"a pretty good Scottish level of toastiness" Maybe for the spring or autumn, but probably not in full winter weather ime -- and certainly not if you're static.
[Primaloft]It also has the advantage of being warm when it's wet
Up to a point, Lord Copper...
It is markedly less crap than down that has had a good soaking, but that's not the same thing as "being warm when wet". It'll still be a lot colder and more miserable than if it's dry, simply because water conducts heat so much more effectively than air.
I've often wondered about how someone defines 'warm when wet'? I'm sure the reference is cotton - for being definitely not warm when wet. Presumably anything that fares better is called warm when wet. Whether you'll actually be warmer than if you took it off depends on the conditions!
Having fallen in various lakes & rivers in UK winter conditions (learning to scull took me a while, OK!) I can attest to the fact that if your clothing is fully soaked and the weather is calm & dry - typical of taking a plunge through a frozen lake for example - you could possibly be warmer naked! Otherwise you might be wasting valuable body heat trying to evaporate moisture out of your clothing. These days I don't row in cotton - except occasionally in summer- knowing that if my clothing gets wet it will dry fast enough to be a useful insulator again; and that the energy requried to dry it is relatively low (especially if it's polypropylene). In winter, I tend to keep a PL gilet (dry!) stored inside the floatation chamber of my boat. I haven't fallen in for years, but it doesn't take much to turn a single-scull over, and knowing that I'd have something to put on afterwards is reassuring.
PL copes quite well with damp because the water soon runs out leaving airspaces that do insulate. And being windproof, there's a good chance that it will still protect you from the worst of the windchill. But does that make it warm when wet? I challenge anyone to take their PL, submerge it in a bucket of cold water, put it on and claim that they are warmer than before! 'Warmer when wet' might be a more honest phrase, when compared to other fabrics.
'Warm when wet' I thought was just a criteria for a perfect cuppa!
