On the TV reality shows they always strip off wet clothes and get under a dry blanket or survival blanket.   It's REALITY TV so that must be true. 

What happens when you're cold, dry and naked, and then put your cold, wet clothes back on again?

Back to square one, only colder. 

Rikkitic:

Say you are in the cold ocean, a la Titanic. Someone helps you into a lifeboat. Are you better off shivering in wet clothes or stripping so the freezing wind can at least dry you off?

 

gzt: I read a story about a kiwi sunk in WW1. No lifeboat. He stripped off his clothes and covered himself in heavy fuel oil from the wreck. Ie; more or less oil tar. Very good insulator. He survived.

There are a few schools of thought.

If you are in the water, I think you are better with your clothes on.

The clothes if tight enough can act as a wetsuit and hold warmer water against your skin if there isnt too much water movement. You do want to keep your armpits closed and try to keep your body heat in.

If you are out of the water then the wet clothes can act as a conductor of heat.

So I think you would want to do as suggested above, try to quickly take off each layer, wring it out and try to get as much water out of the clothes as possible, then put them back on. This way if the clothes are moderatley wet, air passing through will be reduced, and you hopefully will have some layers of air between layers of clothes to act as an insulator, rather than the water adding weight to the clothes causing the air to be compressed and escape.

Either way, you should always be wearing a milwaukee high-vis jacket with a fully charged battery. That way the heating coils can keep you warm for up to 6 hours. I use one when I am working in freezing cold wind on hilltops.

Rikkitic:

 

Say you are in the cold ocean, a la Titanic. Someone helps you into a lifeboat. Are you better off shivering in wet clothes or stripping so the freezing wind can at least dry you off?

 

 

 

That depends on what you look like naked...might kill the rest.

 If you are wearing the right clothes. Best to keep them on. Polypropylene is really good as it only holds a small amount of water even when soaked. It is really great when caving. Can swim through flooded caves, get the wetsuit effect when in the water. When you climb out of the water, the water in the polypropylene quickly drains out by itself. And you are warm again in 5 min. Despite wearing soaking wet clothes.

But you need to have it right against your skin for it to work the best. And the stuff is often itchy.

Didn't Mythbusters actually put this one to a test a while back?

If they did, I missed it. I know they tested similar things, but I'm not sure about this one. I think they did test whether the raft would have supported two people instead of just the one.

Lots of posts here about getting into dry clothes/blankets, which wasn't in the OP.

Without dry clothes/blankets available, I think you're better off in wet clothes, especially if there's a freezing cold wind.

In fact, I'd say it's much more important to get out of the wind than to get out of the wet clothes.