Subject: [baidarka] cold weather
From: Wayne Steffens (wsteffen@skypoint.com)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 15:00:53 EST
At 09:02 AM 1/6/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Wayne , Thanks for sharing your pictures... beautiful kayaks!
>Speaking about cold and the weather, we haven't had much snow yet, here in
>Rochester, NY, but it's sure cold! As a novice, I am wondering the kind of
>clothing you wear in cold weather. Is a wet suit a must? What thickness? What
>about outerwear? Socks? Boots? I'd appreciate your suggestions...
I'm not normally a cold weather paddler, although to people from other
climes I suppose Lake Superior paddling is *always* cold. Normally my
season ends with the gales of November, when the water and air temps are
just entering the 30's. For that I wear expedition weight polypro pants,
wool socks, one light and one expedition weight upper. I wear a neoprene
hood (see the last picture) when I'm surfing or planning to roll in cold
weather. Neoprene gloves come in handy, but probably become less useful
when it drops below 30 or 35 F. I think I wore wool mittens on launch day,
which was in the 20's with a brisk wind.
As I'm very cheap, I just wear cut-off $10 rubber boots to protect my latex
drysuit "boots". As I found out at launch, the rubber doesnt provide much
insulation, and neoprene would probably be better for real cold weather. My
drysuit is Gore-tex, an indispensible necessity on Lake Superior IMO. Yes,
I'd say a wetsuit at a minimum is a must, and a drysuit is much superior. A
wetsuit would probably not prolong your life very long this time of year in
Lake Superior.
wayne
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