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Sprayskirts
and Layering: Your Roofer Doesn't Know Best
If you're walking around in the rain, you won't tuck your parka
into your rain pants and your rain pants into your boots because
with that layering system, water would run into your body and
you'd get soaked. To stay dry you overlap your clothing like the
shingles and siding on a house, right? That's why I always put
my anorak and PFD on over the sprayskirt.
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Photo
Jon Turk
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Chris layered
her "shingles" all wrong by wearing her sprayskirt over
her PFD and anorak. Water wouldn't have a hard time sneaking in
over the top of the spray skirt and working its way into her lap.
Now, Chris is a competent expedition veteran and I was in no moral
or marital position to tell her how to dress, so I kept my opinions
to myself. I thought it odd though that I repeatedly got wetter
and colder than she did. One day as we were floating offshore
eating lunch, I asked Chris why she wore her spray skirt the way
she did.
She conceded that if you're in a horrible, stormy sea, my method
of layering would be best, but in such a storm she'd rather sip
tea from a sheltered tent. In a normal kayaking day, even in steep
seas formed by the colliding currents of the Bering Sea, most
of the splashes don't rise over the top of the sprayskirt. She
pointed out that my PFD was pushing my sprayskirt down, forming
a small moat of cold water around my hips and kidneys that was
obviously cooling my core.
We finished
lunch and continued paddling. An afternoon headwind pushed wavelets
over the deck and into my moat. Slowly, water seeped through the
seam in the sprayskirt and dripped inside. It wasn't a big drip,
but it was steady enough so that at the end of a long day, I was,
yes, cold, wet, and just a touch more miserable than I needed
to be.
The next day,
I pulled my sprayskirt over the anorak and PFD. Then I cinched
up the shoulder straps and turned the sprayskirt into a water-shedding
cone rather than a water-collecting moat. Having my sprayskirt
over my PFD also helped the PFD's thick layer of insulation hold
an envelope of warm air around my torso.
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