This winter in europe never seems to end....

Ah Ronald! My wife and I are currently discussing turning on the air conditioner, 75 degrees F. but a little muggy.

We do get violent thunderstorms with dangerous lightening and extreme wind gusts (enough to blow you over backward if you aren't careful) and of course the occassional hurricane.

But here,

experiences

are of the self inflicted type.

Cheers!

You make me jealous, Pete.

Hurricanes, lighting, etc seem to last only one day?????????

But these low temperatures can keep me ashore for weeks (or even months)!

Hardtimes for a northsea junkie like me.

I know exactly what you mean! The whole winter we've been working on our boat and wating for temperatures above 5C (my absolute minimum) with a nice wind. Yesterday we're at the beach and it was realy horrible. 8 bft with 0C made it extremely cold, so also no work on the boat at the beach.

By the way if this winter continious, our Inter 18 will be converted in an Infusion before the summer! This way we keep on improving the boat instead of sailing...(I belive the cat is more than ready for sailing)

Well, lightening can be forever...

Snow still on the front lawn, floe ice in the launch area,but we are seeing plus Celsius temps and everything is starting to melt real quick.Lots of snow on the local ski hill,

I can attest to this winter in the EU. We landed in Amsterdam to freezing temps and below zero wind included temps as we worked on the trailer to head to Palma. We left and it started snowing in Antwerp. I mean, not litle speckle snow, explode on the highway drops that swirled on the pavement ahead of us. All the Dutchies were complaining about the weather (like that's something new) Now, here in Barcelona it's still a little chilly. Hopefully, the little island will be manageable tomorrow as we prep up for a couple weeks of sailing down here.

Really, I worked on the trailer, went inside to warm up, then worked on the trailer again for a few times.

I'm definitely not complaining, just agreeing with the prior statement. (I didn't watch the video).

Arjan, I found out that with good clothing (see above) and not too much wind (15-20 knots), I can sail even just under zero Celcius.

Problem remains the hands. So I mount everything up with my normal allday winter handgloves; which keep my hands warm till the last moment I start sailing.
Then I switch to my neopreen finger-clawed surf handgloves. They will keep my hands warm, atleast on broad reaches.

Closehauled, they will hold only max. 10 minutes before cold is coming in (more (sail)wind on the gloves).

When I stop sailing I always keep my hands out of the wind. When demounting my rigg again, I dry first my hands and then switch to my normal wintergloves again.

So, the trick is: not letting them to become cold.

With windsurfing though you can be rougher because you use your handmuscles more (giving heat).Then you can try the following:

Let them become cold, as cold as you can endure, start heating them up (with your breath etc.). This will be painfull too.
But then you have the chance that here after they (miraculously) will keep themselves warm the rest of the time you surf!

Dressing with so many layers as I use, has ofcourse the danger of overheating when mounting your cat and rigg.
So when you start to sweat, pull something off temporarily.

When I'm windsurfing in wintertime, the standaard question from spectators is:

Don't you have it cold sir

.
My answer can be sometimes:

No, on the contrary,I'm sweating. Jee, I have to go in the water

.
When I do this next, people think that I have a dig at them!

But they don't know about overheating in sporting.

Then it is the end of times, Pete and you are arrived in hell

lol!

Neoprene gloves with some chemical heating pads will keep your hands warm as long as they stay dry. Same with the feet.

The rest goes inside the drysuit. Wearing neoprene under the drysuit is counterproductive in my experience. Long wool underwear, fiber furs and then the drysuit.

The real issue is avoiding frostbite in the face. A man tends to look funny with no nose.

Waaahhhh,

I can't sail all winter

I can drive my 7500# pickup on the lakes around here. 0˚C? It was -7˚F/-22˚C yesterday morning. Throw a 30mph wind on there and your balls freeze to the car seat when you sit down.

Quit yer crying.

What is this Winter thing you all talk about.

Rolf, many years ago I nearly lost a windsurffriend during a storm in wintertime who was wearing a drysuit with fiber/wool undersuit.

He teared his drysuit while we were surfing from the mainland to the first island in the north (Texel). He was more then an hour in very cold water before being washed ashore.

Suffering from Hypothermia he was taken to a hospital and we were fined by the police. It all came to prosecution with an appearance for a court of law.
At that time I was working for a surfmagazine and I had a plea by stating that the sea plays his own judge with regard to risky behavior. Fortunately the judge was impressed by my surf-status and my story.

We were convicted but with

no punishment infliction

(a seldom escape).

Since that day I never wear a drysuit with no wetsuit under it.

Karl, you are quite right with my boring about sailing in wintertime. I know that winters in the northern half of the V.S. can be much more severe then Dutch ones.

