Winter weather sailing gear/clothes advice sought

[Yeadon]

So fall begins on Sunday here in Seattle, and other places too if my memory serves me right. The rain will follow, then the cold. But I still want to go sailing. So, here’s my question …

What foul weather gear / rain gear would you guys recommend for someone who will be sailing protected waters in a small open boat (15’ peapod) over the winter? I just built this boat, and it will be our first winter together on Lake Washington and Puget Sound. Seattle winters are wet, but mild, and the wind is often steady.

I figure that I’d certainly go out if the temp is over 50 degrees F, or so. Maybe I’d go out when the temp is in the mid-40s. I’m not sailing if the temperature is 38 degrees.

I’m curious about fabric, weight, breathability and brands. I’ll need a jacket with a hood, and some sort of pants/bibs. Gloves, too. I’ll be active in the boat, so that hopefully will help keep me warm.

What has worked for you?

[Bruce Hooke]

For winter small boat sailing many would argue that you should be wearing a good dry suit or at least a wet suit (depending on the water temp and the air temp). The line I heard is that if you would not be willing to go swimming in what you are wearing you shouldn't be on the water.

[Ian McColgin]

I don't think you can beat Mustang work/exposure suits. They have a more aggressive insulated dry suit for ice rescue but I should not think you need it.

I kayak winters wearing a gortex dry suit but kayaking is a much hotter sport and the Mustang would be too hot. When sailing, I use the Mustang.

If you must go conventionally clothed, forget the breathability. Grundens over long woolies and wool pants and shirt with a nice high bouyancy comfortable PFD will do fine. I've dumped and self-rescued on a sleaty March day dressed thus. 'Twas cold at first but once back in the boat I got semi-comfortable during the two hour sail back to shore.

G'luck

[Bruce Hooke]

If you must go conventionally clothed, forget the breathability. Grundens over long woolies and wool pants and shirt with a nice high bouyancy comfortable PFD will do fine.

Just to add to what Ian said...absolutely nothing you are wearing should be cotton besides the handkerchief in your pocket! :D

Wool is good but I would also look at the various modern warm-while-wet synthetics. I like wool but in the end the synthetics are often more effective because they retain less water.

That said, I agree with Ian that some sort of exposure suit is really the proper way to go.

[chergui]

I find sailing in 50ºF or less unbearable personally.. but I'm sensitive to the cold. I would also make sure you can get back into the boat quickly in case you go overboard. You can survive 10-15 minutes in the water here in the winter. Average water temp. in Vancouver is somewhere around 45ºF I think. It's also colder further south near the straight of Juan de Fuca. The survival suit is a good idea.

[Kim Whitmyre]

Stay on Lake Union?;)

[Bruce Hooke]

It occurs to me that before going too far with advice, those of us not from the area should maybe know what water temperature you are dealing with. 50 degree air, with 55 degree water is more what I think of as spring or fall conditions, and under those conditions a full exposure suit might well be overkill. On the other hand, 45 degree air and 35 degree water is a very different matter!

[Ian McColgin]

One point - don't tuck your pants in the boots. The reference I made to my little capsize involved my boots tucked in, contrary to my normal habit of wearing the oilies out, because I was planning to step ashore and did not want to get the bottom of my oilies wet.

When I went to hoist myself aboard I found I had a hundred extra pounds aboard. During the capsize I'd slid into the water gently and was floating high - not even in to my armpits. One of the more wretched moments of my life was when I had to get shoulders wet as I grabbed down to my thighs to grip the oilies and pull them out of my boots.

[Bobcat]

I tend to wear wool, Helly Hanson rain gear, and rubber boots.

I always wear a life vest as well.

Kind of old school I guess

[TimH]

Kokatat

[Yeadon]

These are great tips, all around. A lot of experience demonstrated in this thread.


I don't think you can beat Mustang work/exposure suits.

... Grundens over long woolies and wool pants and shirt with a nice high bouyancy comfortable PFD will do fine.

I'll check out the Mustang, and Grundens is a good idea, too. (A couple votes for Grundens and woolies, it appears.) I also think the "warm-while-wet" suits are interesting.


Just to add to what Ian said...absolutely nothing you are wearing should be cotton besides the handkerchief in your pocket! :D


Interesting, I'll keep that in mind.


Stay on Lake Union?;)

In that case, we'll need crash helmets, too!

It's a freeway out there on Lake Union, what with the seaplanes, Ride the Duck, the Tuesday night Duck Dodge, CWB and the infamous "Lake Union Speed Lane."

