My buddy swears by these pogies



No grip problems. The questions are whether they restrict your hand movement on the bar and if they are warm enough -- would take the edge off from wind chill, but I'm not sure how much insulation when really cold.

I have 3mm Ocean Rodeo gloves, seem ok so far, but I may try these pogies too.

Anybody try the Marmot Windstopper convertible gloves?
From former cold weather sailing days it was basically impossible to stop my fingers that were gripping the mainsheet from going cold from lack of bloodflow. Tiller hand stayed toasty warm even when wet and windy.

With these are your hands velcrowed around the bar?

The pogies are attached to the bar, you slip your hands into them. I'm guessing the tighter they attach to the bar, the more watertight, but you'd have less ability to move your hands around on the bar. The looser they are, the more water gets in, but you can move your hands more freely.

I dunno....I'm not rushing out to buy any until I try them out first. But idea is intriguing.

But really - how often do you ride with two hands on the bar ?

In waves, NEVER....

In freestyle - only now and then....

I must say, I have difficulties seeing how one could use these for anything but kayaking (which I think they are designed for), or maybe just going back and fourth doing nothing

PF

Hmm, now that you mention it....my friend who uses these is more of a "mowing the lawn" type kiter!

Has anyone tried using an open palm mitt with Sodium Acetate hand warmers?

They give about 30 min of heat, probably less out in the cold water though. But you can choose when to activate that heat so you can pop them at the half way point to get toasty warm hands to extend your session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNF2DO6EXcw
http://hotsnapz.com/blog/tag/sodium-ace ... andwarmers

Anyone have any experience using scuba diving dry gloves, I used to do a lot of cold water diving and they provide decent dexterity vs. neoprene (but if they flood your dive is over).

For $45 these Viking Good Grip Gloves look like they might do well:
http://www.scubacenter.com/scubacenter_ ... Gloves.htm

I'm at the point now where I can't stay out for more than about an hour and a half in my neoprene gloves due to a combo of fatigue and numb fingers so I'd like to find something new.

washing up gloves - turned inside out to look cooler-takes away a lot of wind chill even if wet inside

Tried those sodium acetate handwarmers with normal neporene gloves. In cold weater they get luke warm for maybe 15-20minutes then they turn hard and you're stuck riding with the damn things in your gloves until you come in. You're better off getting the cheap disposable type that last for 4+ hours, leaviing them in your kite bag and coming in every 30mins or so to warm your hands up. Tried to stick the disposable ones in my gloves but they don't work to well without enough oxygen and stop working completely once they get wet.