Personal Gear & Apparel

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.

Italian sailing gear-maker Slam has recently come out with a new laptop backpack, a water-resistant tote for that all-important lifeline to global communications and keeper of all things digital. Like the Oceanracing.com backpack that we reviewed in the January 2007 issue, the Slam bag is specifically designed to carry a laptop in the marine environment. The Slam backpack has two front-accessed, zippered pockets, and one zippered, front mesh pocket. There are also mesh pockets on the sides.

Following Tevas top-ranked performance in the womens athletic-style sailing shoes test (July 2007), Practical Sailor editors decided to try out the latest mens Tevas and Tevas new Sunkosi for women. Teva, the California-based firm known for its strap-on sport sandals, manufactures seven different lines of water shoes, including four sneaker-style varieties. At 11.5 ounces, the mens Teva Helm 2 shoes are lighter than any other mens shoe tested (June 2007), and they offer good drainage. There are mesh openings built into the shoe under the heel, behind the heel, beneath the ball of the foot, and on either side of the toe. Like most of the shoes we tested, the Helm 2s foam insole is removable. It also is perforated with 1/8-inch holes to speed drainage. The shoes upper uses unibody construction, with a laminate of foam and three different kinds of mesh reinforced with synthetic leather in the toe, upper tongue, and heel. The tongue is attached only at its base.

Testers evaluated 25 different flashlights. Among these were products from Inova, Underwater Kinetics, Tektite, Sea Fit, Streamlight, Garrity, Pelican, Dr. LED, and IQ Lights. The goal of this test was to find a flashlight that was compact, light, and provided superior spotlight and wide angle illumination for objects in close range. Unfortunately, no light we tested answered all of these requirements. The winners proved to be units that excelled at one. We also discovered that size still matters, and more batteries means more power, more light, and more life. The best marine flashlight is one that suits your needs. A well-equipped sailor needs a few different flashlights to cover all the bases: one thats a dedicated spotlight, one that lights up the lockers, one that serves the needs of bright, wide angle floodlight, and lastly a tiny pocket light used for in-the-cockpit chart reading or other instances when you need a quick light but want to preserve your night vision.