[chergui]

I find sailing in 50ºF or less unbearable personally.. but I'm sensitive to the cold. I would also make sure you can get back into the boat quickly in case you go overboard. You can survive 10-15 minutes in the water here in the winter. Average water temp. in Vancouver is somewhere around 45ºF I think. It's also colder further south near the straight of Juan de Fuca. The survival suit is a good idea.

Average is 43ºC and ranges from 37-45. I looked it up.

[Bruce Hooke]

It sounds like you may not be that familiar with winter outdoor gear and staying warm when wet. I'd encourage you to do a bit of reading up on this or go to a seminar if one is available. Even a visit to your local REI store and some conversations with the sales staff will help you get a handle on the options.

I can tell you not to wear cotton, but it is better if you really understand why and also understand what your other options are. For summer sailing you can get away with wearing stuff you likely already have in your closet such as blue jeans and a t-shirt, but even then there are much better choices. Wet jeans are no fun even if it is hot out. In cold weather it becomes a matter of surviving, not just a matter of having fun. Wet cotton just saps the heat right out of your body.

Ideally you should be happy to go swimming in what you are wearing, but at the least you need to be able to go swimming and survive.

Another issue that has not been raised is the issue of dealing with a capsize or swamping. In the summer you've got more time to deal with such situations and help is more likely since there tend to be more boats around. In the winter you need to be more independent.

[Yeadon]

Average is 43ºC and ranges from 37-45. I looked it up.

Someday, I'm going to put on all my safety/cold weather gear and volunteer for the bitter-end of a cold weather man-overboard drill. I think it would be really lame, but extremely educational to jump into the cold water, then try to pull myself back over the rail. (I'd want a couple people there to keep an eye on me during the exercise.)

Later, I'd go down to The Sloop in Ballard and tell my story really loud at the bar.

[Thorne]

If you do want to spend the $ on breathable gear (handy if you have to row in the rain or mist), get a set built for sailing.

Waste Marine has 'em as do other resellers and makers, but the nautical ones are best as the detailing really makes a difference -- things like double knees, cuff adjusters, reflector tape on shoulders and wrists, etc.

http://images.westmarine.com/full/001031002521_f.jpg
http://images.westmarine.com/full/001031001540_f.jpg

As above, polypro and other modern materials can be great for wicking moisture away from the body and/or not absorbing moisture. Quality wool does the same, so your top layers can be wool with polypro or other synthetic underlayers. Be aware that synthetics are VERY flammable!

[johngsandusky]

Good socks and boots are essential. You can't be comfortable if your feet are cold. I often sail or paddle when the temp is in the forties. Try going in lighter breezes. The heavier cool air will give you plenty of push. I wear a short wetsuit under fleece and a windbreaker. I can swim ok in 50 degree water without it, a lot further with it, even in colder water.

[Kaa]

Talk to winter kayakers, or at the very least read up on winter kayaking. Cold water is deadly and if you're not equipped properly or know what to do it will kill you.

For example, do you know that icy water splashed on your face causes one of several possible involuntary reactions? It may cause you to gasp and if your face is under water you will get water into your lungs. It may cause a so-called epiglottal stop when your throat closes up -- and you won't be able to take a breath (or breath out) until it releases.

Read up and know what you're getting into.

Kaa

[James McMullen]

There's a reason they make bath towels out of cotton--because it's so good at soaking up water!

I second the motion of going to the local REI and see what they're selling for the sea kayakers. I wear a Lotus Skanorak both for sea kayaking and small boat sailing--it's perfectly suited for wearing with lifejackets and such compared to an ordinary rain jacket. My kayaking gear has a pretty much 100% crossover with my sail & oar boat gear--PFD, jacket, booties, capilene underwear, polypro fleece, drybags, GPS, chart case, demountable compass. . . .everything but the cockpit sprayskirt!

[Yeadon]

I've swung by REI a couple of times now, and have learned quite a bit. Everybody here has been a great help. It's interesting, but once I did a bit of reading and chatting with people, I almost immediately began to see the parallels between winter kayaking and sailing in a small open boat.
The opportunity for immersion is great with both, and you should be ready for it.

That said, I went sailing the other evening out on the north end of Lake Washington. Light winds, but plenty of fun nonetheless. (And I didn't wear a stitch of cotton.)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1237/1408662142_541f5fffd5.jpg


That's "big food," my 15 foot Matinicus peapod which I finished building in June. I used the sail rig from the Catspaw dinghy. I also rigged up a Norwegian push/pull tiller, which lets me move my weight around the boat quite a bit easier than a conventional tiller. (I first went with the regular tiller, but didn't like it so much.)

Now you can see why I'm so interested in sailing over the winter, huh?

