Safety Helmets....?

photodog

photodog

Lord High Commander of Upper Broughton and Gunthor
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The article about the death of the skipper in this months YM got me to thinking about the need for safety helmets/hard hats on board.

Head injuries appear to be failry common, especially with boom accidents, Many other sports now are using safety helmets, cycling, Boxing, Horsey riding, climbing, why dont we use them on board?

i would have thought that when racing or running, or under bouncy conditions some sort of head protection may be long overdue.....

Anyone out there using this sort of thing? Could Safety helmets be more important than LJ's?
 
I'd give them par... but you must have read the long arguments for and against the wearing of lifejackets at all times, so be prepared for another long and unresolved question.
 
Following a pretty heavy accident while racing in the early 70's (I fell headfirst down the main hatch when I was trying to get out of the way of the gorillas), I took to wearing a canoeing helmet.

Extra warmth, extra flotation as well as bump protection.

Huge amounts of ribbing from the crew whenever I came on deck to run a radio fix or sight, until one day we were in Lyme Bay in fog. Someone hoisted a radar reflector up the backstay.

A few minutes later, the whole aluminium contraption came down onto my helmet. Minor bruising and a slice out of the helmet material, and muted laughter of relief from the crew.

Modern canoe helmts look like the best answer. e.g.
http://www.cornwall-canoes.co.uk/equipment/helmets.htm
 
Yep, I see Your point.
Tell Me this Folks.
I,m not a Saily person but I notice serious Racing Sailing boats.
Yer know the big Americas Cup sort of craft and others of that ilk.
Why don't they wear Lifejackets or even bouyancy aids etc?
Those racing vessels seem to shove along quite quickly in heavy seas and the "Deckhands" sorry Crew or whatever (scuse My saily ignorance) are to my mind rather exposed to being dunked!

Back to Helmets Photodog.
Some peeps find them akward, ref hearing/ balance etc.
In a Racing/ Competive enviroment it would seem that they would be a good idea.
Dunno what the circumstances of the incident you allude to in YM.
Any protection that is available to people should be taken up imho.
Helmet technology has come on in leaps and bounds since I was racing Motorbikes with a "Pudding Basin" on me craniam back in the 60's! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Ahhh, see, well, you just, um, err, get a bigger boat to sail on and wear a Tilley hat. No boom in sight, see?

Jimhelm.jpg


Here I am in ElfinSafetee heaven whilst wearing appropriate protection.
According to the advertising, if I get eaten by an elephant while wearing my Tilley hat, I will be shat out the back end with no apparent ill effects. Marvellous.

Whats an LJ? Is that a Sailors BJ? If so, I guess they could be important, but not while ducking the boom.
 
Flaps down old boy.... or its a Stetson!

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I think there is a health and safety issue here. Should sailers do a complete risk assesment before they sail. I would suggest helmets like those worn on motor bikes might be the answer, they could be colour co ordinted for the crews, perhaps before each tack the crew sould be ordered below for safety reasons and then come up on deck afterwards.

Further investigation is needed
 
I'm pretty strongly against helmets.

Recently there has been a movement that small children learning to sail in toppers etc wear helmets. These kids clearly cannot sense the wind direction in these brightly coloured lids and crash gybe endlessly.
"Ah-ha!" Say the health and safety lot, "see, they're hitting their heads all the time!"

So these kids learn that gybing is no big deal, and has no consequences. They also don't learn wind apreciation.

No thanks.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Ahhh, see, well, you just, um, err, get a bigger boat to sail on and wear a Tilley hat. No boom in sight, see?

Jimhelm.jpg


Here I am in ElfinSafetee heaven whilst wearing appropriate protection.
According to the advertising, if I get eaten by an elephant while wearing my Tilley hat, I will be shat out the back end with no apparent ill effects. Marvellous.

