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On Apr 2, 10:56 am, L D'Bonnie wrote:
http://www.pineapplesails.com/musto/...1647jacket.htm

That's a lot of money. I really like the Gill line and I recently
retired my old (ca 1990) west marine 3rd reef pvc stuff (mostly
packing tape) in favor of Gill. I'm hard pressed to see that the
Musto coat is twice as much jacket as the penultimate Gill coat
(Atlantic) but it is twice the price. In the ocean in temps down into
the 50's the Gill Key West line is adequate as a top layer. I've got a
buddy who swears by the Stearns work suit for cold weather work on the
ocean. However, my guess is that you are looking at day sailing for a
couple of hours in fair weather and as long as you don't fall in I
can't really see spending a lot of money on a jacket thats designed to
keep you dry when you're getting hammered by ocean waves. I think
something along the lines of the Key West stuff would be fine as a
shell if you want to be yachty but a good outer-layer from someplace
like www.campmor.com or www.basgear.com (shop around) would likely be
just as good and cheaper and they carry all the underlayering you'll
be wanting. www.defender.com is a decent place to start if you are
interested in the Gill or Sterns. Get lots of layers. Oh, yeah, it's
hard to find gloves that keep you warm and allow you to handle lines.
I used some shooter's gloves that have short fingers but a mitten like
top that you can pull over you fingertips when you aren't using them
on my last trip to New Zealand. They were ok for modestly cool
weather but for real winter weather you might try neoprene sailing
gloves.

-- Tom.

Douglas Gill was a lace manufacturer who loved sailing and eventually turned
part of his factory over to manufacturing sailing clothing. I believe he
kept on manufacturing lace, but astute marketing grew the sailing gear side
of the buisiness until it was his main product.

I was also involved in the manufacture of waterproof clothing, mainly for
the North Sea oil rigs, so I do know a little about the finer points of
quality and value in this field. The main diference between our stuff and
sailing clothing was that ours had also to be fire-retardant, and price was
not an issue (after the Piper Alpha disaster that is!)

As a lifelong amateur sailor, I have examined most of the better-known makes
of foul weather gear over the years and can tell you that Gill sailing gear
is second to none in terms of value for money and quality of manufacture. It
would be wouldn't it? If the boss sails, he must be aware of the problems we
all face!

No doubt much of the present stuff on the market emanates from the
developing countries like China, indeed I would be surprised if the Gill
organisation had not availed itself of the cheaper manufacturing facilities
in these areas, but whilst admitting that I have not personally bought foul
weather gear for a few years now, Gill would still be the first clothing I
would look at before comparing prices and quality with the rest.

Hope this helps.

Dennis.