So it appears that there is no one who actually has any *data* on how much longer a drysuit would let you tolerate cold water vs. a wetsuit. I was very surprised by this. jim holman Me: I hate to be a nasty gadfly here but - Actually, I enjoy it - It saddens me to realize that so many people see the human body as some sort of measurable object rather than the complex, amazing organism [defined as "a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole"] that the body is. It cannot be that any two people are exactly alike or even close to being alike in enough ways that we could accurately measure their responses to anything [temperature, gun shot wounds, spicy food, watching someone slip on a banana peel] and quantify those responses. My zero degree sleeping bag leaves me cold at 10 degrees but my wife sweats in it at zero. No, we don't weigh the same and probably don't have the same body fat. And I usually eat more for dinner when we're camping. But I toss and turn more than she does. You probably get the picture... Human and animal bodies are mysterious things that biologists can't begin to comprehend in all facets of operation. I know that turtles can sleep at the bottom of the frozen river all winter, I know that tiny birds and butterflies can navigate huge distances, I know that some people can eat liver. All those complex systems contained in the body work in subtle ways to accomplish the goal of living right up to the day they don't do that - which is the day we die. I believe that things are never equal. Which is why we have brains to make decisions for ourselves and language to communicate our reasons for our decisions to other people. Marvelous things that our bodies are, we can under or over dress a little and still be ok. I guess I'm trying to say that the demand for a measurable body is a demand to take the essence out of what we and all beings are: weird, mostly unknowable, quite unmeasurable, and all interesting. I'm not a good enough writer to say this the way I mean it to be taken so I'll stop here. Jim Tibensky *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
James wrote: > So it appears that there is no one who actually has any *data* on how > much > longer a drysuit would let you tolerate cold water vs. a wetsuit. I was > very > surprised by this. Comparative data might be somewhat useful, although the range of conditions is such that no absolute data would be much use. The other problem is who is tested. All too often rigorous physical tests are done using volunteers from the military or university athletic teams. I was once discussing this with a Warrant Officer of many years experience, and he agreed that a platoon of young soldiers just in from serious field training would likely find lab tests a lark, competing with each other to tough it out for great extremes that would be meaningless to ordinary mortals. I suspect that even comparative tests on such a group would be hard to extrapolate. Loving my gore-tex drysuit, GaryJ -- Director, Family Canoeing Centre Recreational canoeing courses for the whole family. +--------------------------------+ | /"\ | | \ / | | X ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN | | / \ AGAINST HTML MAIL & NEWS | +--------------------------------+ *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
> All too often rigorous physical > tests are done using volunteers from the military or university athletic > teams. Actually cold tolerance is one of the few things that young healthy males do poorly with. No fat and lots of blood flow to muscle makes this population prone to rapid hypothermia in cold water. *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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