There are obviously lots of clothing options ranging from core-temperature protecting shortie wet suits to alternative lighter-weight, fuzzy rubbers, back to normal weight farmer johns and even thicker diving wet suit weights. Having on-demand immersion apparel choices on a trip adds to gear load capacities and definitely impacts one's wallet to some degree, I suppose. Drysuit differences and personal comfort levels (Gore versus non-Gore, hot-bodied individuals versus cooler-bodied individuals, skilled "rotary-coolers" versus "at-risk" individuals - or those challenged by wide-bodied kayaks in the later case) leave a drysuit wearer at a fairly quickly obtainable knowledge level of what they can tolerate as days get warmer, to the point that drysuit wearers have an excellent sense of when and where too much is too much. What bothers me is the new paddle not yet geared up fully due to the time sequence and finances of gear acquisition that often necessitates adding immersion apparel basics later in the game than sooner. So, you get newbies out in cold water/warm airtemps ripe for disaster, and alternatively old has-beens like some of us, who are much more wily about staying out of the drink and/or quick at reentries under varying conditions if we do go over. I still don't find a regular-thickness wet suit farmer john to be that onerous to wear on cold water/hot days, as the hull stays cool in the water, legs are against the hull, and the deck retards some of the infrared radiation generated heat from direct warming of your lower half - leaving most of one's remaining choices with respect to what is worn on the torso to supplement the torso protection afforded by the upper half of the FJ. In many necks of the woods, kayaking is still an often cool, wet sport, though the practice of avoiding hyperthermia often requires more finesse than avoiding hypothermia, at least when one considers the normal status quo advice for cold-water aspects for the sport of sea kayaking. Doug Lloyd (hoping his logic isn't specious, or overly specious as the case may be) > Jeri Rivers wrote: >> If the weather temp is in the seventies and the water temp is 42, what do >> you wear? > > I'm with the others - under those kind of conditions, I choose the FJ plus > a light top for chafing and sun protection. I have some light-coloured, > long-sleeve tops for summer that are reasonably comfortable. The sleeves > are usually pretty wet after paddling for a while, so the arms stay cool. > I prefer fabric to sunscreen chemicals. > > Having been in freezing and near-freezing water several times, I know that > it can be incapacitating but is easy enough to deal with if the air > temperature is high. You can swim for a while and with an FJ, that swim > can be quite a few minutes duration. > > How I dress when solo is always more conservative than when I'm with a > group (assuming a competent group). > > Mike *************************************************************************** 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 Sun Jul 01 2007 - 07:28:24 PDT
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