OK. Let me admit, immediately, right up front, that I don’t currently go sailing in the Wintertime. And I have little desire to do so. At all. At least in New Jersey.
Florida? Yes!!!
New Jersey? No!!!
Nosireeee. The older I get the more I detest really cold weather.
That being said, I have been looking at the possibility of extending my sailing season into late Fall and early Spring.
In order to do that, however, one needs to spend some dough on good protective gear. The question is, what are the options out there?
Below is an article that, I hope, might be a good introduction into the topic. (If you, dear reader, have any good info, thoughts or insights you can add to this discussion then your comments here are most welcome … the collective mind of our little community is certainly better than one.)
The article’s intro — followed by a link so you can read it in its entirety — is below.
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Dressing For Frostbite Season
by Nabeel Alsalam
Here are some of my opinions about what to wear during Laser frostbite season. The opinions are usually mine but I have provided other views when I know of them.
Is a drysuit necessary, or will a wetsuit under foulies suffice?
Conditions vary. So I find the flexibility of a 2.5 mm wetsuit, bibs/spray top, and fleece to work. On a warm day early in the season, I’ll wear the wetsuit with nylon shorts over them and my spray top. On colder days, I’ll add the bibs. On really cold days, I have fleece between the two. Even after my worst windward capsizes, I don’t stay in the water very long and so this system has worked for me for a couple of years now.
However, I am definitely in the minority. Most guys have dry suits. I do notice that these guys are more likely than me to sail by the lee in a breeze. Also, when I dropped my rudder off the dock, they went after it for me which I wasn’t willing to do with just the thin wetsuit. Click here to continue reading this article on the Potomac River Sailing website …
