So the secret is to remain calm and keep hope (both of which are helped by drunkness) besides the obvious "be last to get into the water" and "put on more layers of clothing" (though I didn't know that more clothes help even when wet).
I'm not sure how being fully submerged for long periods of time affects this, but in outdoor culture there are sayings like "warm when wet" - pertaining to certain fabrics such as wool and polyester.
One famous strategy is the pile and pertex combination. Where you have a thin basically windproof but not waterproof shell made typically from Pertex, and then fake fur from polyster on the inside.
These jackets are used to (might still be) be worn by law enforcement to old school rock climbers for it's ability to keep you warm and damp for hours.
There are videos of people submerging in ice cold water and "walking it off" until they are damp but warm again.
Another saying is "cotton kills", because it does not provide warmth when wet and also sucks up insane amounts of water for its weight, so it bascially never dries out.
The first time I had a serious accident with my car, I saw my life going before me. I was fine but my body was trembling after the accident. I saw a pub, I went there and drank 2 whisky straight. It was just what i needed to stop my body from shaking, and get my ideas clearer again and be able to deal with the situation.
“You have a defence if you can convince the court that you drank the alcohol in question after you had driven and that you were not over the limit whilst you were driving.”[1]
With that said, your BAC can be estimated from whatever you prove you drank after the accident, which would reveal a discrepancy. Not a reliable way to get away with a terrible crime.
I think any clothes can help building an insulating layer around your body.
I've been doing some cold plunges recently and the difference between still and moving water is staggering, as you quickly get a thermal layer around you. Surely clothes would help with that.
Wet suites work on principal of after they get wet they don't convect heat. I think certain clothing combination might reach same effect, just not as well.
That's not now wetsuits work. Neoprene is simply a good thermal insulator, largely because of the embedded gas bubbles. And the tight fit minimizes the amount of cold water that can flow into the suit. There is still some heat convection regardless of whether the suit is wet or not.
I can't speak to the physics but I've done cold water dives, and if you prime your wetsuit with a thermos of hot water, that envelope of hot water stays in your suit for a surprising amount of time
Statistically on a sinking ship a sailor who couldn’t swim had better chance of surviving than a sailor who was a good swimmer. In a cold Atlantic water the former had been expending less energy then the later, so he would last longer until being rescued.
> a sailor who couldn’t swim had better chance of surviving
I don't know about the statistics, but I'm descended from a small Scottish fishing village and remember being told that sailors didn't lean to swim. The logic was if you went overboard you were dead, the non swimmer would suffer less as they'd drown sooner.
I'm not sure how much truth is in that, and I doubt it applies these days as it was probably from the days of sail when a ship couldn't just stop & turn around.
