Best winter sailing glove?

[basssears]

Does such a thing exist? Not looking for lightweight summer gloves / dinghy gloves, looking for something that is warm and dry and up to the task of steering and light line handling (so must have some dexterity)... not racers or hard cores here but Christmas is coming and thinking the SO would be happier if her hands were warmer.

Searched through some other posts but didn't find anything that jumped out at me, anyone solved this one?

TIA,

-- Bass

(And no, "tickets to the BVI" do not count as a winter hand warming plan! )

[TheOffice]

Tried the Gill gloves. Reasonably warm, but not enough grip. Bought rubber coated movers gloves at Costco - $12 for 3 or 4 pairs. Grip great, but back of hand gets cold.

[model 10]

Mountain climbing gloves at REI. If I sailed where it was cold I would want some for Xmas.

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by basssears

Does such a thing exist? Not looking for lightweight summer gloves / dinghy gloves, looking for something that is warm and dry and up to the task of steering and light line handling (so must have some dexterity)... not racers or hard cores here but Christmas is coming and thinking the SO would be happier if her hands were warmer.

Searched through some other posts but didn't find anything that jumped out at me, anyone solved this one?

TIA,

-- Bass

(And no, "tickets to the BVI" do not count as a winter hand warming plan! )

Hey Bass,

My go-to gloves for winter sailing [and driving/chores, etc...] are made by IceArmor.

Originally for ice fishing, they are waterproof, windproof, and breathe so your hands won't get wet from sweat... [as if the wearer is lucky enough as to have hot, sweaty hands when they need these gloves...]

The palms are lined with faux leather [think line handling...] and the back is a soft material [think nose wiping...] and the gloves are thin enough to offer reasonable dexterity at -40 [°F or C as the scales cross at that temp...] although an over mitten is needed for long term in those temps...

I use the ice fishing glove I linked above, and they also make a heavier duty gauntlett design if that is of interest. [Too bulky and less dexterity for me... but I own many gauntlet style winter gloves...]

I wear the ice fishing gloves with my kayaking dry suit for winter sailing and stay warm and dry all day long... [Full disclosure- nowadays I have a pilot house with 2 helms, so outside duties don't have to include steering...]

I also like them because I can buy 2-3 pair for what it costs for 1 pair of some of the higher tech [priced] offerings... and they aren't any better from my experience. [I've lived in climates that hit -40 and colder (and sailed in -20 but not by choice, and not for long...) for the last 4 decades... so I have owned a few sets of gloves in my time...]

There are undoubtedly lots of other gloves available that would suit this need. I just stop looking when I find something that I like that works- and keeps working... and that I can afford...

In case this is helpful.

Cheers!

Bill

PS: I forgot to mention something you likely already know: you don't want cold weather gloves to be a tight fit. Somewhat loose is better [but not sloppy...] Too tight and the phalanges get cold quickly...

[basssears]

Thanks Bill, exactly the lead I was looking for! -- Bass

Originally Posted by wrwakefield

Hey Bass,

My go-to gloves for winter sailing [and driving/chores, etc...] are made by IceArmor.

Bill

[deblen]

Men's Siberia Brown Rabbit Fur Mittens: FurHatWorld.com

[Stumble]

Take a look at the Gill healmsman gloves. They are more like winter gloves redesigned for sailing than sailing gloves. The downside is they trade off dexterity. Better dexterity at a loss of warmth take a look at the Gill three season gloves, I use them on my A-Cat when it gets cold. But I know I will be swimming, so getting wet is assumed.

[Delancey]

We recently received a couple pairs of Glacier Gloves as a gift from a friend from the PNW whose husband is a commercial fisherman.

My wife has worn them a fair amount and likes them except that they can be a little clamy inside. After all they are neoprene so can't have it all I guess.

I don't really wear gloves much so can't comment except for having used them to handle a couple fish and pulling up a muddy anchor a couple times, tasks they performed quite well at.

They are quite warm and I will say they are nicely designed and artfully fabricated meaning they offer pretty decent dexterity for neoprene.

[Time2Go]

Sealskins.com
A bit dear, but worth it
Cheers

[Tessellate]

+1 to the suggestion for mountaineering gloves from REI (or similar outdoors supplier).

They don't have to be mountaineering necessarily (though those will be the best of the best), good ski / snowboard gloves could work too. A good Goretex waterproof outer layer is important.

It's well known that mittens are warmer than gloves, but sacrifice some dexterity. Get gloves only at your own peril. Mittens are the warmer choice.

