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 Cold Weather Safety

While cold weather (late fall through spring) paddling presents a unique and quiet environment to the adventurous paddler, being on the water in cold conditions also presents extra danger to the paddler.  Paddlers should always wear life jackets, should develop good paddling judgement, and in cold weather conditions should either be dressed for the water temperature, or stay within 15-20 feet of shore (where egress is possible) and carry along a full change of clothing in a drybag or multiple layered/sealed garbage bags.

Effects of Cold Water on the Human Body

We’ve all heard of hypothermia, and while it is a cold water/weather danger, it is not what might kill you. 

When people fall into cold water (60-65°F or colder), the first involuntary reaction is a gasping reflex.  If your head happens to be underwater when you involuntarily gasp, you may inhale water and drown.  If  the gasp reflex doesn’t get you, sudden cold water immersion causes involuntary rises in heart rate and blood pressure – which can lead to cardiac arrest in susceptible individuals.  Cold water also impairs muscular activity – to the point where the swimmer can’t grip anything, or even stay afloat, much less swim to shore.  If a cold water swimmer makes it past the cold shock stage, hypothermia (a decrease of the body’s core temperature) may result in death.  In water less than 60-65°F, the 1-10-1 rule applies:

  • 1 minute – the time it takes to stabilize breathing from the gasping reflex

  • 10 minutes – how long one has before muscles become incapacitated

  • 1 hour – how long before hypothermia renders a person uncounscious

These videos provide information on the effects of cold water on the human body:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1xohI3B4Uc  is the short version,  and the more detailed 30 minute version at http://vimeo.com/4534662

This link pertains to Lake Superior paddling, but is applicable locally in winter and early spring:

http://www.paddlinglight.com/articles/the-risks-of-cold-water-paddling/

So what is the paddler to do?  Staying home will certainly prevent one from dying in cold water, but then you also won’t get the benefits of exercise and time spent in the boat. 

Clothing Options for the Cold Water Paddler

Rule #1 for paddling is “Wear your life jacket”.  US Coast Guard data on canoeing/kayaking fatalities show that for 80+% of fatality cases, the deceased was not wearing a life jacket.  While one can argue that a life jacket may not have kept the paddler alive in some of the cases, keep in mind that body recovery is much simpler when a life jacket is worn (your family will thank you).  All NWIPA trips require wearing of a life jacket by ALL participants – ‘nuff said. 

In cold water conditions, one should always dress for the water temperature, per the American Canoe Association.  Paddling on a 70°F day when water temps are less than 60-65°F is a recipe for potential disaster.  For cold water conditions, drysuits (with appropriate insulation worn underneath) or wet suits are the two options.  Both will extend the amount of time a paddler is able to survive in cold water. 

The links below present detailed discussion on wet vs. drysuits:

http://gokayaknow.com/index.php/gear/drysuit-vs-wetsuit-for-kayaking/

http://www.outdoors.org/publications/outdoors/2004/2004-wetsuits.cfm

http://www.paddlinglight.com/articles/wetsuit-vs-drysuit-for-paddling/

http://www.kayakacademy.com/pages/drysuitfaq.html

Not to be ignored in discussions of cold weather paddling clothing are head, hand, and foot wear.  As much heat is lost from the head, warm head gear is important for all cold weather activities.  Hand gear is equally important - pogies or neoprene gloves are the best ways to keep your hands warm.  As feet are sometimes the first extremities to feel the cold, warm footwear is also important to comfort:

http://www.kayakacademy.com/pages/store/handandfoot.html

http://www.topkayaker.net/Articles/Instruction/KayakClothing.htm

Exercise Good Judgement

Some of the knowledge articles in the links above suggest clothing options for different temperature conditions – but paddlers need to exercise good judgment:

  • Honestly appraise your skill set - what's the likelihood of having an out-of-boat experience?  If you fall out of your boat, do you know what to do (both close to shore and some distance from shore)?  Do you know how to self-rescue, or do your paddling companions know how to effect a rescue?

  • Where are you paddling?  Lake Michigan, one of our local calm rivers, a whitewater river?  How far away are you from dry clothes and/or a warm car or warm building?

  • Who you are paddling with?  Might you have to get in the water to help out a friend or less experienced paddler?

  • What is your personal tolerance to cold (which can be a conditioned response, besides being dependent on your gear)?

  • How much can you afford to spend on protective clothing (how often might you use it)?

These are some of the issues that a prudent paddler will consider before every paddling outing, and which should help influence the choices of gear to wear and bring along.  Statements such as “I’ve never tipped this boat over…”, or “my boat is so stable that I’m safe….”, or “I’m a good swimmer” are sometimes heard, and while these statements may be true most of the time, paddling in cold water conditions is not when one wants to experience being in cold water for the first time.

Test Your Gear and Clothing Options 

The links above present many options for how to dress for cold water paddling, but if you truly want to know how good YOUR clothing choices are for cold water/weather paddling, you must test them by getting in the water.  As each person reacts to cold weather and water differently, the only sure way to know how YOUR clothing options protect YOUR body is to test your personal response to cold water. 

For your own personal safety, this is something that should be done before paddling in cold water conditions – maybe even without bringing a boat along - on a “test your gear” day (an idea for a future NWIPA event…).

At the very least, cold weather paddlers should do such an immersion test at the end of a paddle, when dry clothes and warm vehicles/buildings are close by.  And rather than entering the water from your boat some distance from shore, walking into the water from shore is the safest way to test clothing - though to simulate a capsize, you should be in chest/neck deep water (wearing a life jacket!), and should also dunk your head under water. 

Once totally wet, see how long you can stay in the cold water.  How far do you think you could swim?  How long before it would not be possible to do a self or assisted rescue?  How long before you can’t grip your boat, paddle, or partner’s boat?  How long before your arms don’t work well enough to swim to shore?  If you’re wearing gloves, maybe try removing one to see how much protection your gloves provide.  If you don’t use a wetsuit or drysuit, maybe also try changing your clothes on shore to see how long it takes for you to feel warm again, and to see if your dry clothes in the boat are warm enough.

Better to do this exercise in a controlled fashion than to test your gear in a real cold water situation – you don’t want to do this test unintentionally when on your own, 100 yards offshore, or not close to your vehicle or dry clothes.

These comments are not meant to scare anyone from paddling our local waterways from late fall to spring, but are offered to provide food for thought.  Lake Michigan water temps are generally colder than those of inland rivers, and consider that late fall water temps are generally warmer than early spring water temps.