Sun, ears, eyes, impact vests, helmets WTF

[coachg]

e. better educated than the general population.

Coachg

[MalibuGuru]

I only wear a helmet when it's over 15 foot surf and the water is cold. In Hawaii, I don't wear one.

I'm getting older, so my shoulders and elbows will not take the swim required in larger surf, so I just bought an inflatable PFD. It looks like a pair of suspenders and has a pull tab in case I get in trouble. I'm not sure I'll ever wear it. I don't understand the need for a helmet because by board is attached to my feet and my head is 6 feet away at all times...

One of the posters mentioned that if this is what people see (a bunch of helmeted, PFD wearing, kooks) our sport is doomed. We definitely need more young-uns. Although, I'm not sure wearing board shorts outside your wetsuit looks cool.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Dang it, I deplore this modern craze for safety!

In the 'good old days' ( ) our favourite surfing beach was a battleground. The leaky Victorian sewerage outflows meant we fought with giant turds in the line up, and needed clothes pegs on our noses to keep the stench out. (And we kept our mouthes shut too.) Never did us (the survivors) any harm!!

We also battled with the odd abandoned wooden fish crates which clattered about in the impact zone, and at another of our regular surfing bays at a major holiday resort with a large spa complex with multiple bars, the outflow, on a saturday night, was about 70% proof. (Limited our sessions before falling about.)

Then there is our local atom box (nuclear power station) which reputedly breeds giant mutant fish (local coble fishing brigate trying to claim compensation for poor catches more like). Some of our hard core local surfers apparently went crazy from brain rot - but I suspect other factors may have been involved!

But hey, we never have to worry about the sun, and it would be daft trying to look cool in winter snow storms. You'd only end up looking cold -not the same thing at all. (Come to think of it, we don't much worry about the sun in summer, either. That WOULD be a novelty!

[techno900]

With age comes common sense and the reality that we are not bullet proof. Ego takes a back seat to being smart and doing everything possible to extend the time we have on this earth doing what we love to do. At around age 60 the reality of a finite life really begins to sink in.

I typically wear a helmet on my 105 liter and smaller boards, when the wind is 20+. I typically don't wear my helmet on my formula board. However, the only almost serious bump to the head came during a formula race in Corpus Christi when I blew up on a downwind run at 27 mph in 4' chop and 25 knots of wind. I came up bleeding from the head and I have now idea what I hit or what hit me. That was MY last race of the day. Now I wear helmet if it is 20+ regardless of the board.

[coachg]

[paulf.]

zactly. the first part.

[boardsurfr]

[cgoudie1]

Helmets are a great vehicle to carry a POV, and that's when you'll see me
wearing one. But more to Techno's point about general protection, I think
its pretty much true, the older you get the more scared you are. You can
couch it in wisdom or prudence, but in the limit it's fear. With me it's fear
of not being able to get out and recreate when I want to (my dad pointed
this out to me one night I was in the hospital when I was around 30).
After you've been broken few times, you start to recognize what it's
going to cost, and there's nothing like age to put a punctuation mark on
that.

I think you should wear whatever allows you to sail with abandon, for some,
that's board shorts, for some it's an armored suit.

Plus I just plain look better in a wetsuit, and sunglasses. ;*)

-Craig

[isobars]

If I learned anything from decades of WFO dirt biking in wild terrain, it was,

,"I shouldda armored that body part before I busted it.

Every time I injured a body part, I designed or bought a widget to protect it. Pills will cover pain, but we will never recover play time lost to injury real time or decades later when that injury bites us in the ass -- or knee, shoulder, etc. -- again. Virtually every sprained knee joint, for example, even if it isn't bad enough to cost us any shred time at the time, is forever chemically altered in a way that accelerates its ultimate arthritic failure by years to decades. A broken rib can cut anything nearby. A boom shot to the liver can kill overnight. A Lisfranc ankle injury can easily cripple one for life.

"But those are so rare, and I'm invincible."

BS, and BS.

Every piece of armor I wear on the water lets me sail harder and more freely than I would if I weren't wearing it AND has prevented significant injuries AND has never directly* caused me any injuries. IMO, any counterargument is nothing but foolish rationalization or excuses. Fortunately, it's a free country, and that includes the freedom to choose our own risk levels.

* My armor gave me the (false) confidence to jump to Dale Cook altitudes without the presence of mind to land properly, costing me a season and a half of sailing, permanent residual injury and weakness, and early knee failure within a few years. If I have a brain in my head, I will heed my surgeon's advice to buy and use a custom carbon brace to prevent or delay the next such injury during ordinary B&J sailing. That armor won't stop the accelerated arthritic decay mentioned above, but it may prevent an even more devastating knee explosion.

Is it any wonder that I consider refusal to wear basic head and body armor short-sighted at best, just plain idiocy in many WSing scenarios?

[rigitrite]

Yeah, so the deal with helmets and our sport: if you're doing forwards, backies, etc.. and really pushing it, you can get hit in the head with the mast or the board. This wouldn't be such a big deal were you on dry land, but if this happens on water, and you're knocked unconscious: you're gonna drown.

add to that, the fact that most of us sail alone or mostly alone, and it just makes sense. Besides, who wants to do a sport, where if you make a mistake, you don't get to try again?