Previously: What to wear: Coxswains (women)
In part one I talked a lot about the importance of wearing the proper clothes while out on the water, especially in the winter. For coxswains this is especially important since we are stationary for the majority of practice, which causes us to get colder much faster than everyone else. Like I mentioned in the last post, if you’ve got a survival suit that you can throw over these layers when it starts getting cold, definitely do it.
Women are usually pretty good about wearing the right clothes, it’s the guys that tend to learn the hard way. “Tough guy points” as they’re known around the boathouse are voided if/when you develop hypothermia. I can’t stress the importance of wind and waterproof/resistant layers enough. Coxing when you’re cold is hard and makes it tough to focus so do yourself a favor and make sure you’ve got the right gear on when you go out.
Only 4 layers!? I’d be frozen! When it’s cold and wet I go for base layer, t shirt, long sleeve shirt, light fleece, light hoodie, heavy hoodie, waterproof coat plus the largest thickest life jacket I can find. That lot keeps me nice and toasty. 🙂
Hey Peter!! I was debating about more but then when I talked to a few coxswain friends who are guys, they all said that on a normal cold day (nothing frigid like we’ve had in Boston the last week), they try and go for as many layers as necessary, meaning they aim to wear the most efficient stuff so they can avoid having to wear tons of layers. Usually if it’s any colder than that (and same goes for girls too), we’ll wear the survival suits on top of our regular layers. Thanks for the comment!! 🙂