In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started wearing a red impact vest during some sessions. Since I never ride a twin tip, the perceived benefit to me isn’t so much protection from crashes and tumbles, but rather the extra buoyancy and warmth the impact vest brings.
Now, the vest I’m using doesn’t have a CE rating to classify it as a buoyancy aid, although it does clearly give me extra float. If your primary requirement of an impact vest is flotation, then you need to look for a vest with a CE rating of 50N, which would give you an upward force against sinking of 50 Newtons. A vest with a rating of 50 Newtons would need about 5kg to sink it, so you get an idea of the buoyancy there.
Blatting about on the new Cabrinha Trigger board here. Nice stick
A 50N rated vest according to SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) is only good for calm, inshore waters and clearly not the sort of conditions you’d find yourself in if the merd hit the fan half a mile out to sea in a raging storm – thusly an impact vest can never be relied upon as a life saving device. Instead, I like to think of it as something that will get me back to the surface a bit quicker, help me float a bit better in the foam, and will take some of the pressure off when I’m bobbing around and trying to relaunch a kite and sorting stuff out, or perhaps swimming in without my kit. So yes, it just buys you a bit more time with your head above the surface.
Well I’ve been wearing an over head stretchy (non fastening) one that has a non-padded area that fits seamlessly under a waist harness. I can detect no loss of mobility and really in water temps of 13 degrees and cooler, I can think of no reason not to wear it.
Image taken with the ever faithful KiteHero line mount for the GoPro
Quite liking how the red vest sets off the red centre line
In fact if I remember, the only reason I’ve heard not to wear an impact vest is because it sends out a signal to other riders that you are a ‘kook’ or a ‘numpty’ and therefore not ‘cool’.
On the 10m North Fuse here, it was so windy I could have used a 7m
And that brings us into an argument based on ‘what other people think of us’. My counter to the belief that impact vests make you look like a kook is that only the people who do not know you would think that, as clearly your regular riding buddies will already be aware of your abilities: if you rip, they’ll know that and their opinion won’t change because you’ve slipped on a new vest. Likewise, if you are a bit of a stinker with the kite then they’ll already know that anyway and they’ll enjoy riding with you because you’re fun to be around, so there’s nothing to lose there.
Furthermore, if you regularly put yourself in precarious situations in a cold, dark sea then every now and then someone who knows you very well may feel some anxiety regarding your well being. The addition of an impact vest to your kit bag could do a lot to ease their concerns.
So who do you want to impress most? The stranger who will judge you and five seconds later forget you exist, or the people that genuinely give a hoot if you make it back home for dinner for the rest of your life?
Nice post; a good point well made and I agree. However shouldn’t we be advocating the use of helmets before impact vests? An impact vest is unlikely to save an unconscious rider in the water, a helmet could stop him or her becoming unconscious in the first place.
Thanks for the comment Drew, hope you’re all good mate.
Yes I was sure that people might raise the point about helmets, as a couple have done on the FB link. Students / those on lessons should wear lids and vests of course (as dictated by the BKSA policy) but I think once you get comfortable with the sport, you start to make decisions based on your own experiences.
For example, a lot of people I know wear board leashes even though they’ve been kiting for 8 years or so; for them the board becomes a safety device when all is lost and they don’t want to be easily parted with it. Most kiters maintain that board leashes are verboten.
I’m wearing an impact vest before a helmet because in all the problems I’ve had kitesurfing, being hit on the head was never one of them (*apart from once!), but struggling for buoyancy often is. Now, this could be as much to do with where I kite (big, open beaches with cross / cross on winds and nothing to hit for miles, and that waveriding with a kite is much the same as waveriding without a kite. The most likely way you’ll get hit on the head is by your own board, when you’re resurfacing after a wipeout and as you know any sensible surfer sticks their hands up first to sheild their dome from any loose boards.
However I have a Gath on order this week, as there is a spot nearby that breaks over a rocky reef and attempting to get ‘deep’ there can result in going over the falls, and possibly a bang on the head – so I’ll be wearing the lid there from now on. When I’m not in a situation where head traumua is a distinct possiblity, I find lids like wetsuit hoods – claustrophobic and dulling the senses.
There is the counter-argument that you may be caught unawares and clonked on the head, but if you take that to it’s logical conclusion, we should be wearing lids to play football and in the kitchen (more head bangs from standing up and hitting an open overhead cupboard door than any other factor I reckon!); maybe now I’m missing the point but for most of the riding I do (high depower kite, no board leash, deep water, not doing tricks, wave riding), there is a low risk of severe head trauma.
That said I’d never make that argument against anyone who wants to wear a lid for whatever reason.
* I had a deep gash to the forehead after a tumble into some rocks / board (not really sure which) in the shorebreak at the beach at Porthleven. This happened because I should have ditched all my kit when the kite fell out of the sky, rather than lazily letting all my gear wash my in. If I’d have disconnected from the kite, and pushed the board away, I’d have been able to tread water safely and wait for the lull rather than chancing it in the set. I knew that at the time, as said I was just lazy/complacent to the risk which IMO is the reason for more injuries than lack of personal protection equipment.
Maybe time for a post on being your own risk rechnician?
Good point on the impact vest. I never wore a helmet or a vest, but I am now going to get a vest for all the reasons you stated (I tend to kite alone alot!, Dont try this at home kids, I have an EPIRB).
I have started wearing a non ear covering helmet AKA gopro camera mount, and I find these days I stick it on wether I am shooting or not, and also, Not having any hair to style/show off, i can decorate my lid instead!!
As usual great Blog…
Kite Safe.
Jamie
Does this mean someone at home actually cares about you Dom?
Don’t be silly Rou, you’ll know that the when it comes to the ‘aaah how cute’ factor, kitesurfing magazine editors are right up there with the sewer rat. The real reason I wear a vest is that the magazine world is so high stakes that you can never be sure if someone has tampered with your kit or not.
Whereas the mafia (who some say control Kiteworld) may cut your brake lines on land, on the beach they’ll file down one of your steering lines or compromise your harness in some way.
Paranoid? Yes. But as you know, this is big business we’re dealing with!
Hey Dom great post!
Long time no speak and all that!
I am with you on the impact vest, I have always used one as I do when Wakeboarding as you never know. Nonetheless as you explain I am comfortable with this activity so I don’t tend to use a helmet, although I always do when on the Kite. This I would put down to then fact I have a leash to my board and I have seen the damage a board can do! So I go with this:
Leash = Helmet for sure
No Leash = Helmets always a good idea but your of a level that you know what your doing
As for the Mafia! Keep safe
Regards
Carl
I wear a Gath helmet most of the time. Need to get hold of a decent bouyancy aid/impact vest. Was thinking that a bouyancy aid is a better bet than an item marketed as an impact vest alone. Isn’t the padding in the impact vest a slimmer version of that offerred by the bouyancy aid?
Indeed, a buoyancy aid will give more upward thrust. I have got me eye out for a towsurfing spec impact vest. This red one I’m using here is a comfortable and available solution for now, and it does add warmth too.