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What to Wear for Cold Water
This decision depends on water temperature, air temperature, your paddling skill, your experience on and in cold water, water and weather conditions (wind strength, direction), proximity to shore and who you are paddling with. Don't dress less carefully because you put any responsibility on others for your rescue (not a good mindset). Paddling with groups that have a strong “watch out for each other” ethic you should still be at least as prepared as you would be paddling solo. Otherwise you are putting unfair responsibility and risk on your fellow paddlers and at the very least reducing their freedom to enjoy their own outing. And If you are responsible for other paddlers, particularly less experienced ones then you may even need to dress and prepare more carefully for more potential water immersion in order to assist in someone else's rescue.
Experienced Boaters
Norway
- What Norwegian Paddler Sune Wendelboe Wears Through the Winter (plus additional winter paddling advice)
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Pacific Northwest USA/Canada
- Bellingham, WA, USA
- Columbia River (the Gorge) OR/WA, USA
- Vancouver Island, BC, CA
- Victoria and nearby
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USA Midwest/Great Lakes
(water temperatures in the Great Lakes get as cold as ocean temperatures fairly far from the Equator. Paddling conditions are also often “oceanic”)
- Lake Michigan
- Lake Superior
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Average Boater, Novice Boater
- There is no universal formula for what is right for you. This is an education process. Experienced paddlers can take years to develop their scale which evolves and changes with experience, skill, and new paddle clothing options. Please start on the conservative end of the scale in terms of water temperature and weather conditions and incrementally test how long you can survive in the water given what you have on and where you are. Is that long enough for you to have a good chance to swim to shore (probably not at all easy in rough conditions and much more than a short distance from shore)? Or long enough for you to have a good chance to be rescued?
- Read DJ's Cold Water Checklist and practice that thought process and pre-test approach.
- Safely tests - find ways to safely test your paddling skills and clothing choices for on water conditions that you can expect
- Test your “in water skills” such as remounts in rough water, radio use, ability to use other signals (and their effectiveness - can anyone hear your whistle more than 25 yds away in a 20 mph wind? upwind, downwind?)
- More examples of some individual preferences:
- Read cold water safety incident stories involving cold water to learn more about the difficulties that can spring up in cold water paddling. And read other incident stories to gain a greater appreciation of other difficult circumstances that would only be amplified in a cold water setting. These stories should help you to avoid false confidence or reliance on untested assumptions.
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Available Clothing Options
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