WETSUIT GLOVES
For a real die hard waterman winter is no obstacle. Or maybe you do not even have a choice as winter is the wave rich time of the year in your area. When the water gets really cold, time comes when just a wetsuit is not enough. First thing you put on are booties and the next are the gloves. Lets take a look at the gloves.
WETSUIT GLOVES
Wetsuit gloves are like wetsuits also made of neoprene. So most of the things we wrote about in our wetsuit guide apply here. So when choosing wetsuit gloves you must like in wetsuits consider:
- the type and thickness of neoprene in wetsuit gloves: There is not much to tell here about the type of neoprene, again flexible neoprene is better as it hugs the hand better, the thickness for wetsuit gloves is between 2mm and 5mm, the thicker the warmer, but with thick wetsuit gloves you have less feeling in your hands,
- how are wetsuit gloves stitched: stitching on wetsuit gloves influences how much water can get into the glove through stitches. Again, blindstitch and liquid taped stitches are the best, although it is hard to find liquid taping on wetsuit gloves so blindstitch will do. If you want more detailed description of stitches, read our wetsuit guide.
Wetsuit gloves specific info
Besides the general things we mentioned above also look for wetsuit gloves with:
- a really tight fit – if wetsuit gloves are to big, I mean not tight enough, your hand will float inside them and this is a real pain in the ass, I is much worse that if your boots are too big, because if wetsuit gloves are too big, they will fill with water and you will have a pound of water to lift every time you paddle.
- wetsuit gloves length – how far up your arm wetsuit gloves reach? Really short wetsuit gloves can slip from under your wetsuit sleeves and get filled with water. We do not want wetsuit gloves to be full of water, so the longer the better, if wetsuit gloves have a strap to tighten them around your arm – even better.
- grip – wetsuit gloves should have some non skid rubbery surface on the palms area, so they do not slip when you grab your board or anything else.
That’s it, maybe just one more beginner tip – put your wetsuit gloves under the sleeves of your wetsuit. Sounds funny, but you can see people do all sorts of things.
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I had thin gloves, but I switched to 3mm, I also bougth 5mm boots. Its stupid to have your booties on and still be cold ;)