We are currently cruising in Australia and were in New Zealand late last year.

Both there and in Tasmania we observed that dinghy sailors routinely wore wet
suits and dry suits when racing. They also wore PFD's.

On a rough Tasman Sea crossing, winds around 50 knots sustained for several
days and temperature around 40 degrees; it was very cold. I decided to try a
wetsuit rather than wet weather gear to see if it was warmer and easier to move
around in. My wet suit is a metric 8mm, which I think is about 5/16 inches
thick, and initially found that it was great. It had really good antiskid
properties and it was much less bulky than Mustos and much easier to move
around and work the boat. But after a while it just became far too hot and
sweaty. It became really uncomfortable, even though the wind chill must have
been close to freezing.

I have not tried a dry suit but this might be a better option.

However, if I ever have to abandon ship then I would don my wetsuit plus a PFD.

Hypothermia kills more people than drowning and I would try to maximise our
survival odds.

Graeme
sv Leonidas

Graeme Cook wrote in
:

However, if I ever have to abandon ship then I would don my wetsuit
plus a PFD.


http://www.mustangsurvival.com/produ...p?id=420&mc=85

Why do offshore boaters always "make do" with home-made gear when their own
lives and the lives of the families they love are at risk? Why do they
think THEY can survive with some crappy wetsuit or other it-will-be-enough,
when the guy in the fishing vessel in the SAME WATERS knows the only thing
that will save his ass is a proper survival suit made to keep him warm,
safe and afloat for days, if necessary? Why do boaters think they're gonna
be saved in minutes, not days or weeks?

Hope I have time to get into mine before going over the side.....

This suit has a harness to attach the CG helo cable to. No sense
endangering the rescue diver unless you are unconcious.

Survival isn't about the other corners you've all cut in the boat. There
are no second chances.....

How much are the kids and wife worth? Is a few hundred for their suit too
much? How absurd.....

On Mon, 16 May 2005 09:27:21 -0400, Larry W4CSC
wrote:

Why do offshore boaters always "make do" with home-made gear when their own
lives and the lives of the families they love are at risk?

I tend to agree with this sentiment. However, you can only carry and
pay for just so much gear. This forces those of us who carry our
homes on our backs like a turtle to contemplate tough decisions. A
survival suit or 10 more gallons of water? or a watermaker? or more
engine spares? or more books? or a sewing machine? The odds that you
are going to wind up in the water waiting for rescue are pretty slim
compared to the probability that you will wish you had one of these
other items. You have to weigh the odds and make your choices.

I certainly have no issue with someone who chooses to prepare for all
possible life-threatening emergencies with the best gear before
loading the canned goods, but I don't believe it's as cut and dried as
all that. If it was, we'd all drive Volvos. And most of us would
never leave port. :-)
__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at world wide wiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Graeme Cook wrote in
:

However, if I ever have to abandon ship then I would don my wetsuit
plus a PFD.


http://www.mustangsurvival.com/produ...p?id=420&mc=85

Why do offshore boaters always "make do" with home-made gear when their
own
lives and the lives of the families they love are at risk? Why do they
think THEY can survive with some crappy wetsuit or other
it-will-be-enough,
when the guy in the fishing vessel in the SAME WATERS knows the only thing
that will save his ass is a proper survival suit made to keep him warm,
safe and afloat for days, if necessary? Why do boaters think they're
gonna
be saved in minutes, not days or weeks?

Hope I have time to get into mine before going over the side.....

This suit has a harness to attach the CG helo cable to. No sense
endangering the rescue diver unless you are unconcious.

Survival isn't about the other corners you've all cut in the boat. There
are no second chances.....

How much are the kids and wife worth? Is a few hundred for their suit too
much? How absurd.....

