Gloves or Pogies?

Gloves or Pogies?

Keeping your hands warm when paddling can be a challenge, and cold hands can quickly spoil your time on the water. Wearing a pair of gloves will help your hands to stay warm. But, so too will a pair of pogies. Which should you choose?

Pogies

If you haven’t come across pogies before, these are a ‘mitt’ that attaches to your paddle shaft, and you slip your hand inside. The biggest advantage to pogies is that your hands are directly on the paddle shaft and you will retain the feel of your paddle shaft. The other benefit to pogies is that your fingers can ‘share’ warmth with each other. Pogies will block the wind from chilling your hands, and they will keep a fair amount of water off your hands too. You can paddle in quite cold conditions with pogies.
There are some negatives to pogies. Attach a pair onto your paddle and the paddle weight will increase. This is especially noticeable with neoprene pogies. You might be concerned that you won’t be able to let go of the paddle in a hurry with pogies on. Rest assured, it’s easy to let go of your paddle and slide your hand out. After a couple of paddles you should feel quite at home. The biggest draw back to pogies is that they attach onto your paddle shaft, so are limited to use with a double bladed paddle only. Sorry paddleboarders, waka paddlers and canoeists. You will have to stick with gloves.

Gloves

Gloves are a more familiar concept and they suit a wide range of paddlesports. The great thing with gloves is that you can keep them on when doing a range of tasks; you can hold your drink bottle or take a photo. If you paddle a SUP, waka or a canoe, gloves will allow you to swap your grip around.
The main draw back to gloves is that you lose some feel of the paddle shaft when wearing them. A paddle specific glove should have something on the palm to increase grip, but with reduced feel, you may lose track of what the angle of the blade is, relative to your hand.
There’s no single solution that will work for everyone. If you want to stay warm when paddling this winter, decide what’ll suit your needs the best. If you are unsure about what will work for you, please get in touch and we can help. Click to view our range of winter paddling gloves & pogies.