- Location
- United States
In this post I am planning to write my opinions and observations on cold weather gear for stand up riding on the ocean.
I want to start by saying that I have really found the information on this site very useful as started to get interested and then really focused on Jetskis over the past year. I ride motocross and won a championship in the old dudes class for New England so I have experience with machines. I am really close to the ocean and have found some great folks to ride with so it is really a fun activity to be in the surf. I got an SXR this spring and learned to ride on it. What a great ski. What I found was in the big waves (I saw and rode in my first waves over 10ft this fall) was that the SXR was not set up for it. She just eat water when she rolled in the big waves and I had to be towed in for the first time ever. I had followed the instructions to button up the front hole and seal the lid etc – I installed a bilge pump the same night and was back out again but with no footholds and the weight of the ski it was not a happy time. So I got my first Superjet a 2004 RN and she is so good in the surf but so much harder to ride than the SXR that’s for sure. But I will leave my discussion of boats for another thread.
Here I want to talk about my efforts to keep riding all year long. I rode 8 months April to December in 2012 and I want to keep riding. It’s pretty cold here in New Hampshire with the days running in the low 20s to mid 30s. The water temperature as of this writing is 42 so it’s cold. Why would anyone want to ride in this weather?
I guess I want to keep progressing – I want more time on the ski on the water.
First – riding in the cold takes careful planning and a certain type of mentality. Riding in cold water can be very dangerous. I took the time to learn about how people die in cold water. For a very good read on cold water immersion and its dangers see SURVIVAL IN COLD WATER
available from http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/201...scock-CBrooks-Survival-In-Cold-Water-2001.pdf don’t ride alone and use the proper gear.
As to the mentality you have to really want to be out there. It can be mentally challenging in my experience when there is a lot of snow on the ground and it is real cold and your thinking about riding on the ocean. Everyone else is riding sleds. I will get my first below freezing ride in this week and now I feel I can lay out my observations on gear for real cold weather riding so far.
Your going to want the following: dry or semi dry suit – boots – gloves – a hood – helmet – may be goggles.
Dry / semi dry suit. When the water first started getting cold in the fall I used my expensive 6/5/4 wetsuit. The main thing I found was that the suit felt much more constrictive in cold weather than in warmer. The win was not an issue as I have a mesh suit. Mesh is used to make the suit windproof. In warmer water I like the feeling of wearing my wetsuit. Once the water and air got colder my wetsuit felt like it was tiring me out.
So I started to look at dry suits. There are semi dry wetsuits that you can wear a poly suit under for extra warmth. My buddy runs one and the thing he notices is that it is pretty tight fitting – to keep the water that gets in warm and it kind of heavy and it is thick 6mm. THe seals on the semi dry suit he has are neoprene. The drysuit have a laytex seal.
![482049_Isotherm_6_5_US_M[1].jpg](https://www.x-h2o.com/data/attachments/124/124792-70a7c42fe2335dcd5a3c5bb2bf166fa8.jpg "482049_Isotherm_6_5_US_M[1].jpg")
My research revealed 3 types of dry suits: bag, bag with outer shell, and neoprene hybrid.
The bag type is a suit with rubber seals that keeps you dry. The suit provides no warmth and no floatation. Think of a suit you would wear whit water kayaking. An example is the dry suits by Kokatat. Guys say they are good quality but they are expensive and cut for sitting down not standing up.
http://www.kokatat.com/products/dry-suits.html
Other guys like the Lucifer suit that looks like a snowboard suit.
http://www.npsurf.com/products/drysuit/lucifer/drysuit.html
Ocean Rodeo also has a nice bag suit called the Soul:
http://www.oceanrodeo.com/products/soul
A major downside to the bags for me is that they have no inherent warmth. So you have to wear more layers. Also if the bag gets punctured you going to fill up with water pretty fast and that would be very cold.
The bag with an outer later is made by Ocean Rodeo see: http://www.oceanrodeo.com/products/surfdry.
This version is no longer available and check out the video of putting this thing on -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utM7NbRGF9k
The suit I purchased is the Ion Fuse. It is made for kiteboaring so it has the right cut and is windproof. It is made of neoprene so it has warmth built in. Best of all it has some flotation properties and can give you a bit of warmth if it ever got punctured.
See the suit here: http://www.ion-essentials.com/public/content/products/neoprene/wetsuits/series/fuse/fuse/
I have ridden with the suit over a dozen times and it is very good. It is loose fitting so not tiring like the wet suit was. I wear this suit underneath: Immersion Research union - http://www.immersionresearch.com/product/mens-layering/mens-union-suit/ I like it, as it has no zipper to catch inside the dry suit.
I do get wet inside the dry suit but not from the ocean water. It is from sweating when riding. The best part of the union suit is that it wicks the water away from your skin so you stay super warm even in very cold conditions.
A tip on the dry suit is to make sure you let the air out of the suit every time you get in the water. Go into the water up to your neck and you will feel all the air rising to your neck. Put your finger in and release the neck seal to let the air out. If you do not I fund sometimes the suit will get some water in the ankle seals when I am sowing after wipeouts.
