop up several times. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Apr 04 2002 - 14:17:18 PST
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