Personal Gear & Apparel

It always seems that a storm rolls into Annapolis, Md., just in time for the United States Sailboat Show. Held in October, the annual exhibition is the nations biggest sailboat-only show. Until this year, my favorite show was in 2006, when a 40-knot gale whipped into town, and the floating docks rolled like a Nantucket whaler with her decks awash. With the wind and spray lashing the show tents, boat buyers defiantly carried on, one hand groping for a lifeline, the other grasping the checkbook. This years storm was of a different sort. Theres something eerily soothing about a large crowd of people ogling new boats while the world markets go into a death spiral. During the shows opening day, five televisions in the waterfront bar Pussers Landing tracked the Dows precipitous plunge. In one fell swoop, my boys college fund and any hope of retiring before Im deaf as a post were carried off in an avalanche of debt. To my surprise, the people around me seemed preoccupied with only boats.

Practical Sailor testers are constantly schlepping tools between the Practical Sailor workshop, our own garages, and—of course—our boats. So we’re always on the lookout for a toolbag that makes said schlepping a little easier. Enter the Original Nantucket Diddy Bag, which we came across at a recent boat show. It is the first tool bag we’ve seen that is reversible and convertible. Designed by a Nantucket carpenter, the bag’s well-thought-out design is practical and versatile. With 36 various-sized pockets (including a hidden one in the bottom), the bag makes tools easy to find and keep organized—no more digging to the depths of a cluttered tool bag.

Options today for sailing gloves seem endless, so Practical Sailor testers set out to find a comfortable sailing glove with excellent grip and dexterity. In this test, PS looks at 12 pair of short-finger performance sailing gloves from eight manufacturers, including Musto, Gill, Gul, Henri Lloyd, Harken, and Sailing Angles. Most of the products were made of Amara, a microfiber-based, synthetic leather. We tested for grip, comfort, durability, and dexterity. We looked at seams, stitching, and materials and tested resistance to odor, mold, and mildew. Gloves tested were the Gill Pro, Gill Championship, Gul Anatomic Cut Neoprene, Harken Reflex Performance, Harken Black Magic, Henri Lloyd Stealth MaxGrip, Henri Lloyd Stealth Pro, Musto Performance, Ronstan Sticky Race Glove, Sailing Angles Kontrol, Sailing Angles Tru Blu, and West Marine three-quarter finger sailing gloves.

At a recent boat show, Practical Sailor editors ran across some interesting kneepads made by Crocs, the manufacturer of those annoyingly popular brightly colored, clog-like shoes. Still sore from some serious knee time during spring maintenance, we decided to see whether the Crocs kneepads were an improvement over our homespun design (Duck tape and sponges). The Crocs are lightweight and made of the same thick, foam-like material as the shoes, which the company claims is buoyant, non-marking, anti-microbial, and odor-resistant. The stretchy elastic straps are adjusted with plastic buckles.

Style, fit, and performance define a sailors favorite head protection. With thousands of baseball hats on the market, Practical Sailor chose 11 of the most useful, innovative, or unusual caps and put them to the test in the real world. We divided the field into Aussie-style ball caps (those with integrated neck flaps for increased sun protection) and All-American ball caps (traditional Major League Baseball style). The hats we looked at included Adams Cool-Crown Cap, Henri-Lloyd Fast Dri Tech Hat, Mount Gay Rum Hat, Musto Cotton Twill Crew Cap, New England Cap Hat, New Era MLB Hat, Nike Dri-Fit Hat, Nixon Deep Down Hat, Coolibar All-Sport Hat, Shade Shack Cap, and Ultimate Tropical Cap.

A thermal-imaging camera installed on your boat can significantly enhance safety during nighttime operations by clearly letting you see what is ahead and around your boat, even on the darkest or foggiest of nights. Practical Sailors review of Flir Systems Inc.s Navigator II, a thermal-imaging camera that can be mounted on a mast, finds that this kind of camera can aid navigation, man overboard recovery, and security. The equipment comes with a lofty price tag but for some, it will be worth the investment.

Headlamps compliment rather than compete with traditional hand-held flashlights. Lighting of more than one kind is invaluable on board, and headlamps have the advantage of freeing up the two hands of the sailor who always seems to need a third. Our test focused on LED headlamps that claimed water resistance and featured a crosshead strap for comfort, and did not require a battery recharge. We tested 17 headlamps from six manufacturers: Icon from Black Diamond, a rock-climbing and skiing gear maker; the HeadsUp Recoil 2680 from Pelican, maker of all things watertight; and Vizion from Underwater Kinetics, along with four headlamps from Petzl, five from Princeton Tec, and five from Streamlights. Our top picks were based on wearing, testing and using these headlamps for months. Best Choice honors go to the Black Diamond Icon, a lightweight lamp thats versatile and loaded with features. Recommended products include the feature-laden red-filter-equipped Petzl Tactikka and the lightweight, Lithium-powered Streamlight Argo HP. The Pelican outshone others on pure brightness.

Vibram, the Italian company known for putting the rubber sole into The North Face, Merrell, Timberland, Columbia, and Nike, has developed a funky-looking shoe called the Vibram Five Fingers. The shoes look like gloves for your feet. The individual toe slots are designed to gently spread your toes, enhancing balance and stability, and promoting a more natural motion to reduce the impact on your joints and back. The upper sole is made with a thin, abrasion- and tear-resistant stretch polyamide fabric. The foot bed is antimicrobial microfiber, and the sole is a non-marking rubber that is razor-siped for better grip. The weight varies by size and model. One mens size 42 (8 in the U.S.), weighs 5.6 ounces. while a womens 37 (U.S. size 6) weighs 4.4.

Staying warm at sea revolves around the right choice in clothing, and gloves are key part of the mix. Unfortunately, hand warmth and dexterity are often at opposite ends of a glove rating scale, and sailors need a good showing in both realms. Add to this, underway conditions that can range from dry cold to practically being submerged in ice water, and its easy to see why smart shopping can be a tricky proposition. So we decided to send Practical Sailor Technical Editor Ralph Naranjo on a series of sea trials with two different glove types. The trip conditions ranged from chilly New England deliveries to an absolutely frigid junket in Antarctica. He returned free of frostbite with a distinct notion that it indeed does take two different technologies to get the job done.

Practical Sailor tested foul-weather jackets and pants from seven manufacturers: from Gill, Gul International, Helly Hansen, Henri Lloyd, Ronstan, Slam, and Third Reef from West Marine. Each set included a jacket and a pair of bib trousers designed for coastal cruising and light offshore sailing. All foul-weather kits were priced under $500. Testers examined the sets for wind- and water-resistance, reflectivity, and wearability, and tested the zippers and fasteners. With well-placed reflective patches, a fluorescent peaked hood, and plenty of pockets and abrasion-resistant fabric, the Gill’s Key West gear stood out in field of well-designed sailing apparel.