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…
Wetsuit gloves are like wetsuits made of neoprene. So most of the things we wrote about neoprene in our wetsuit guide also apply here. When choosing them consider:
- the type and thickness of neoprene: 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 thicker ones you have less feeling in your hands, I personally hate wearing them;
- how are they stitched: stitching influences how much water can get into the glove through stitches. Again, blindstitch and liquid taped stitches are the best, if you want more detailed description of stitches, read the guide.
Wetsuit gloves specific info
Besides the general things we mentioned above also look for:
- a really tight fit – if they are to big, I mean not tight enough, your hand will float inside them and this is a real pain in the ass! Much worse than for instance if your boots are too big. Why? If your gloves are too big, they will fill with water and you will have a pound of water to lift every time you raise your arm to paddle. It’s like paddling with weights in your hands. Good exercise but not really fun.
- wetsuit gloves length – how far up your arm do they reach? Really short ones can slip from under your wetsuit sleeves and get filled with water. We do not want them to be full of water, so the longer the better, if they have a strap to tighten them around your arm – even better.
- grip – 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.
Beginner tip – put your wetsuit gloves UNDER the sleeves of your wetsuit. Sounds funny, but you can see people do all sorts of things.
If you want to learn more about which wetsuit goes with which water temperature and what are the factors that influence the feeling of cold check this article.