With winter approaching in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s time to start thinking about what sailing gear we’re going to need to keep us on the water as the temperatures drop. There’s plenty of options on the market for wetsuits, tops and hiking pants, but I’m going to break it down simply for you based on what I would wear.
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere like Brisbane, where the winters are ‘relatively mild’, then your choice of clothing is going to be vastly different to someone sailing in Melbourne or Sydney. For that reason, I’m going to provide a 2 x 2 clothing matrix with both water and air temperature taken into consideration. For the purpose of this matrix, ‘mild’ is going to describe water temperatures of 20 degrees or more, and air temperature of 15 degrees or more. Since we are talking about sailing in Australian winter, cold will be 10-20 degrees water temperature, and 8-15 degrees of air temperature.
Gear breakdown:
Hikers:
- Zhik Microfleece - these can be worn either as the skiffsuit or the pants
- Zhik Superwarm
- When wearing either of the above wetsuits, I would recommend pairing them with the Zhik PowerPads
- Sandiline JLight
- Sandiline EVO
Tops: