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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: Moving to the next level
Posted By: Brian Nystrom In Response To: Moving to the next level (Brianne Corbett)
Date: Tuesday, 5 March 2002, at 6:14 p.m.
: Hi Brian...
: I am not a dry suit lover. Dry suits scare me because I am afraid of not
: closing a zipper properly, tearing, or puncturing the suit. Either
: situation means a very, very serious exposure... a situation in which I
: though I was protected but I really wasn't.While I wouldn't exactly say your fears are completely unfounded, I do think that you're seriously overestimating the risk. Virtually everyone I paddle with in the winter wears dry suits, and none of them have experienced a failure while on the water. I've seen a few torn seals when donning or doffing suits, but that's the time when you want it to happen, when you're on land. Overall, I'm convinced that a dry suit offers the best protection there is. Perhaps if you spend your winters thrashing yourself on barnacle encrusted rocks, there's a risk, but a dry suit simply isn't going to fail during open water paddling.
: I always wear a wet suit when paddling. The colder the water the more
: neoprene I wear. If the water starts to really get cold, I will wear a dry
: top over the neoprene with fleece under the neoprene. I like having lots
: of layers... with one fool proof layer... the neoprene.The problems is, any wet suit that will offer you adequate protection from cold water is going to be way too thick to paddle in comfortably. For 40 degree F water, you need 1/2" of neoprene for adequate protection.. I don't know how anyone can possibly paddle encased in that much foam.
: Consequently, I was never intending the Ocean Parka as an immersion drysuit.
: I was thinking of it as a storm jacket/pfd needing no waterproof integrity
: at all. In the unlikely event that I went over, my basic protection is
: still the neoprene... though the parka could still provide some valuable
: protection as well.That's your choice, though I really think if you tried a dry suit, you'd never go back to neoprene.
: As I thought more about it, I realized that a clever person could turn the
: parka into a drytop or paddling top. It might involve considerable
: alteration, but it can be done. The interesting thing is that several of
: the foreign manufacturers wil essentially custom make the parkas. So we
: need to identify what alterations would make this idea work. By finding a
: way to make these products useful, we evolve our current state of the art.: Consider, for example, the strobe light. The strobe on my L'Ocean is on the
: back of the jacket. The strobes on the Ocean Parkas are on the front of
: the jackets. The reason is that the auto-inflating PFD's will float you
: face up because of the high bouyancy and the design. This means that the
: strobe will only be seen if it is on the front of the parka. A strobe on
: the back will be underwater.: My L'Ocean strobe is useless if I am floating face up. I must float straight
: up and down or face down (bad) for the L'Ocean strobe to be valuable.
: Logically, the L'Ocean strobe should, at least, have gone on the front
: shoulder and not the back shoulder.I suspect that it's located on the back of the shoulder for two reasons:
1) They probably expect you to be floating upright or swimming.
2) If they mounted it on the front, it would blind you.With a Type I vest that's designed to hold you face up even if you're unconcious, it makes sense to mount the strobe on the front. On a Type III, the supposition is that you're going to be conscious and capable of controlling your orientation.
: But for thinking about how to make the Ocean Parka viable as a sea coat for
: kayakers, I might never have realized that my strobe is practically
: worthless in its present configuration. I need to change it.It only needs to be above your shoulder to be functional, It doesn't matter if it's attached to the front of the rear, as long as the bulb stays above the water.
: The lesson I learned from all this is that there is a lot of room for
: evolution of sea kayaking protective gear. Indeed, who better to provide
: the springboard for this evolution than us? We live for kayaking. We care
: about the health of the sport itself... the safety of all kayakers... even
: the dumbbells who don't care about themselves.: Discussions like these can help manufacturers understand what they can do to
: improve their products. Indeed, maybe we can cause entirely new products
: to emerge as our experiences become translated into new ideas.I agree, but I think you're underestimating the quality and utility of the gear that's currently available. No gear is going to make you 100% safe on the water. Even using your most important safety gear - your head - isn't going to guarantee that you'll never get into trouble. I guess it all boils down to how much risk one is willing to accept. Personally, I feel comfortable with a properly outfitted boat, dry suit, Type III PFD, flares, horn and VHF radio, knowing that my skills will probably keep me in the boat under any conditions that I'm likely to paddle in. Perhaps your threshold of risk is simply lower than mine.
: Safe Paddling!
You, too.
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