Might be doing my first 39 degree water surfing next week..

You should expect violently shaking hands and a complete threat to your health/safety.

Your tip is to wear a 14mm wetty with gloves and boots engineered by NASA.

shark-hunter is happy to help consult you ok your macho polar plunge endeavor.

 

New suit...hope it has taped/glued/blind stitched seams. If so...you'll be good for a coule of hours...I would suggest 7 mil boots and 5mil gloves. Better to have warm/sweaty feet...IMHO as I assume you only have 3 mils.

New suits are great...won't start leaking (pinholes) for a while...enjoy it!

 

A well-used 4/5 with 7 mil boots and 5 mil gloves boots got me through the VB winter. A hood too, of course. The water here got down to 37 this winter, but air temp of 38 was the coldest I was out. That's almost "tropical" compared what our northern friends deal with. Wind can be the killer. I'm colder after I get out of the water and am walking back to the car.

 

Expect to be in for even less then 30mins and not being able to feel your fingers or toes with any boots or gloves under 5mm. The coldest I've had up here was when I took off my gloves and my hands were purple about 1min after I took the gloves off and then Thursday my hood froze while I was wearing it in the water. There were icesicles hanging off it too!

 

I do love my 4/3 tho can't wait to be in it this april

 

I've been wearing 6 mil gloves until april here because my 5 mils are like 3s.

 

4/3 and 39 degree water........ Ummm, that's not enough rubber.
Good luck.

 

I'm home for Spring Break and just paddled out today at Moses Field 2 on LI. Wore a 3/2 with an old 4/3 over it just to get me by, with 5mm boots, gloves and hood. Wasn't too bad! Definitely investing in a 5/4 for next winter though.

 

Doing the robot in a 7/5, were ya? Sounds like a rubber work out, not the fun kind.

 

Something like this:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...904C388F17F9CFA5D4362B6FCA796&selectedIndex=0

 

It's going to be cold in a 4/3 for the next few weeks- go on the warm days.

Belmar nj is usually firing on warm days too

 

Well I've gone with a a 4-3 and a vest with hood all winter

 

Wetsuits are so advanced now that it isn't bad at all. 50 years ago, getting in that water must have been insane

 

Wetsuits have advanced quite a bit over the years. As young teenagers, my buddies, brother, and I would cobble together our wetsuits from hand-me-downs, used stuff we bought from others, and miss-match pickings from grab bag sale items at dive and surf shops in Redondo Beach. What little money I had was from doing yard work or cleaning pools. The stuff really didn't fit well; and if we had two left gloves, we'd turn one inside out to fit the other hand. The the tops zipped up and had beaver tails. This was So Calif in the early 70s. We didn't surf then but went skin diving off Palos Verdes where we lived at the time, or out off Catalina. Good times. Loved that abalone.

 

I think you'll want a 543. You are not going to last long in 4-3. If you do go, watch for the horizon getting blurry. That's you in a vibratory shiver, by which time you have like 15 minutes before important enzymes that keep your brain operating begin to denature and malfunction, and you become really disoriented or unconscious. Then do the math. Actually, don't bother. Simple math is pretty much out of your grasp at that moment. OK I am exaggerating for humor, but not much. I used to paddle out in OCMD in February in a 3-2. It was stupid, and I swear I really did have some close calls. Put on a layer of capilene under the suit. Synthetic long john bottoms and tops. That does help a bit. Godspeed.

 

in other parts of the world this statement is not made. spoken like a dedicated nj surfer.

 

I honestly thought it would've been a pain in the ass but it was surprisingly not bad! I'll give it a go one more time before I head back up north

 

Me too. But not THIS winter.

 

I did, and I've decided that I need a new 5/4.