What to wear for sailing during winter

There is something really quite special about finding yourself out on the water and having most of it to yourself. Being the solitary boat in an anchorage or being able to moor up in your favourite spot can be a wonderful thing.

But as we all know, there is a good reason why we try to squeeze our boating into the summer months: the weather. More specifically it’s the cold, and there is nothing like the anticipation of being cold to put you off heading out on a sunny winter weekend.

I find I am quite comfortable in cold weather. I spent the early part of my Royal Marines career in the commando unit that specialised in mountain and cold weather warfare. It’s not that I don’t get cold, I do, and I’m far more susceptible now than I used to be, but we were trained how to stay warm.

‘Anyone can be cold and wet,’ the saying went, the implication being that it takes knowledge, some experience and a little effort to stay warm and dry.

We even had a handy mnemonic to help remember the principles involved (C.O.L.D – more on this shortly), which are as valid now as they were in Shackleton’s time.

And even though most of the fabrics have changed, clothing today is still designed to address those same principles. As such, they’re useful to know. We used to live comfortably in tents in the Arctic, so however basic your boat, it’s still a step up if you fancy an early shakedown cruise or want to make the most of those glorious winter days.

Air and Water

Keeping warm is really about good air management. Once our body has expended energy warming up the air around it, we ideally want to keep it there if we want to stay warm. If it moves too much or is blown away, our body has to expend more energy (if it can) heating up the next batch of air and so on.

However, as we all know, if we get too warm we start to sweat, the purpose of which is to cool us down. Perhaps counter-intuitively, managing our sweating is key if we want to stay warm.

Sailing during the winter: The C.O.L.D Principles

Keep your clothes CLEAN

It’s not actually clothing fibres that keep us warm, it’s the air pockets the fibres trap that hold the stationary air that insulates us (air being a poor conductor of heat). If the air pockets are full of dirt or grease, the clothing holds less air, heat conduction increases and the material’s insulating ability is reduced.

Base layers are particularly susceptible because they are so thin; they won’t be as warm on day two. Dirt is also abrasive, so dirty clothes won’t last as long or worn items be as warm as newer ones, however clean.

Natural fibres – wool in particular – although warm when wet, take a long time to dry, so choose items of clothing that are designed to dry quickly or are not compromised by being tumble-dried. If clothing is easy to wash and care for, you are more likely to keep it clean.

Avoid OVERHEATING

We all know we sweat to keep cool. But if our skin is covered by a layer of clothing, the sweat soaks into it. This is tolerable when we are working hard but when we stop, we can stay wet, and this helps to cool us down quickly. To counter this, we ideally want to avoid getting hot in the first place.

This is hard to do on a boat, where we often have intense bouts of activity such as when leaving the side, reefing and so on, mixed in with prolonged periods of inactivity where we hardly move at all.

Ideally we want to be dressed appropriately for each activity. This is much easier said than done, but it pays to make the effort. Taking off your hat and scarf and opening up your inner layers is a good quick fix. But if there’s lots of hard work to come, take layers off.

Wear Loose LAYERS

Wearing layers of clothing rather than a single thick insulating item is better for a number of reasons. Several layers can easily trap as much or more air than a thick one, but crucially it’s not all or nothing if you get too hot.

If you’ve only got a thick jumper and by not wearing it you will be too cold, you are unlikely to want to take it off and risk overheating. With several thinner layers, you have the flexibility to remove or add layers to match your workload.

It’s also important that your layers are loose. If you squash your layers, they won’t hold as much air and you won’t be as warm. You’ll also find it more restrictive to move about. Properly fitting clothing shouldn’t be tight and you should be able to sit down or helm without feeling squeezed around the middle, the knees or elbows.

It’s warm blood getting to our hands and feet that keep them warm so make sure you don’t constrict the blood flow. If your gloves, jacket wrist seals or boots (with thick socks) are too tight, blood will be constricted and your extremities may not be able to stay warm.

Do be wary of pressure points around the tips of your fingers; and if your hands feel cold in gloves take time to loosen them up a bit; or take your gloves off and put your hands in your pockets and wiggle them about.

Keep things DRY

It goes without saying that we want to keep ourselves dry, but we tend to think of the need to keep things dry from the outside in. While that’s important, we often jeopardise the good work our foul weather gear does by poor routines.

How often have you gone down below in wet gear and either sat down (however briefly) only to do the same later in dry clothing and get wet from the damp seat?

Salty fabric stays damp and will be cold as a result, so treat it like toxic waste and don’t let it near any soft furnishings, bedding or dry clothing.

Designate wet and dry areas and work to keep the environment and air below dry. What you want to avoid is everything, including yourselves, the air, seating areas and bedding, getting slowly damp, salty and cold.

Condensation will likely build up so try to remove it when it does. A battery window vac is ideal for this. It’ll keep coming back, but what you remove won’t evaporate back into the cabin when the boat warms up again.

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Seal in warmth

Remember, it’s the air in and between the layers that’s doing the work. If your jacket is open at the neck and bottom, air will billow and waft in and out as you move. If possible, keep the bottom drawn in and plug the neck hole with a scarf or towel.

Cover the Bridges

Blood can cool down quickly if it’s travelling past exposed skin. You will notice that on some sleeves there are thumb holes. This is to keep the blood warm as it goes through the wrist and makes a real difference.

One of the most annoying problems we encounter is when our warm layers ride up inside our foul-weather trousers, and all of a sudden, our exposed back sits against our damp outer layer.