I hope this info is helpful and I will keep adding for each article of gear.
Ok I’ll go over gloves in the next post.
I want to start by saying that I have really found the information on this site very useful as started to get interested and then really focused on Jetskis over the past year. I ride motocross and won a championship in the old dudes class for New England so I have experience with machines. I am really close to the ocean and have found some great folks to ride with so it is really a fun activity to be in the surf. I got an SXR this spring and learned to ride on it. What a great ski. What I found was in the big waves (I saw and rode in my first waves over 10ft this fall) was that the SXR was not set up for it. She just eat water when she rolled in the big waves and I had to be towed in for the first time ever. I had followed the instructions to button up the front hole and seal the lid etc – I installed a bilge pump the same night and was back out again but with no footholds and the weight of the ski it was not a happy time. So I got my first Superjet a 2004 RN and she is so good in the surf but so much harder to ride than the SXR that’s for sure. But I will leave my discussion of boats for another thread.
Here I want to talk about my efforts to keep riding all year long. I rode 8 months April to December in 2012 and I want to keep riding. It’s pretty cold here in New Hampshire with the days running in the low 20s to mid 30s. The water temperature as of this writing is 42 so it’s cold. Why would anyone want to ride in this weather?
I guess I want to keep progressing – I want more time on the ski on the water.
First – riding in the cold takes careful planning and a certain type of mentality. Riding in cold water can be very dangerous. I took the time to learn about how people die in cold water. For a very good read on cold water immersion and its dangers see SURVIVAL IN COLD WATER
available from http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/201...scock-CBrooks-Survival-In-Cold-Water-2001.pdf don’t ride alone and use the proper gear.
As to the mentality you have to really want to be out there. It can be mentally challenging in my experience when there is a lot of snow on the ground and it is real cold and your thinking about riding on the ocean. Everyone else is riding sleds. I will get my first below freezing ride in this week and now I feel I can lay out my observations on gear for real cold weather riding so far.
Your going to want the following: dry or semi dry suit – boots – gloves – a hood – helmet – may be goggles.
Dry / semi dry suit. When the water first started getting cold in the fall I used my expensive 6/5/4 wetsuit. The main thing I found was that the suit felt much more constrictive in cold weather than in warmer. The win was not an issue as I have a mesh suit. Mesh is used to make the suit windproof. In warmer water I like the feeling of wearing my wetsuit. Once the water and air got colder my wetsuit felt like it was tiring me out.
So I started to look at dry suits. There are semi dry wetsuits that you can wear a poly suit under for extra warmth. My buddy runs one and the thing he notices is that it is pretty tight fitting – to keep the water that gets in warm and it kind of heavy and it is thick 6mm. THe seals on the semi dry suit he has are neoprene. The drysuit have a laytex seal.
My research revealed 3 types of dry suits: bag, bag with outer shell, and neoprene hybrid.
The bag type is a suit with rubber seals that keeps you dry. The suit provides no warmth and no floatation. Think of a suit you would wear whit water kayaking. An example is the dry suits by Kokatat. Guys say they are good quality but they are expensive and cut for sitting down not standing up.
http://www.kokatat.com/products/dry-suits.html
Other guys like the Lucifer suit that looks like a snowboard suit.
http://www.npsurf.com/products/drysuit/lucifer/drysuit.html
Ocean Rodeo also has a nice bag suit called the Soul:
http://www.oceanrodeo.com/products/soul
A major downside to the bags for me is that they have no inherent warmth. So you have to wear more layers. Also if the bag gets punctured you going to fill up with water pretty fast and that would be very cold.
The bag with an outer later is made by Ocean Rodeo see: http://www.oceanrodeo.com/products/surfdry.
This version is no longer available and check out the video of putting this thing on -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utM7NbRGF9k
The suit I purchased is the Ion Fuse. It is made for kiteboaring so it has the right cut and is windproof. It is made of neoprene so it has warmth built in. Best of all it has some flotation properties and can give you a bit of warmth if it ever got punctured.
See the suit here: http://www.ion-essentials.com/public/content/products/neoprene/wetsuits/series/fuse/fuse/
I have ridden with the suit over a dozen times and it is very good. It is loose fitting so not tiring like the wet suit was. I wear this suit underneath: Immersion Research union - http://www.immersionresearch.com/product/mens-layering/mens-union-suit/ I like it, as it has no zipper to catch inside the dry suit.
I do get wet inside the dry suit but not from the ocean water. It is from sweating when riding. The best part of the union suit is that it wicks the water away from your skin so you stay super warm even in very cold conditions.
A tip on the dry suit is to make sure you let the air out of the suit every time you get in the water. Go into the water up to your neck and you will feel all the air rising to your neck. Put your finger in and release the neck seal to let the air out. If you do not I fund sometimes the suit will get some water in the ankle seals when I am sowing after wipeouts.
I hope this info is helpful and I will keep adding for each article of gear.
Ok I’ll go over gloves in the next post.
Last edited:
