Whitewater Helmet Review

Who’s Got Your Back?

Conspicuously absent from a paddling helmet review are stamps of approval from any sort of certifying entity. While we are not fans of having Big Brother regulate our paddling and tell us to signal when pulling into an eddy, it does make some sense for one of our most important pieces of safety equipment to have some mutually-agreed-upon standard of protection that is appropriate for the conditions it will be worn in. Just ask Gil Turner. His son, Lucas Brandon Turner, died on the North Fork of the Payette River in Idaho on July 12, 1998, from a blow to the head in a kayaking accident after the helmet he was wearing slipped back from his forehead. A year and a half after his son’s death, Turner boarded a plane and went to the ASTM International convention to investigate what could be done to create a standard that would help save lives. ASTM, as per their Web site, “is one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world—a trusted source for technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services. ” What Turner found was that whitewater helmets were grouped into a segment that includes every aspect of recreational helmet use from football to equestrian. According to Turner, “The entire industry segment has to get together and create a standard, and then the standard has to receive a 100 percent ‘yes’ vote from each committee member to be adopted.” While the manufacturers to whom we spoke seem to agree that some sort of standardization would be a good thing, very few were willing to put forth the effort. In many cases this is due not to a lack of desire but a lack of time. The whitewater industry tends to exist in its own world. And it is a very small world indeed. Most helmet manufacturers are small operations that manage to get by doing what they are passionate about. Spending the time to create a standard would take the manufacturers away from other tasks such as making sure retailers get product to sell so they can pay their own bills. In the meantime, Turner has established the Whitewater Research & Safety Institute, Inc. (WRSI), a nonprofit foundation dedicated to making whitewater recreation a safer sport. A by-product of WRSI’s work is the creation of a prototype helmet that represents the culmination of their research. So who has your back? It’s up to you. Do your homework. Make sure the piece of safety equipment you choose is suitable for your usage, and remember that the most important piece of equipment is having your head screwed on straight and exercising solid judgment.