Go for long base layer tops and tuck your top layers into the corresponding bottom half layers. Don’t put up with sleeves stuck half way up your arm, and if the layers aren’t loose, you’ll need a bigger jacket.

Rough against the Smooth

We all know it’s hard to pull a cloth sleeve through a woolly jumper. If you can, have a rough layer like fleece under or over something smooth like a padded jacket, or another windproof fleece with the smooth fabric on the inside. That way, the layers can slide more freely and hopefully not ride up as much.

Closed Outer Insulation Layer

As pretty much every outer shell waterproof jacket is breathable, it will slowly let warm air escape. I find I stay warmer if my final insulation layer has windproof fabric on the outside, or if I use a padded (smooth) jacket.

Conversely, if you are a bit too warm, go the other way and have an open fabric as your last insulation layer. You will find that with not many items of clothing you can have many insulation levels.

Three-Layer System

Look at any of the clothing manufacturers’ websites and you’ll see clothing split into three broad categories. There are base layers designed to ‘wick’ moisture away from the skin; varying middle layers to provide insulation; and a final windproof and waterproof outer shell layer to keep everything protected.

My view is you still get what you pay for with technical sailing clothing, but fortunately, the lowest-specification kit is as good as the most advanced from not that long ago.

Breathability is made a lot of, but little is mentioned about bulk or longevity. If it’s hard-wearing and it’s light it will usually cost more. I’ve always mixed and matched from different manufacturers, but there can be benefits in sticking with one so sizing is consistent and zips in the different layers line up.

Warming up again

Get into the habit of wiggling your toes and fingers to keep the blood flowing, but don’t rub them. And don’t hesitate to warm them up, because you will be losing dexterity, and any sense of cold will contribute to you feeling less inclined to move.

Doing some exercise works, just make sure you do enough to warm up rather than just waft out any warm air from your clothing. Hot food and drinks are great and will both warm you up from the inside and provide fuel for you to burn to keep warm.

Cold food on a cold day is demoralising, so pre-plan and find easy meals to prepare like a hot ready-meal or a pasty from the oven. Be wary of tinned or packet soups and freeze- dried noodle pots. They often only provide limited calories, which won’t be enough for a cold day, and go for carbohydrates over sugar.

It’s also useful to check your cooker will work before you set off. Butane can struggle if the temperature is below freezing, so you may need to warm the cylinder up a bit. Finally, alcohol has a cooling effect and should be avoided if you are cold.

External heat source

The quickest way to warm your hands up is to put your dry bare hands under your own (or someone else’s) armpits between their base and insulating layers. Warming feet is more involved, but bare soles against the flat of a stomach work. Just make sure the stomach donor is warm and do it below if you can so you both don’t get colder.

Once you have got things warm, try and keep them that way because repeated cooling and warming is a recipe for chilblains.

Boat heating is a great enabler for extended-season sailing but don’t rely on your cooker. While it will produce some heat, quite aside from the dangers of carbon monoxide from combustion in a poorly-ventilated space, it also releases a lot of water vapour into the cabin and the damp warm ‘fug’ will soon turn cold once the cooker is off.

I much prefer a permanently installed system that I can run safely while at sea so I have a warm space close by if I need it. If you have a warm saloon, anyone who’s cold can go below, take off their outer layers and benefit from the heat straight away.

We all know hot air rises but bear in mind that cold air flows downhill. If you have an enclosed cockpit, cold air can fill it up and then flow down into the cabin, so put your washboard in.

You will need to find the balance between enough ventilation and not letting so much warm air escape you can’t keep the boat warm, but don’t be tempted to block off ventilation completely, as carbon monoxide is a real danger. Make sure you’ve got an alarm fitted and working.

Boats take a while to warm up, so start your heating (if it’s not on already) an hour or so before you arrive at your destination, and once you’ve arrived, keep it going. Most boats have really poor insulation, and the boat will cool down quickly, and you with it. After a long day in the cold, there is something really quite satisfying about this re-injection of heat.

Hypothermia and windchill

This article is about enjoying a few extra days’ sailing, not pitting ourselves against extreme weather over prolonged periods. If there is any risk that you’ll need to combat survival conditions, it’s probably best to choose a different day to go out!

We should, however, talk about hypothermia and windchill. Hypothermia starts with shivering and pale/blue cold skin and develops to slurred speech, tiredness and confusion.

As skipper, the thing to watch out for is when a cold person stops shivering. You must check that this is because they have warmed up, because you also stop shivering when you get life-threateningly cold. And if one person is cold, assume others are too.

As skipper, you may not feel it due to higher adrenaline and activity levels. The other thing to think about is windchill. If it’s below 6°C (43°F) you’re likely to be sailing in conditions around freezing, and it’s this freezing ‘feels like’ temperature your clothing needs to protect you against.

In Summary

While I think there is some validity to the saying, ‘There is no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing,’ if the weather gets bad enough, even
the ‘best’ clothing needs a bit of help.

I’ll make just one recommendation about kit: use the layering method of a base layer, varying levels of insulation, and a windproof/waterproof outer shell. It just works, and I wholeheartedly recommend adopting it if you haven’t. But don’t forget, everything wears out and new kit will be warmer than old.

If your outer layer leaks a little, it’s probably not windproof either and when trying to stay warm, keeping the wind out is key. With breathable kit, check the care instructions, but washing, tumble-drying and reapplying a water repellent coating can work wonders to rejuvenate your kit.

Regardless of what you wear, there are some great opportunities to be had if you can extend your season; and I hope the few pointers given here help you stay a little warmer if that’s what you plan to do.

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