Best Gloves for Wing Foiling in Winter

Welcome to Winging through the Winter #3 – Cold Weather Gloves.

In the first article of this series I highlighted the benefits and drawbacks of winging through winter and in the last article looked in detail at boots that keep your feet warm. In this article I will look at another critical extremity, the hands and what gloves to consider in winter.

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In a nutshell

Keeping hands warm during winter sessions is a familiar problem for all watersports enthusiasts. In winging your hands inevitably get wet, launching and each time you retrieve the wing after a fall. The wind then chills wet hands. In addition in cold weather blood supply to extremities reduces, so your hands quickly get cold.

A well known issue with wearing gloves though, is the additional fatigue that this creates in the arms when holding onto the handles or boom. The thicker the gloves the more likely that you will find your forearm muscles cramping making sessions shorter. Essentially you are adding resistance to the fingers being bent and several millimetres of material between your hand and the boom/handles. Gloves also affect feel for the wing, making transitions less intuitive. For this reason some hardy people eschew the use of gloves entirely.

Over the years (including Windsurfing previously) I have tried a variety of solutions for cold hands. This year I tried two types of gloves and the winner for me were the Solite Wind Paddle gloves for reasons I will explain in more detail below. These were not the warmest gloves I have used this winter, and I will explain why I much preferred them to the Oceania Orca gloves that I also tried.

Alternatives I have tried in the past

Because of the disadvantages of wearing gloves when windsurfing (fatigue, cramping, loss of feel) I have previously tried a number of solutions with varying degrees of success:

Bare hands. One of my early windsurfing friends persuaded me that if you keep the rest of the body warm “the hands acclimatise”. There are still a few hardy windsurfers at my local spot who follow this approach. The general consensus is that the first few runs get the hands cold, a quick shore break and hot drink sees the hands reach a point where they don’t get any colder. Maybe I am more delicate, but this approach never worked well for me and my hands became too painfully cold to sustain long sessions. Additionally, with a foil, launching and landing are more involved, so those quick trips back to the beach to warm your hands become less practical.
Open Palm Mittens. I had more success with open palm mittens which I found provided a good compromise between feel/fatigue and warmth. Typically these are either a full mitten of a split lobster claw design that separates the first two fingers. The backs of the hands are protected from the wind whereas the palms are in direct contact with the boom so reducing the loss of feel and the cramping that comes from a full glove. With the open palm though your hand is fully exposed to the water when you fall in, so for winging I find these too cold.
Open Palm Mittens with washing up gloves. A cheap and cheerful way of adding some warmth whilst not adding much in the way of thickness is to wear washing up gloves inside the mittens. This adds to the warmth but it is still a bit too cold for me on the coldest days I go out.
2 mm Neoprene Gloves. For the previous 2 winters I was wearing conventional 2mm wetsuit gloves from O’Neal. These worked reasonably well but I found that they became worn during the first winter of use resulting in more water entry and colder hands. The second winter the wear became worse so that they were unusable by the end of the winter. I was looking for something both warmer and more durable for this winter.

Option 1 – Oceania Orca

One of my friends at my local spot told me he had found the warmest gloves he had ever used the Oceania Orca.

As I needed new gloves, with winter on it’s way I looked into them. They are unusual in that they are a almost a dry suit style glove with a tough waterproof shell and a tight silicone cuff that keeps water out. The glove is lined for warmth and whilst it may allow a little water into the glove the design is intended to keep the hands warm through being largely protected from the water. They are not cheap at ~ £65 in the UK but I figured the warmth would be worthwhile.

As the pictures show my experience of these gloves was very short!

My experience

These are extremely warm gloves, easily the warmest that I have tried. Aside from that though, I would not recommend these gloves:

I found the gloves fiddly to get on and off.
They are quite bulky, once they are on you can’t look at your watch, set your tracking or do anything that requires dexterity with the hands.
I found the lack of feel made transitions much harder. I couldn’t feel the handles during wing switches so found myself looking at my hands and the wing, with a notable increase in my failures.
The silicone cuff is extremely delicate. I tore my glove in my second session taking it off, merely by pulling it a bit carelessly. The small tear spread so that in the next session the whole cuff came away trying to put the glove on.
Oceania do not accept that they could possibly have production quality issues. Having contacted them I was told “they tear if you let them contact something sharp. You can buy a new one”.
After contacting Oceania I tried various repair solutions (Look Clear and Black Witch) but I don’t think the deleicate cuff material can be mended easily with a DIY approach.

My friend at the lake has successfully used his Orcas for the winter without the same quality issues as me. That said as soon as the weather has warmed a little he has switched to more conventional gloves due to the lack of feel issue. Maybe I was unlucky but unless you are winging in very, very, cold conditions I don’t think these gloves are a good option, and even then I would explore alternatives that might provide better after care service.

The preferred option Solite Wind Paddle

As I had just purchased Solite boots and was impressed I checked out their offering for gloves and settled on the Wind Paddle 3/2. Once again Solite have come up with some “cool technology to keep you warm”.

3D grip palm. Essentially they have put time and effort into ensuring the glove grips the handle efficiently (so you don’t need to squeeze too hard), whilst maximising the flexibility of the glove to reduce fatigue.
The lining is made of a quick drying thermal layer that maximises heat retention.
The back panel maximises water repulsion whilst being strong and durable.
The seams are stitched, glued and sealed for durability and better water repulsion.
The gloves are preformed into a curved finger shape that further helps fatigue when gripping the wing.

These gloves are also not cheap at £79.95, so do I consider them value for money?

My experience

I have been using these gloves throughout the winter in multiple sessions. I am very pleased with the results:

My hands have generally remained warm, only becoming cold in one extended session (80 minutes) on a very cold day (5 degrees Celsius).
Arm fatigue has not been an issue (though note that I use a harness which reduces that problem anyway).
The feel and dexterity is as good as you can hope for with wetsuit gloves on.
You can lift the cuff to check your watch or set your tracking device with no impact on the effectiveness of the glove
The glove has been durable, there is no sign of significant wear and I’m confident they will still be fine for next winter.

In Conclusion

For the conditions I go out in during winter the Solite Wind/Paddle gloves have proved to be a very good buy. If you go somewhere where the cold is more extreme and you are prepared to be extremely cautious putting them on and off you might consider the Ociania Glove, but I would also certainly explore other drysuit style options.

Coming next, the final in this series will look at a couple of other ways to make winging through winter more comfortable. Before then if you have gear tips to help keep Winging through the cold drop a comment below. It looks Spring is round the corner anyway, so even if you’ve been hibernating, I’ll see you on the water soon. Let’s Go Wingfoil.