It is worth mentioning that a wetsuit can be a critical item in surviving hypothermia. I am referring to a nice 1/4"thick custom tailored wetsuit with an integral hood, although anything neoprene helps. One guy floated around in our local water for more than 24 hours, before encountering an oil platform and hauling himself out. In another instance, an urchin boat sank - the divers aboard were wetsuited, others were not. A diver and his fiancee clung together for several hours. He was wetsuited;she was not. Eventually she expired and sank from sight. He was rescued.

If you are not a scuba diver, an immersion suit is probably the ticket....

That's sad. Maybe I was raised better than he was, but I'd have given my wife my wetsuit. And a better chance at surviving. We have custom made wetsuits, with our physiques there was no other choice. She bought a shorty wetsuit that zips in the front off the rack. It's more of a fashion statement because she cant zip it closed past well below her solar plexus. We took the customs as well as survival suits on a short trip of two weeks once. This raised some eyebrows but we told them that we intended to survive at all costs. And that if they felt safe with their life raft and it's meager supplies then more power to them, but we were taking everything we could if we had to abandon ship. We didn't take them on either trip and I have no intention of taking them on this one, but somewhere I have some old survival/shark sacks from the 1970's. Not sure if anyone is familiar with them or not. I doubt they would even work after all these decades.

On that subject I saw a pic of the fisherman who claimed he had drifted for over a year today on MSN.
I have my doubts. He was found in Feb, and I doubt he had a years worth of food on his boat. Admittedly I know very little of this story, but he seems awfully... well padded for being out there so long. His face and hands are fat and I just don't see that happening while floating around or since being found. I may be wrong. Anyone have any opinions on the matter?

I would agree with your sentiments and I hope I would do the noble thing in a similar situation. However, consider that to be effective, a wet suit must fit quite snugly and completely. One that fits you properly likely will not insulate a woman (that fat differential distribution thing again). In addition, if you are in the water and attempt to don and doff a wetsuit, I suspect that the energy expended would doom both parties. I am not sure i could even put on a wet suit while in the drink - its tricky enough when out of the water.

A properly fitting suit yeah. But still I think if it filled with water her heat might have helped warm it, kind of like that old bag they experimented with, filled with water and pulled around the survivor.

One solution would be to dive in a dry suit - they would have more fitting flexibility. Or go all the way and get an immersion suit - a great Valentine's Day present!

It costs a fortune to have clothing made for her lol. I bought her a Randall for Valentines day this year.

I think hikermor is probably right on this one. I seem to recall that in one of Prof Popsicle's (Dr. Geisbrecht's) videos he had people try to put on an ordinary life jacket while swimming in cold water. My recollection is that very few were able to do it successfully. His conclusion was that if you aren't already wearing it when you go in the drink, you probably won't be able to put it on after you are in the water.

A wet suit would no doubt be much much harder. Trying to take your's off and put it on someone else would probably just mean you would both die.

hypothermia is my #1 survival sweat.the water in northern Minnesota canoe country is cold year round. plus getting wet and not having dry clothes or a dry sleeping bag is right up there with a swim to shore.

Ok AKSAE, we experimented with the wetsuit change. According to the weather service it was 540 hear, but feels like 30. I have no idea what the water temp is here, but when it hit my bare skin I did yelp a bit. I wore a wetsuit, she wore jeans and T shirt and cross trainers when we jumped in the pool. We treaded for fifteen minutes then began the exchange. She dumped her shoes and it wasn't easy to get my suit off but I did. Took a bit of time to get it right side out and I had to help her into it and zip it shut, It was doable, not as hard as I expected, but we weren't fighting extreme cold temperatures, waves and currents. After ten minutes or so she said she felt a little warmer so we terminated the experiment and headed for the hot tub.

Interesting! I am a bit surprised you could even change the wetsuit. But you really should stay immersed for ...oh...six hours or so..