How long will your Mustang keep you warm in 50 deg F water (typical for
PNW summer water)? I don't see data on the web site mentioned.
We have an inventor here who recently came up with a new suit designed to
keep you warm for at least 24 hours. To test it he went in the water at noon
and bobbed around for 25 hours (tethered to a dock). The water was 49 deg.
In 25 hours his body temp had dropped like 0.2 deg! A reporter went in the
water at the same time wearing a gumby suit and was incoherent in less than
1.5 hr.
He showed the flexibility of the suit by swinging a golf club and driving
around town while wearing it.
It works by exhaling into a tube leading to a bladder in the back which
provides extra bouyancy and HEAT.
The only drawback experienced was when falling asleep, the breathing rate
slows down affecting the heat source!
Gordon

Comment inserted below:

"Gordon" wrote in message
...

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Graeme Cook wrote in
:

However, if I ever have to abandon ship then I would don my wetsuit
plus a PFD.


http://www.mustangsurvival.com/produ...p?id=420&mc=85

Why do offshore boaters always "make do" with home-made gear when their
own
lives and the lives of the families they love are at risk? Why do they
think THEY can survive with some crappy wetsuit or other
it-will-be-enough,
when the guy in the fishing vessel in the SAME WATERS knows the only
thing
that will save his ass is a proper survival suit made to keep him warm,
safe and afloat for days, if necessary? Why do boaters think they're
gonna
be saved in minutes, not days or weeks?

Hope I have time to get into mine before going over the side.....

This suit has a harness to attach the CG helo cable to. No sense
endangering the rescue diver unless you are unconcious.

Survival isn't about the other corners you've all cut in the boat.
There
are no second chances.....

How much are the kids and wife worth? Is a few hundred for their suit
too
much? How absurd.....

How long will your Mustang keep you warm in 50 deg F water (typical for
PNW summer water)? I don't see data on the web site mentioned.

You didn't look very hard, did you? It's there on the wesite, you have to
click on the link for the Product Resources, Manuals & Publications. Here is
a quote from the manual:

"When tested ..., the OC8001 and OC8001 HR exceeded 0.96 Immersed Clo in
stirred water. This level of immersion protection provides approximately ten
hours of survival time in 32º F water temperatures."

There is further information including a graph from which you can
extrapolate that in 50 deg F water your survival time would be many days,
long enough that food and water would become the problems. There are
further explanations including the information that, as this is a dry suit,
you can wear layers of clothing inside the suit, enhancing further the
protection provided by the survival suit.
--
Ken Heaton & Anne Tobin
Cape Breton Island, Canada
kenheaton AT ess wye dee DOT eastlink DOT ca

"Ken Heaton" wrote in
news:bo8je.5626$tt5.4135@edtnps90:

There is further information including a graph from which you can
extrapolate that in 50 deg F water your survival time would be many
days, long enough that food and water would become the problems.
There are further explanations including the information that, as this
is a dry suit, you can wear layers of clothing inside the suit,
enhancing further the protection provided by the survival suit.
--


I want the wetsuit proponents to try something that will be important in
their FLOATING wetsuits, too.......

Jump in the water in your wetsuit and get wet.....

Now, crawl out on the dock (simulates getting out of the water into the
life raft....You DO have a life raft, right?).

Sit on the dock in the WET wetsuit and freeze to death from the evaporation
inside and outside the draining wetsuit for a while and see how long you
can last. It only keeps you warm if you're UNDERWATER where you can
maintain that tiny layer of interior water between you and the
neoprene....try it.

In the Mustang, or other proper survival suit, in the life raft, you'll
starve at 50F before freezing to death....

Thanks for the other poster pointing out the 10 hours in 32F water
rating...

I'm not really a 'proponent' of using a wetsuit as a survival suit, but
would suggest that the wetsuit is far far better than nothing

Larry W4CSC wrote:
I want the wetsuit proponents to try something that will be important in
their FLOATING wetsuits, too.......

Jump in the water in your wetsuit and get wet.....

Now, crawl out on the dock (simulates getting out of the water into the
life raft....You DO have a life raft, right?).

Sit on the dock in the WET wetsuit and freeze to death from the evaporation
inside and outside the draining wetsuit

Uh huh. And you think this is a problem? You think wet suits have to be
immersed to be warm? Try it yourself, that is not the case.

Been there, done that, wiped sweat off brow

DSK