National Center for Cold Water Safety
Rule 3 / Case 1
Field Test Your Gear
A Chilling Experience for Greg Martin
May, 1987 Sand Island, Apostle Islands Area, Lake Superior
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This classic case is all about keeping your hands warm. It's an important subject because you can be rendered completely helpless by cold, numb hands - even though the rest of your body is toasty warm inside a drysuit.
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The incident began when Greg Martin, an experienced paddler, capsized in large, confused seas about 100 yards off the point of Sand Island on Lake Superior. For the record, May can be a challenging month on Lake Superior - even for very fit, experienced paddlers.
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Sand Island Cliffs and Caves on a Very Calm Day
On the day Martin capsized, there had been snow flurries in morning, the air temperature was 35-40F (2-4C), and the water temperature was in the low 45F (7.2C). Although he was wearing a perfectly good drysuit with plenty of protection underneath it, the only thing protecting his hands were pogies, a type of fingerless, tube-like mitten that wraps around the paddle shaft and allows your bare hands to be in direct contact with the paddle. Many kayakers find that contact reassuring, however, if you have to do anything with your hands other than hold the paddle, the pogie system has a very significant disadvantage.
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Following his capsize, Martin was unable to roll up, which forced him to remove his hands from the pogies in order to pop his sprayskirt and bail out. Although he was able to reenter his boat within five minutes using a paddle float, he had to do the entire self-rescue with his bare hands exposed to the cold air and water.
During that short time, they became so cold that he was unable to reattach his sprayskirt. Without the skirt, every wave washed into the cockpit and pumping was useless. Pushed by the wind and waves, Martin's beloved Nordkapp was heading for what proved to be a very destructive rendezvous with sea cliffs and he prudently chose to swim an alternate route to shore.
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Lesson Learned
By themselves, pogies are a bad choice for keeping your hands warm in cold conditions. It's much better to get used to wearing neo gloves or neo mittens with a neo liner glove. If you insist on pogies, limit their use to milder conditions or use them in conjunction neo gloves.
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No matter what system you use to protect your hands, you should rigorously field-test it. Proper field-testing would have alerted Martin to the fact that his pogies only worked as long as hands remained inside them.
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When you hear the words "numb hands" in relation to kayaking, picture trying to paddle with boxing gloves on your hands. You can't do it.