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| Photo by: Hans Isaacson |
Wetsuits are suits specifically designed for people who spend a lot of time in cold water, people who engage in activities like Engineering, Experiential Learning, Oceanography, etc.
Even for personal hobbies like swimming, diving or perhaps surfing, you would need a wetsuit to engage in these deep cold water activities.
Wetsuits are the ideal suits to be worn for deep cold water activities, and this is because it has basic functions like insulating the swimmers (this allows the swimmers to retain their body heat).
This helps swimmers during cold water activities to avoid hypothermia, and a low body temperature that can be dangerous and harmful.
Wetsuits usually come in sizes to cover the legs or torso of the swimmer, or cover the entire body of the swimmer. A swimmer can decide to add vests, jackets or hoods to help protect them further.
Wetsuits are made up of neoprene rubber, the wetsuits allows for little amount of trapped water between the skin of the swimmer and the neoprene rubber of the suit itself.
This enables the swimmer to remain wet at all times, this is why the suits are called wetsuits.
The body heat that comes from the body of the wearer is retained by the wetsuit warming the trapped water that in-turn helps to keep the swimmer warm.
Wetsuits must have a tight grip on the swimmers body or else the trapped water between the suit and the swimmers body would be too wide, which won’t enable the suit to keep the swimmer warm.
Wetsuits come in various styles and thicknesses, this in-turn allows for the wetsuits to adapt to various conditions in water and also what the swimmer needs at the time.
Wetsuits are usually made thick so as to keep the swimmer warm, the more the thickness the warmer it gets. This also makes movement in the suit difficult, the thickness of most wetsuits vary from 3 to 5 millimeters.
For clarification swimmers in the arctic do not make use of wetsuits, they wear drysuits, this is to prevent water from entering the suit.
Surfers in beaches of places like Southern California and Australia wear wetsuits because it offers easy protection from rocky reefs and stings from a jellyfish, so wetsuits are very common among warm surf beaches like the two I just mentioned.
Divers across history have worn wetsuits to make discoveries of lost ship wrecks in the open sea, this allows for historical artifacts to be brought out for the modern world to witness, all possible due to the effective protections that wetsuits provides.
How To Add Warmth To A Wetsuit
Now that we’ve discussed what a wetsuit is, what it does, and how significant it is to the activities that take place in cold waters around the world, let’s look at how to add warmth to a wetsuit.
While scuba diving, surfing or swimming feeling cold can really take away the fun to be had in it making you cut short your activities, sometimes the biggest waves usually come during cold weathers, here are some techniques to stay warm while in your wetsuit:
1. A fitting wetsuit
A wetsuit that fits perfectly on you is one of if not the most important thing you need to get first, wetsuits are known to stretch and exceed their initial size overtime.
It would become looser and larger than how it was when you get it from the store.
People buy the wrong size of wetsuits most times and it ends up being too large and loose on their body overtime when it gets wet.
This in-turn allows for cold water to get into the suit which sends out the warm water in the suit and makes you colder, a thin fitted wetsuit keeps the warm water in for a longer time allowing you to maintain warmth in cold water.
2. Right thickness
After you’ve gotten the wetsuit that fits perfectly for you, you need to get the right thickness and also the right length.
A type of neoprene form is what makes up a wetsuit, this neoprene form is rubber with nitrogen bubbles within it that keeps your body warm against cold, the more the thickness of the suit the warmer it’ll be for you.
There is 5mm thickness for cold water and 1mm thickness, it has short sleeves specifically for summer waters, and a full length suit that is the 5mm thickness for cold water, there is also 7mm thickness for extreme cold water cases.
3. Add warm water in your wetsuit
So you’ve acquired the right fitness and the right thickness and you want to add more warmth to your suit so you can stay out longer in the water.
Well when you submerge into cold water, very cold water rushes into your wetsuit then your body would need to heat up this water before it’ll keep you warm.
To avoid this and have a ready warm body while going into the cold water especially on a really cold day, you can pre-pour warm water into your wetsuit to achieve this.
Heat up some water, not to the degree where it burns your skin no, but to a point where it is really warm and you can feel the heat from it.
Pour this heated water into a flask to keep it warm while u set up for the beach, pour some of the water on your suit and also in your suit and pour some in through the back of your suit and zip up; this would give you the extra warmth you need to your wetsuit.
Further Reading:
Can I Sew a Label onto the Outside of My Wetsuit?
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