Whats an LJ? Is that a Sailors BJ? If so, I guess they could be important, but not while ducking the boom. [/quote

Jim, that hat is identical to the one I have on board, but you know you will have to wear a ginger wig under it when you come up this way /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Is it not an Aussie diggers hat?
 
I had been pondering that same question a couple of wks ago after reading Fatal storm, and thinking of all the head injuries which could have been avoided if they were wearing a safety helmit, considering someone with a head injury, serious or not, could be the cause of more serious accidents due to lack of clear judgement or distractions etc.
 
I'm thinking of campaigning to make lightning conductors compulsory for golfers!
Oh, oh... compulsory stabilisers for cyclists.
How about little rubber finger guards for nose pickers.
 
Photodog,
You have a point; as we aged out of Oppies(+16 yrs ago), the local U8's flotilla were wearing canoe helmets(cos they always gybed). Took the pain out and kept 'em sailing!!
In 1998, three Wayfarers took various routes from Southwold to Svendborg for their International Cruising Rally.
Yeah, I know all open water Waffie passage makers are nutters, but we can sail a bit occasionally and the W is a brill seaboat. Anyway, one W took the route to Esjberg, up the ship killer coast- big on shore seas. The guv, Ralph Roberts, slipped and fell headlong, struck his head agin the aft tank, but Ralph, bless him, wore a canoe helmet,. stars, shock, but survived to tell the tale- our logs may be on W website elogs by now. We had our mast come down backwards mid sail change, mid Nord See, and were lucky: my L shoulder bruised and just missed Bob's head. we thought Ralph weren't daft that am! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

So if you are in a Sunsail 37 "widowmaker", or a cruising dinghy, tin hat not a bad idee.
SWMBO & I wear LJs cos we are ex dinghy sailors and used to being trussed up(keep it clean pl.). Now in a big yacht, after 39 yrs 2gether, still want a chance of getting the other 32/64ths back on board, so wear LJ's all time when not tied to something and require crew to do same.

That's our personal choice, on our boat, would not dream of telling another boat how to run their lives: "different ships, different long splices" in the old words???

TTFN
 
When I'm helmimg a safety boat, I often wear a bump cap. That's a hard cap that can fit under a 'baseball' cap.

Stops a lot of problems when dinghy booms come across your head.


I also wear it, when I can remember, on my own boat.
 
Yes, I did too for Safety boat duty, had one of those red Musto fleece lined ones with chin strap- but a Laser boom came across in a blow, cracked the styrene insert in two lengthwise! Better than me nut??
Still got the hat, in fact wore it last Monday in that blow, but fished the split "bump" bit out of a seam long ago. It was always hot and sweaty unless really cold- thats why it's stuck around so long?? /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
IMH (and professional) O, helmets for sailing are like helmets in any other sport, e.g. cricket, mountaineering, caving, horse-riding.

I'd rather look a bit daft on a rough day, than look dead.
 
After reading Stingo's transatlantic post, of long ago, about his battle to tame the flailing elements of a broken forestay, I have kept an old cycle helmet on board for such eventualities. Hopefully it will stay in the locker with the life raft, flares and other emergency stuff. One day I will get round to replacing it with a canoeing helmet which will be usable if I ever after to go under the hull to clear a prop..
 
I've got a canoe helmet that I bought last summer so I could sail the dinghy a couple of weeks after my latest bout of brain surgery. I then wore it on the Snowgoose, not for protection from the boom (It's way too high to worry about) but from the top of the bridge-deck door and the main bulkhead in the saloon, both of which give plenty of reason to wear a hard hat even without half your skull being detached already.
The advantage of the canoe-style hat is that it is very close-fitting and does not impair your hearing or vision. Larger hats cause you to bang your head more, not less, because they make your head effectively larger.
Having had a couple of serious dunts from booms over the years I think I would consider a hard hat on a boat that might catch me out again.
 
A local sailing school insist on their students wearing them, personally I would not wear one as it would reduce wind awareness.
 
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