My first excuse is that I'm used to do windsurfing in wintertime for 35 years.
And my other excuse is that the clock is ticking for a 67 year old sailor. I have no time anymore for staying indoor a few months and reading books.

How many years (winters) can I still sail a beachcat at sea on my way???????????

Finally may I (half) quote Henri Bergson with his Elan Vital:

That what interests me is not the man itself, but the flame which consumes him. The crimson line which pierces and passes through him

brrrrr, there is a reason i moved to florida -

you really shouldn't keep all that cocaine on your boat like that. The law enforcement community may have some questions for you.

I live in S FL for the seasons: Wet and Dry. We're so close to the tropics we don't really get the

Fall, winter, spring, summer

thing...

It is rare we approach the low 40's F in the pre-dawn hours, and also rare we don't top the upper 70's F later that day...

First, getting fined for that windsurfing experience is a horrendous ethical legal practice in my experience. How many will never report a dangerous situation out of fear of being convicted and sent to jail or getting a fine.

Secondly, there is a thing called horses for courses. If you plan an experience like what you describe a wetsuit is perhaps the best. If you plan to sail along land in non-survival conditions on a cat, like I most often do, the wools and fibers goes on under the drysuit.

Yeah, but July & August it's so close to hell you can hear the souls screaming.

Its all relative...

Right now I'm cursing the weather gods for not being hot enough to warm up the pool. Seriously its the coldest its been in late March since we've moved to Central Florida.

Its only 70'F outside with a cold breeze.

Lots of 90/90 summer days. Ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity. Sometimes very close to 100/100.

I think our friend is not telling the whole story.
The part between Texel and the mainland is a protected nature reserve (razende bol), I'm betting thats why he got the ticket.

It only seems to be hot when you are not sailing. One more excuse to spend the day on the water.

Lately I'm wearing my normal gloves (because the neoprene wears down) and I have a surfing glove with no vingers, (and also the handpalm is not covered)just for the cold. I'm still looking for neoprene with enough protetion for the sheet.

i'd venture a guess that your town has hit 95 F. I don't believe we've ever gone above that in the 30 years of recordings.

I don't think Miami has ever hit 100 F... ever

but yes, the mosquitos outside town have been known to carjack tourists

and two months of sweat is way better than 5 months of freeze... my blood's way too thin for that nonsense

I use these all summer as well, great gloves:
http://www.gillmarine.com/gb/products/3-seasons-gloves-126/179

Here here...

I'd rather have 364 days of 100/100 than one of anything less than 40.

The good lord gave us swimming pools for a reason.

To enjoy them.

Can't escape the sun though. We'll have similar temps and humidity up here, but mother F'er is that sun brutal down there.

Sailing doesn't help, the Gulf is 80+ degrees in the summer. The water is about as soothing as leaping backwards through my own assh0le.

Ho,hO.....Tony yre questioning my credibility here.

Mmmmm....as a man of honour I would have challenged you to a duel in the old days, but now in modern information-times I will confine myself to some remarks.

This story played in the early years of the eighties. The place was between Lands-end (Den Helder) and the barracks of the Dutch marines in the Mokbay on the island Texel. We were sailing (windsurfing) there always in force 7 to 8 westerly (ingoing) winds combined with an outgoing tidestream.

In fact in those same days Stephan vanden Berg (then our worldchamp windsurfing) wanted to change from course racing to sea surfing. So he asked if he could join us and we did rape his

sea maidenhead

overthere.

Authorities were not happy with this new surfing thing, because it was at the same place were the ferry-boat to Texel was crossing. They didn't understand that with outgoing tide there was always this automatically separation between the ferry and us. Because when we went down we were always sucked away by the tidal stream from the ferry.

However that made us so reckless that we used to sail (on the windside) just beside the ferry and making jumps on the bow-wave, being photograhed by hunderds of holiday passengers.

So, Tony, if you speak of a reason for my appearance for the court of law (toenmalig kantongerecht denhelder) I was indeed not complete with my story. It has nothing to do with the nature protection program (natura 2000) which was first installed around the year 2000. No, it had to do with uneasy authorities who couldn't cope with this new phenomenon windsurfing.
And in this accident with my friend and him being nearly drowned, they found reason for blowing this whole thing up infront of a court.

To finalize the story: After the prosecution we decide to move 1 km westwards to the tower of the coastgard (Huisduinen) and discovered the outstanding spot of the Razende Bol (little sandy island, complete deserted) and passing from there to the southpoint of Texel.

Arjan, try the clawfinger-grip handgloves from ION!

I love what you guys to the english language! We native speakers make it so mundane often boring.

I know you guys have a hard time with modern technology up there in the great northern wastelands - but down here we have invented this really effective tool - its called...

Shade.

Try it sometime 😛