[Todd Bradshaw]

After being in the backpacking/kayaking/sailing retail business for about 20 years, this one would win the "most valuable product for cold water paddling and sailing" award.

http://chotooutdoorgear.net/shop/product_info.php?cPath=34_37&products_id=49

[chergui]

Another thing is that the quality of jackets for wet weather is very difficult to determine seems as they all claim to be waterproof now using all sorts of different materials that never used to exist. I don't trust anything they say anymore. I bought a rain shell made by Columbia that claimed to be waterproof. Had all sorts of interesting labels claiming how they achieved this. The thing soaks through in 15 minutes. It's useless. Mind you this is just a shell and I wasn't expecting much but it did say waterproof and not just water resistant. There is a lot of junk out there. Make sure you read some reviews and if you're expecting it to be truly waterproof put the garden hose on it to test it out.

[TimH]

Around here kayakers wear these:

http://www.kokatat.com/images/products/paddlingsuits/ps_sno_radish.jpg

http://www.kokatat.com/product_paddlingsuits.asp

[Lance F. Gunderson]

I've long been highly sceptical of expensive high tech gear but recently I was persuaded to bight the bullet and buy the Kokatat; best investment I ever made. Highly recommended. They have what you need.

[chergui]

The best wet weather gear I've used is the old bright yellow PVC style. It's simple and cheap. They are usually big and baggy and fit over your warmer clothes. This is what I use on the boat. I was glad to see West Marine described all of this on their web site. Anything else I've tried seems to soak through eventually, except GoreTex apparently. I haven't tried it.

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/producte/10001/-1/10001/67803/377%20710%20765/0/Rain%20Suits/Primary%20Search/mode%20matchallpartial/0/0?N=377%20710%20765&Ne=0&Ntt=Rain%20Suits&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial&page=CategoryDisplayLevel1&isLTokenURL=true&storeNum=null&subdeptNum=null&classNum=null

[Todd Bradshaw]

Oh, you can still get plenty wet wearing Gore Tex. The fabric may all be very similar and is actually transformed from nylon to Gore Tex in the same basic way and at the same factory, but there are no other outdoor garments where performance is so much a matter of construction techniques. There are very specific ways to build a proper, functional Gore Tex garment and those methods take a lot of labor and care. Start cutting corners and you can pretty much guarantee that the garment will leak. Bargain Gore Tex is no bargain. If you're looking for some and it is not the high-end, very expensive stuff with the "guaranteed for extremely wet weather by both the manufacturer and W.L Gore" hang tag on it, you're probably better off spending your money on something else. This tag means that your jacket, bibs, etc. have been constructed using seaming and construction techniques tested and approved by Gore.

Gore Tex also needs to be pretty clean to work properly. Dirt and oil rubbed into the fabric can cause it to leak. And yes, it breathes, but don't get too hung up on the breathability thing. It doesn't take much exertion to generate enough steam inside a Gore Tex garment (or any other similar waterproof-breathable fabric) to overpower it's ability to breathe. If you're working hard or of it's a few degrees too warm outside to comfortably be wearing a jacket and/or bibs, it will be pretty hot and steamy inside - whether that garment breathes or not.

When it is raining or you're regularly getting wet from spray or getting dunked, it's actually more important to stay warm than to stay dry. You can be perfectly comfortable in the shower or bathtub with no raincoat and be about as wet as you can possibly get. The reason is that you've got the water temperature cranked-up - and cranked-up higher than you would likely find comfortable for room air temperature. A steady supply of outdoor water (rain, spray, etc.) is not only cooler, but as it runs off of you or your garments, it sucks heat out of you big-time. If it starts to rain on a seventy degree day and you put on your raincoat, it may keep the water out, but you'll still be losing heat. You may soon feel like it's 50 degrees outside. Getting cold shoulders or a cold back while out in the rain is quite common. Sometimes you may even stick your hand in there to see if your raincoat is leaking. The garment hangs close to your skin in those areas and the rain running off the outside of your raincoat is sucking out your heat. Unless you're doing hard work, like chopping firewood, you may be dry, but still cold.

To counteract this loss of heat, you need to increase the insulation layers under the rain shell. This is done by trapping air in the fibers and weave of the insulating fabrics. Some of the most comfortable raingear ever built (stuff like Peter Storm "Bukflex" and similar products) did this by incorporating a thin layer of foam insulation into the raingear fabrics themselves. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be able to come up with one that holds up and isn't uncomfortably stiff so they've never really caught on. Instead, we do it with separate layers of clothing. We want those layers to be very breathable, to avoid holding, absorbing or trapping water, to dry quickly and to resist going flat when they're wet (which would diminish their insulation "R-Value").

