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Wet Suit Buyer's Guide for Kayaking, Canoeing, and Rafting Wetsuits
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A wet suit is made of neoprene which is a closed cell foam rubber. Neoprene insulates almost as well in water as when dry. However, when you enter the water with a wet suit, you get wet inside and feel the chill from the water that leaks in. Eventually your body warms this water up, and once it is up to body temperature the water inside the suit does no harm provided it stays there. The neoprene then provides insulation between you and the cold water outside the suit. However, if a wet suit is too loose, the water you warm up will flow out making room for new cold water to take its place. In that case the wet suit won’t do you much good. In order to minimize the amount of water that leaks in initially and to prevent water from circulating in and out of the suit, a wet suit needs to be skin tight.
As with any insulation, the thicker a wet suit is the more it insulates. Wet suits for SCUBA diving are available in a variety of thicknesses typically 5mm – 7mm depending on the water temperature the suit is intended for. Further, diving wet suits are usually a two piece suit with bib pants and a jacket. So over the body core a diving wet suit provides two layers totaling 10mm – 14mm of insulation. Contrast that to kayaking wet suits which are sleeveless, single layer (no jacket), and almost universally 3mm or less. For immersion, a kayak wet suit is better than mere clothing, but it still isn’t a whole lot of insulation. Unfortunately thicker neoprene is so stiff that most kayakers can’t stand to wear a wet suit thicker than 3mm, and neoprene sleeves chaff when paddling. So kayak wet suits are best for those in between temperatures where a dry suit may be too hot to paddle in, but the water is cool enough that you still need better protection than mere clothing in case of immersion.
As watersports and kayaking wetsuits go, Kokatat makes some of the most comfortable. For one thing the front zipper on both their men's and women's wetsuits go down far enough to allow you to relieve yourself without having to take the suit off. Kokatat's wetsuits have a slightly looser fit than most which unless you are built like a model makes Kokatat's wetsuits fit better, and it is always easier to tighten the fit of a wetsuit (by cutting out a dart and gluing it back together with wetsuit cement -- usually there is no need to stitch it after doing this) than to loosen it.