Surfski Knowledge Base

bill
04/14/19 #24676

Questions for the paddling brain trust…I have a Kokatat woman’s dry suit I picked up for $25 that I will send into Kokatat to repair a tear and have new gaskets installed . I was going to give it to a friend so she could have something to paddle in in the winter. I was curious if anyone has a woman’s suit with the drop seat zipper and if it gets in the way sitting in the bucket? I don’t really want to spend the money on the suit if it’s not going to work in a ski. On a side note, has anyone used a neoprene neck gasket instead of a latex one? If so is it dry enough when taking a swim and remounting?

Bill.

Larry Bussinger
04/14/19 #24677

The neck seal on mine is neoprene and has worked fine. Since you don’t go under water it doesn’t have to be water tight; more like water resistant.

Larry Bussinger

bill
04/14/19 #24678

Thanks Larry, how about needing to swim some distance. Say, could you swim 1/4 mile (god forbid in a drysuit) and not fill with water?

Paul Reavley
04/14/19 #24680

FWIW - I can't answer the question about taking on water while swimming with a neoprene neck gasket, but I have swum a couple of hundred yards in a drysuit (and PFD) and while trying to actually swim with a forward stroke began to wonder how many hours it would take. Turning over on my back and back paddling with my kayak paddle let me move through the water at least 5 times as fast.

Larry Bussinger
04/14/19 #24682

Don’t swim! seriously! Drysuits are good for cold water shock and exposure after remount, not long term exposure. If you wear thick enough insulation under the dry suit for continuous emersion, you’ll COOK when paddling. Critique your leash system, then have a barnacle critique it. You are much better off laying across your boat out of the water and blowing to shore than swimming. The wind will likely move you much faster than swimming. One of the safety considerations to make before going out is where is the lee shore. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.

Larry Bussinger

John Rybczyk
04/14/19 #24684

I'll also add that one of the rare time when you would have to swim is if you have a leash failure (it has happened to me and others) or, if for some odd reason, you're not leashed to your boat in the first place and your boat blows away without you. Your boat can blow away in a microsecond and blow away much, much faster than a human could swim. In that case, I would much rather be wearing a wetsuit that a drysuit. My wetsuit is warm, floaty, and I can swim well in it. For reasons that Larry has already stated, it would be highly unlikely that I would be wearing enough insulation under a drysuit to keep me warm for an extended swim.

Related, one thing I always practice, along with re-mounting, is to try and always grab my ski when I fall in. It doesn't always work, and it is a lot to think about when you're falling out of your boat when you don't want to be falling out of your boat, but I think it is an added safety measure. When I fall out on a windy day, and I miss my grab, and the boat goes sailing and my leash is stretched to until that coil is a straight line, man, that's when it's going to fail if it's going to fail.

See you on the water (and not in it, hopefully)

johnr