brrr its getting cold in the mornings now in Vicco, what sort of keep warm clothing do you blokes wear for paddling on the Bay, wetsuits are too hot, tracksuits are just not on, sharkskins?

sharkskin is the go for the colder weather. but get the 'climate control' option, so you can allow some airflow if you get hot. i use the long sleeve version and have a pair of the long paddling pants as well.

i've also got the performance wear model, which has sharkskin on the chest and lower back and compression material on the upper back and arms.

Simondo said...

I agree PT.

Ocks, when it's colder, and I know I'm going to go fairly hard, I'll still wear boardies & T-Shirt. Otherwise I have 2 different Kathmandu long sleeve tops (from their half price sales ), but I'm usually stopping to take it off and tie it around my waist.

Simondo

i would have thought all you hardcore vicco waterman guys would be bear chested and only wear a potato sack if it was snowing cold

Not that I am playing up to Lacey's post or anything - but it really isn't cold yet. I reckon that the commentators at the Bells contest were doing a bit of a beat-up about how cold it was.

The Bay is currently at 17.2C and the ocean is 16.9C. The main factor at this time of the year is probably wind chill, rather than water temp.

I reckon that the descending order of dealing with cold is - flat water & calm (you don't need much), surfing (will depend on wind and how often you expect to dunk yourself), then downwinders (and this will, again, depend on how much time you are going to spend wet and subject to wind chill. The further offshore you will be the more likely you will want windproof gear/rubber, so you may end up too hot, but better this than hypothermia).

Cold is when the water is in the 11 - 13 range. I've only been to California once, but I was surprised at how cold the water was once you got a bit north of LA. So over in the States they probably wouldn't consider 11C all that cold.

A couple of the crew this morning were cursing my advice. Air temp below 4 degrees. Water apparently wasn't too bad when certain people fell in, but the wind chill against wet clothing had them approaching hypothermia pretty quickly.

yep been awol been busy getting artwork done for art melb,[ spruiking ] cold nah never feel it, I 'm from Ballarat, but just wanna make sure everyone else is ok and dressed accordingly!

You blokes need to come up to the Yarra Valley here,

it was 1 degree this morning so at least not freezing,

then when you return to the bay can get back into the boardies.

Teeps said...
Yeah Warwick, I didn't 'plan' on falling in this morning, but got distracted chatting, and the converging cross-swells got me. I couldn't feel my hands BEFORE I fell in, and in fact the water felt comparitively warm... Then I had to paddle back with a 10kn wind on a wet rashie top. A 45 min trip back home with the heater on still didn't alleviate the chill...

But... I'm with PT on this, the neofleece pants are brilliant. Before I fell in, it was fine, as I soon got warm upper body with the paddling.

If you ARE planning to fall in, as I did repeatedly this morning* , the Neofleece top works very very well. Also highly recommend a hot choccy from Odo to warm up the inner man.



(*Tim, not trying to turn this into a contest mate but you only fell in the once...)