Oakley’s WTR Icon. Illustration: Oakley
What do Owen Wright, Albee Layer, Billy Kemper, Kai Lenny, Jamie Mitchell, India Robinson, Nikki Van Dijk, Tyler Wright, Natxo Gonzalez, Koa Rothman, Becca Speak, Greg Long, Sterling Spencer, Yolanda Hopkins, Ross Williams, and Jack Robinson all have in common? Apart from being elite surfers, they have all suffered concussions whilst riding waves that have led to varying degrees of brain trauma. This list, too, is just the tip of the iceberg, of not only professionals but the wider surfing public.
It’s no surprise then that as the issue is becoming more front and center, the use of helmets is finally becoming more mainstream. It was only three years ago that The Inertia posed the question; Surfing in Helmets: Why isn’t it more popular? In that article, Alexander Haro quoted Mason Ho saying, “Honestly, it’s hard to put a helmet on, because I grew up watching most of my heroes surf without one.”
While Tom Carroll wore a helmet at Pipeline in the early 1990s, as did Liam McNamara in the next decade, the wearing of helmets by professionals was rare and usually in response to a recent injury.
In the three years since that article was written, that has changed. In the Pipeline Pro, a quarter of athletes wore helmets, and that ratio ratcheted up past 50 percent in the Tahiti-based Championship Tour and Olympic events. With the world’s best surfers wearing helmets, the rest of the surfing population will undoubtedly follow suit.
No wonder then that helmet technology is improving as demand rises. Oakley is the latest brand to hit the market with a new product. The WTR Icon is designed to absorb impact, disperse energy, and reduce blunt force trauma and the outer shell is made from an ultra-light, yet tough-as-nails material called Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). Weighing in under 365 grams, Oakley claims it’s one of the lightest surfing helmets on the market. It’s been Rated 4 stars in Virginia Tech’s Helmet Lab, whose independent ratings are the culmination of over 15 years of research on head impacts in various sports and identifying which helmets best reduce concussion risk. It was a prototype of this model that Caity Simmers wore on her way to her iconic win at the Pipeline Pro. The helmet should be made available to the public by November.
The WTR will add competition to the established surf helmets we covered in our best-of wrap last year. In that compilation, it was Gath, with its EVA/Neo model and Simba, and its Sentinel 1, that were recognized as the best buys. Gath has been making helmets since the late 1980s, and its iconic design has been tested by Olympic gold medallist Kauli Vaast at Teahupo’o. Simba has only entered the surf market in the last five years, but its distinctive Roman Centurion looking buckets have been used by Garrett McNamara, Koa Smith and Joao Macedo at some of the world’s heaviest waves.
In the soft shell category, where softer material can still absorb impact, but doesn’t offer the kind of protection of the hard shell, brands like Gamebreaker, Gecko and DMC offer cheaper and more comfortable options. Maybe not perfect for massive Teahupo’o, but suitable for a good day at the local, a wave pool session or for kids wanting extra protection.
Yet as shown by the entrance of a big sports tech players like Oakley, we’re starting to see some big leaps in surf helmet technology. “A helmet this good could definitely change the mindset around helmets in the surf community,” said Griff Colapinto. And that’s probably a good thing for surfing.
