RE: [Paddlewise] Cold and skills

PeterO wrote
>But in judging this, its body core temperature, the fuel that maintains it
>and the clothing and layers of fat that insulate the body core, that
matters
>most to me. 

Joe P wrote 
>....Point is, as you all know from looking at the charts, all higher temps
do is stretch
>the time until you become hypothermic.......

Jack Martin wrote
>..........held on to a cooler for three days before being rescued this
morning?  
>Shorts and tee shirts, of course........................(For what it's
worth, 
>they all looked liked they had body mass indeces favorable to prolonged
submersion.)


G'Day,

That body mass index is surely worth a lot. Differences in body surface area
to mass ratio don't seem large enough to account for solidly built people
lasting a day or so in cold water and thinner folks only lasting an hour or
two. And I wouldn't think body fat is that great an insulator even though
its sealed with an effective waterproof coating (skin). Really good
insulators generally rely on trapping pockets of air small enough to avoid
convective heat transport. 

So while thermal insulation is important, strikes me energy stored in fat or
food could be particularly useful as well and might account for the striking
difference in cold tolerance. Can fat be metabolised for fuel quickly enough
to stay warm and might there be enough in larger people to last a day for a
day or two? Would the right kind of emergency rations help and what would
the ideal emergency rations be for cold water immersion? I imagine they
wouldn't work for really cold water but they might make a significant
difference at moderate temperatures. 

Is their any research around on emergency rations suitable for survival in
moderately cold water (say down to 60 degrees F)?

All the best, PeterO
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