Sean,
Tell us about your sailing adventure. I hope you didn't drag the foulies out and wear them to pace around on your widow's walk during one of our recent blows?

Sure is raining hard tonight, and it looks worse up north on the radar summary.
Those Gill gloves look very nice. I wish there was a place (a boat show?) where we could get the major gear manufacturers together and compare their products. I'll have to go visit WM, perhaps, despite their troubles. I am on the verge of boycotting them (see posts on instrument shipping complaints). I talked with an ex-WMer recently and she was quite bitter about how management was treating employees - i.e. looking for excuses to rate them low and then lay them off.
Rob,
Thanks for the endorsement. They seem like very nice gloves. [And I really like it when one of my daughters thinks of something that is ideal for one of my hobbies. That's not a very practical reason to keep them if they don't work.] I have found places online that claim to carry larger sizes, so I will be trying to get the correct size from somewhere else and then return these. Since buying the boat and the diesel heater, I'm ready to get out there in the cold and bash to windward a little. Maybe I should look into the socks, too. I need a slightly oversize sock to fit into my size 12 boots. My two-layer approach leaves my feet too much room to roam. I usually use a Thorlo inner and a wool outer in my boots.
I do have a pair of Polartec gloves that keep my hands warm as long as I stay active, but they are not waterproof or wind-proof. The palm is covered with a plastic layer that melts if I let a line slide through them. For frost-biting we really need a glove that works whether you're helmsperson, trimmer, or railmeat.
Thanks,