The Dark Side...

Black is actually one of the more easy colours to see against the glare of sunlight on the water (which is probably why many of those huge inflatable marks used at championships are black), so wearing black is not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, as the safety rules now mean I have to spend a lot of my time at work resembling a very bright orange light bulb, I wouldn't particularly want this to be expanded to include what I had to wear to go sailing in. It's not that it isn't "cool", it's more the distraction of seeing yourself as a huge mass of orange whenever you go near anything vaguely reflective which becomes rather tiresome!!
For sailing safety, It's probably more important that an upturned boat is visible, and some certainly aren't. That medium grey colour which a lot of RS200s are comes to mind ... very hard to spot from a rescue boat unless the (white) centreboard is sticking up.

oops typo  ..

.... certainly would NOT in black on a  stormy  night !

aah better

Originally posted by Guest#260 Originally posted by Post The Dark Side ... a.k.a. Essex

Nah, not Essex

Liking a Laser rather than just sailing one

But when you are floating in the water, it is only really your head that is visible anyway, at the most the tops of your shoulders are.

On a rough day my son always wears a day-glo yellow hat. Easy to spot in the water, and it also helps me to spot which of the near identical optimists he is sailing.

i tryed to buy some new gill offshore stuff and the only colour they could do was grey. it is a bit crap our bowman wears totally black even a black bouyancy aid. all u can see at night is the reflectors glinting and his headtorch