As the title suggests I’ve always hated getting into cold water and have been told a wetsuit keeps you warm, how exactly does that work?
In: Biology
It’s insulated and waterproof, though it fills with icy water from the neck/arm/foot holes at first. Afterwards the water has nowhere to go, so it just stays there, heats up, and stays warm.
The fabric a wetsuit is made out of traps water and heat. The water that can’t escape is heated up by what your body puts out. So essentially you have a layer of insulation after a few minutes. Whatever heat that escapes out of the fabric is replaced by your body as you exercise by swimming.
It honestly doesn’t keep you that warm. I don’t like cold water. I went on a boat tour with snorkeling and they had wet suits optional. I took it thinking it would keep me warm. I jumped in the water and it was freaking cold.
Was it warmer than it would have been without? Yeah but it was cold.
It actually traps a thin layer of water next to your skin. Your body heat warms the water and the suit keeps it there.
By keeping your body heat in. Think of it as a coat that functions while wet.
Wet suits come in different thicknesses, with thicker ones providing more heat retention.
But you also have to worry about fit. The better it fits, the less water can easily flow in and out. Think of a coat with big openings at the end of the sleeves vs ones that close up tight on your wrist.
The same way a jacket keeps you warm. Humans are exothermic. We produce heat inside our bodies and it slowly radiates into the atmosphere. A jacket or any thicker piece of clothing traps some air between us and the colder outside air. Our body heat warms that air, and once the air is closer to our body heat, the slower we lose body heat.
The same goes for a wetsuit. Wetsuits trap a thin layer of water between the suit and our skin. Once that body heat warms the water, we lose less heat to the water. The thicker the wetsuit, the longer it will hold the heat in.
When you would use one, you put it on, get in the water then fill the wet suit with water. This creates a warm water pocket to insulate you. Your body temp keeps adding to it.
It is surprising just how cold the water can be just going from the surface to 50-60 feet down.
Everyone saying the layer of water keeps you warm is wrong. ~~Water is a terrible insulator.~~ Edited to acknowledge that water *can* insulate.
Wetsuits are generally made of neoprene, which acts directly as an insulator. A secondary factor is that the wetsuit stops your body from directly touching the cold water. Think of a wetsuit as a jacket for your entire body, one that’s flexible and durable and can get wet.
Consider two simple questions:
– If you needed water for a wetsuit to work, would it keep you warm *out* of the water?
– If the neoprene didn’t matter, would you need a thicker suit for colder water?
Wetsuits absolutely heat you up before you get to the water, and you do indeed wear thicker suits in colder water.
Am I going to be the only surfer here that admits to pissing in their wetsuit and pulling on their chest to get that warmth up there?
Tip from our 5th grade camp counselor – pee in it to warm up quickly. I wonder how many kids tried it lol
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