Cotton fails miserably at every one of these criteria, which is why it's lousy clothing for wet activities.

Wool is better. It breathes well and dries from the inside out as body heat drives moiture away from your body (wet dogs dry from the skin outward, for example). Wool fibers are also pretty stiff, so it doesn't tend to go flat when wet and lose it's R-Value. It will absorb some moisture and it will take a while to really feel light and dry again, but a lot less time than cotton. Even while soaked, it will be providing much more insulation value and much less of a wet conduit to transport your body heat away from you and out into space. The best boating wools for insulation tend to be Icelandic wool, which drains fast and has very good loft (thickness) for it's weight, and oiled wool, like many of the traditional fisherman's sweaters. You may smell like a wet sheep while wearing one, but the oil really reduces their moisture absorption.

Synthetics - polyester, acrylic, polypropylene, etc. - underwear and fleece garments advance your protection another step, and in some ways it's a big one. To start with, these fibers absorb drastically less water than even wool does. As a result, they drain water much faster and don't hold it. You can take a polar fleece sweater, dunk it in a bucket, squeeze the water out of it, put it back on (even over bare skin) and not really feel wet. They don't resist wet compression as well as wool does (less stiff) but they drain so fast that it really doesn't matter as they won't stay wet for long. On some of the underwear fabrics (like Capilene polyester) the fibers used are a combination - with some treated to repel water and others to attract it. They can actually mix these to increase moisture transport away from your skin.

Fleece won't have the amount of wind-blocking ability that a lot of garment wool will have if you're wearing just the sweater and no shell and fleece won't last as long as a good wool garment, but when soaked, it will certainly outperform it. Note that the fleece garments that are designed for seriously wet activities generally have minimal trim. Big, broad knit cuffs or waistbands may be great for city wear, but they hold water and dry slowly. The polarfleece garments that are really designed for wilderness use have skinny little bindings on the ends of sleeves and the bottoms to help them dry quickly. If you bail out of your kayak or dump your sailboat and get soaked to the skin inside your foulies before you climb out of the water, the ability of synthetics to drain fast, dry fast, maintain insulation and transport heat-robbing moisture away from your skin is unsurpassed. Nothing else even comes close.

Sorry if this all sounds like an REI sales pitch, but I did use to own part of a chain of backpacking/canoe/kayak/sailboat/ski shops and spent about 20 years running seminars and clinics on fabrics for staff and customers (and actually, the knowledge level of the typical REI or West Marine sales person in these matters often leaves a lot to be desired).

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

...What foul weather gear / rain gear would you guys recommend for someone who will be sailing protected waters in a small open boat (15’ peapod) over the winter? I just built this boat, and it will be our first winter together on Lake Washington and Puget Sound. Seattle winters are wet, but mild, and the wind is often steady.
I figure that I’d certainly go out if the temp is over 50 degrees F, or so. Maybe I’d go out when the temp is in the mid-40s. I’m not sailing if the temperature is 38 degrees....I’ll be active in the boat, so that hopefully will help keep me warm.


This is personal - what works for me may not work for you - what works for my son, does not work for my daughter.
The trick is to balance the heat output (work rate) with the chilling rate (depends on windspeed and a number of other factors).

My starting position would be a 4.5mm long-john wetsuit, a long sleeved helly lifa undershirt a long sleeved cag, and a suitable pair of neoprene boots.

That's me sorted down to 40°F - lower if I can work harder.

[TimH]

dry suits are way more comfortable than wet suits. And they make special fleece suits to wear under them.

[Thorne]

Great writeup, Todd!

I was working for Early Winters, Ltd in Seattle in the mid 70's and got to wear the first GoreTex garments ever made. They leaked on the seams, and the early fabrics delaminated badly, but the product gradually matured.

At the time they were making small tents and bivvy sacks of the stuff, and I ended up working there after going by their small storefront to scoff at their claims of "waterproof and breathable" materials.

GoreTex and the other similar micro-porous vapor-permeable materials (there are many 'fake' ones out there so beware!) need vapor pressure to function, so they need to be somewhat sealed and exposed to lower pressure on the outside than inside to work -- not always possible in storms or on motorcycles, to name just two conditions.

One of the cool things about wool is that the natural fibers (not in heavily processed or recycled wool) are hollow with zillions of little hairs coming off the tubes -=- this is how the moisture is transferred. Great stuff, particularly the fancy wools from various places around the globe. Most comfortable wool shirt I ever wore was an ancient polo team shirt from the 40's, made from New Zealand wool that was cut from the top of the fleece -- it could be worn directly against the skin.