I've never found sailing gloves designed by the marine industry to be warm enough for winter weather. They usually emphasize dexterity too much (for racers), which sacrifices warmth. If you're cruising, you can get by without dexterity because you don't tack that often. You might have to modify your technique a bit for winter sailing. Be lazy - get your trim right the first time and don't fiddle with it every 5 minutes. Wear fingered glove liners under the mittens so you can pop the mittens off when you need to handle lines. The ski/snowboard/mountaineering mitts that have wrist loops to retain the mitten are helpful for this.

[reed1v]

Up here in coastal Maine, its cold and real damp at sea. We tried everything. Settled on old fashion lambswool fleece gloves and minus 33 wool long johns. Can not beat wool.

[SpiritofGlenans]

In the December issue of Practical Boat Owner, published in the UK, they did one of their Product Test articles on a selection of thermal waterproof gloves. Time-testing them for knot-tying, closing a lifejacket buckle, how long it took for an ice cube to melt in the index finger and how they felt when worn in a bucket of ice water.
Sealskinz Ultra Grip Touch Screen Glove at £37 got Best Buy.
The testers were also impressed by Musto Performance Goretex but at £99.99 they felt the price was not justified. Good all-round runners-up were Sealskinz Dragon Eye (£38), Peter Storm Microfibre Waterproof(£20), Dexshell Alpine(£30) and Musto Performance Winter(£35).
If you want to buy any of these on line, Google is your friend. If you want to get a copy of the article:
www.ybw.com/reprints

email; copyreport@timeinc.com
To get a back issue ; Magazines Back Issues, Subscriptions and Books. Welcome to Mags-UK.com

[brianc]

I don't know where you're sailing but I'm in Seattle so I'll just assume because you mentioned 'warm and dry' that you're looking for something for similar conditions as a PNW winter.

My hands, mostly my fingers) get cold really easily (I've self-diagnosed myself with a mild case Raynaud's syndrome) and most gloves don't work for me in the winter, so take that in to consideration. I've tried many, many different gloves including the Gill Helmsman, the Atlas Hot Tamale and similar with removable liners (I've tried 100% wool and various synthetics), Glacier Gloves, a variety of other neoprene gloves for wind surfing and kayaking, etc, and nothing really works that well. If it's really wet and not too cold I go with the Atlas gloves and wool liner, but in generally, mittens are the answer. I agree with Tessellate that you do lose some dexterity, and maybe I'm just used to them, but I don't really have a problem doing most of what I need to do with mittens on.

What seems to work best for me is a waterproof mitten shell (like the Outdoor Research Mt Baker) and various liners underneath. Right now I'm using some convertible fleece gloves (Black Diamond WindWeight) but they're not as warm as the wool ones I ended up tearing last season. I'm going to order some Dachstein boiled wool mitts (Norlender & Dachstein Wool Mittens & Gloves - Sweater Chalet) and convertible gloves because I prefer the wool, it seems to be warmer overall.

[Chuck Hawley]

In 2000, I was invited to sail across the Atlantic on Playstation, which was at that point a 105' catamaran. The skipper was Steve Fossett, and the crew included some of the world's best sailors. They had personal gear that was absolutely state-of-the-art, and on previous record attempts, the crew had tried all sorts of other gear that had not worked as well.

I could talk all day about the voyage (second fastest in history, but we were trying to break a record, not get second place), but here's about the gloves:

The gloves were from Outdoor Research in Seattle, and they were waterproof Goretex shells with fleece liners. The use of liners allowed the crew to adjust the amount of insulation for the conditions. The gloves were 100% waterproof, had great dexterity, and were available in three styles: mitten, mutant, and glove. The mutant version had a thumb and index finger, as I recall, but the other three fingers were combined.

I had several pairs of ski gloves, and they were TERRIBLE by comparison to the OR gloves. The best feature, other than being waterproof, was their ability to clamp over the sleeve of the foul weather gear jacket (a gauntlet is what I think it's called) so that no drafts or water drops were able to sneak into the glove. No one who wore the OR gloves had any problem with the cold, and we were sailing well above the iceberg line in the Atlantic.

Fast forward: when I returned from England, I sat down with the guys from Gill and they copied the best features of the OR gloves in a pure sailing glove, which West Marine private-labeled. I think we called it the Explorer glove as a companion piece to our foul weather gear. They worked great, (I still have a pair) and the gauntlet was the key to staying warm.

At some point, West Marine did not continue with the private label version, so Gill rebranded the gloves as the Helmsman Glove. But it was the trip across the Atlantic that launched them for both West Marine and Gill.

Cheers,

Chuck Hawley

[Nicholson58]

Try different weight SCUBA gloves. Also, take a look at the gloves sold at Gander Mountain or other hunting stores for duck hunters who handle wet decoys, ducks and steel guns in wet wintery weather. Sometimes, I just wear surgical gloves or Harbor Freight 7 or 9 mill rubber gloves.