Left: spectacular and violent, the first Superfoiler Grand Prix series earlier this year provided a ʻdemandingʼ proving ground for impact protection equipment including helmets and body armour. Not surprisingly Volvo-winner Luke Parkinsonʼs Tech 2 crew have gone for high-end ski-rated helmets capable of withstanding a drop of 1.5m onto concrete with no structural damage (but you kids at home, if you smack yours hard please bin it and get another). There are two main ski helmet specs, CE1077a with ear protection and CE1077b without (above). For sailing the one without allows you greater awareness with little loss of protection
and types of protection available for those wishing to avoid injury. It should also be noted that as soon at the pro sailors in the America’s Cup started to wear helmets, this pointed to where the sailing world is heading. As many sailors already wear caps anyhow, why not go a bit further and wear something that protects from some- thing other than the sun, as long as it’s light and well ventilated?
Risk
Let’s face it, the real reason many of us like sailing fast is because it gives us a buzz. For many at the very high-performance end the thrill of the speed will overcome the fear of death. The speed itself isn’t even the issue, it’s the sudden stopping.
Water offers a superb braking system, they use it to stop the rocket-powered test sleds used to develop ejector seats. Boats are no different. The problem arrives when there is a piece of the boat between you and the water, albeit a shroud, mast, raised foil and so on.
Sir Isaac Newton stated, basically, that anything not bolted down will carry on moving at the original speed until stopped, meaning until your head goes into the mast or even worse a foil. Assuming you survive the stopping, the boat might be capsizing so you may then fall into it – or drop onto it – in an uncontrolled manner. Of course the thing that caused the sudden deceleration may have been a collision or an equipment breakage. This could result in
sharp surfaces suddenly appearing from nowhere. I once witnessed a Hurricane cat sailor being smacked off his boat as the bow of another one landed on him at a down- wind mark. Fortunately, he was wearing a good helmet, so could still communicate properly afterwards (or at least as well as a Hurricane sailor can do normally). Another is that you could simply fall off the boat. Most of the time this just results in much industrial language. However, should this happen close to the top mark in a crowded fleet, then things suddenly don’t look so rosy. To fall off and then see 30 or more A-cats, their riders just concen- trating on getting onto their foils as they round the spreader mark with you in the water and just ahead, is the stuff of night- mares. Deservedly so.
Now when he says again, ‘Well, it never happened in my day’ he’s right, it didn’t. But you’re not back in ‘his day’ any more, are you?
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for compulsory helmets in sailing, that would merely result in either mass
acts of law-breaking or people simply stopping sailing. Everyone should be free to choose. Some faster classes do now mandate the wearing of helmets, at least at big events, although this is possibly more to do with insurance. But you already see the sailors in those classes – such as the Olympic Nacra 17s – wearing their helmets as part of their standard kit.
I hear you, but
So after putting the fear of God into you, what can we do. The boats we sail can basically be split into four classes: Class I – ‘traditional’ sailing dinghies, usually travelling at less than 12-14kt in normal conditions. Class II – fast cats, 49er-type skiffs, foiling Moths and kiteboards etc, travelling up to about 25kt. Class III – the fastest foilers such as Flying Phantoms, Nacra 20F etc. Class IV – bigger fast foilers, the GC32, F50 etc.
Each class carries its own associated risks as seen in the table here.
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GORDON UPTON
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