DEBOER POLAR HOODIE

£154 Added warmth for your winter swims

Why buy this vest/hood hybrid when you can buy a whole thermal wetsuit (p89)? Well, Deboer markets this innovative hoodie as an add-on to their Ocean 1.0 thermal wetsuit, allowing you to use the suit down to 6°C water temperatures by giving an extra layer to wear under your already thermal wetsuit. In practice though, we like that this can be used under any wetsuit, meaning if you love your usual (much thinner) race wetsuit but just want to be warmer, you can add this underneath. That also allows you to keep a preferred buoyancy profile that may not be available in a winter suit at the moment.

Fitting snugly, the hoodie features 2mm uncoated neoprene through the hood and 2.5mm through the vest, with the same ‘Thermofur’ lining as the brand’s winter wetsuit. Not only does it trap heat and keep the core warm, but the hood covers and protects the neck, where lots of sensitive blood vessels and arteries are housed, and keeps your head warmer, which is very useful if you continue to swim front-crawl through winter.

We added a normal swim cap on top for visibility and found the hoodie did its job well, keeping us considerably warmer and preventing annoying chilly trickles. There was enough fabric in the neck to allow us to turn our head, while the hood stayed in place well around the face. One note though… you may need a friend to help you out of it again if your hands are numb!