The future?
“You know, I saw him that morning. That surfer who died out at Rincon. He drove past me and I swear it was him,” Terry Simms, surfing jack of all trades, tells me on unseasonably cold Southern California afternoon. “It just breaks my heart because I’ve got something that can help, I just need to get it out there…”
One-time Coastie-turned-professional longboarder, coach, surf tour guide and the man who appeared in the very first advertisement for the revolutionary leash has crafted Simba, the world’s first surf-specific helmet, and every time he reads or hears of head injuries out in the lineup it boils his blood.
“Look, I know that surfers aren’t going to wear helmets every time they paddle out but it should at least be a consideration sometimes. Like, if you’re surfing over shallow reef, out in a crazy crowd… all kids should be wearing them.”
“What makes your helmet different?” I ask.
Simms lights up.
“Well, it’s based on a Roman gladiator design and it has no straight edges, nothing for the water to grab so when you break the surface of the water your head doesn’t get ripped around. The water just channels through and runs out the back. Again, I really just want for people to know this is here because with the crowds the way they are, people bailing their boards, running into each other… it’s just becoming more necessary.”
A year ago, I would have thought Simms was wonderfully eccentric but mad in his assessment. Now, with the wild influx, the VAL utopia, I think he may be right. I recall when I first started snowboarding, two and a half decades ago, zero people wore helmets.
Now, only kooks don’t.
Will the same happen in surfing?
Will the helmet become like the leash before it?
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Gath helmets are/were butt ugly. Plenty of better looking water purpose helmets on the market since; see wake or kite style.
I once hit the sand bottom pretty hard, was lucky not to lose it then. If your kid is underage and surf’s crowded lineups would you rather have him wearing a helmet or explaining his/her mom that she gotta come to the hospital or morgue? Adults decide for themselves. Also tell your shaper that your next board prefers a stub nose.
I’m now considering not wearing my seatbelt and listen to that awful sound my car makes cos of it.
also: makes head butting bailed boards and thrashing greenhorns much more appealing
Too much time spent watching Spartacus reruns and none watching Easy Rider. The issue isn’t being first –The issue is — well — sitting in the lineup do you see yourself as Captain America or — well — you know. Gath had/has a nitch market with kayak slalom-racers. That’s not going to put groceries on the table. Furthermore SW WA has some of the best WW kayaking in the states. And so on — compared to the rest of the kayaking helmets available the Gath is just plain ugly. Should have learned a lesson there.
They are being sneaky trying to claim that it was the first surfing helmet when Tom Carroll wore one in 1987. But yeah Gath were made for surfing. Maybe they never made it to the states except as kayaking helmets, this we probably after they went bust.
“ I fear the VAL will bring on the death of gnar for the safety of kooks and they will do it by writing legislation canceling the rad. ”
Thanks Kama-aina, line of the year for me so far.
Meanwhile nose guards have gone the way of the dodo. My worst surfing injuries have been from being impaled by the nose, once in the arm and once in the face, though I did get a few cuts in the head that a helmet would have stopped.
Bloody oath
They work, I’ve still got a couple of boards with the original ones and a few with the smaller diamond tip ones.
When shapers stopped knowing how to actually shape in the early ’90’s and took the lazy route of sanding a preshaped blank 99% of boards have had the generic ‘chisel’ nose which is not far off how they come off a machine.
And then all the guys who were brought up in the Slater era and later thought that’s normal.
Ya better off rounding them off really, it’s not as if the tip actually has any function…
Cops hassle me for no helmet while on the pushy while a Harley Davidson dikhead blows by with a deafening roar so loud the cop has to stop talking.
Haha the land of the free. Love it
so true.. i can hear them miles away when the warmth arrives.. the only benefit i think of is, if they weren’t on their bikes they might be in the water.
Pretty racist naming it after a fictional anthropomorphized cartoon lion.
I mean it’s also cultural appropriation, taking that make from DisneyLand and mashing it up with ancient Sparta.
The helmet on top of my dad bod will surely drive the ladies wild. They will know that I mean business.
I don’t want to wear a helmet when I’m surfing. Snowboarding, no prob – I’m wearing a wool hat anyway. This whole “stay safe” thing is intolerable. Do you want to live, or do you want to LIVE.
As someone who’s been out of the water for 10 months with a surf related injury, I can tell you that this is not living.
Are purposely ignoring the fact that the surf specific Gath helmet has been around since the late 1980’s, that is more than 30yrs ago Charlie.
Did you not see that Thomas Victor Carroll was wearing one when he won the pipe masters in the famous ‘snap heard around the world’ year ?
Have you not seen that photograph, or read about or heard discussion of that day ?
Gath was built for kayaking! Look at me, being a surf journalist with a firm grasp on historical fact!
Come on Charlie, don’t ruin the reputation now. But I did love that bit of info.
No it fuckin’ wasn’t !
Ric Gath is a surfer from WA who made them for surfing.
We were getting them straight from him and selling in our surfshop in Takapuna, New Zealand in the late 1980’s when you were at coos bay elementary.
Any kayaking or whatever shit came later cos surfers weren’t buying many.
I suggest you stick to snow grit, you obviously never were a surfer, and still aren’t…
what shop?
Wayne Parkes Surfboards
Closed up a few yrs ago when Wayne moved north after 50 yrs…
I think you might have just trolled yourself Chas.
The original helmet that TC wore was called the Rad Hat and I think was made by a guy called Jim Bradley. It was more of a round design with a chin strap. You can see him wearing it in the old photos from the pipe masters and was in some of the Quiksilver ads. A few years later Rick Gath out of WA made the gath hat (TC and Liam McNamara wore them a lot) and you still see them quite often in Hollywood movies worn by generic baddies, especially the visor version. I think they were wearing them in TENET.
Somewhere along the line he went broke because all of a sudden you couldn’t get them anymore.
I don’t remember any press at all about them being designed for kayaking. There is a little bit of kayaking done on the Blackwood river near Margaret River but it’s hardly Death Defying.
I take back the bit about TC wearing one whilst doing the ‘snap’.
However, we were selling Gaths (straight from him) in the late 1980’s at our shop in NZ.
They were designed by a surfer for surfers.
As ya say, they didn’t do as well as hoped and he went with all that kayaking crap etc…
Actually mate in that famous snap was in 1991 and he’s wearing a black helmet and I am pretty sure that is a Gath. It was in 1987 that he wore the rad hat, here’s a link: https://www.tracksmag.com.a…
need to get rid of fins to. they scare the shit out of me more than the reef
Yes! I told my shaper to make the nose of my board even sharper. The revolutionary spearhead design coming to shop near you soon.
Does this mean we can start wearing GoPro helmet mounts too? Asking for a friend.
Lake Rules apply, Hobbsy. Do whatever the fuck you like son.
Make surfing grit again! I’m so tired of people coming up with solutions for non issues. If you are afraid of the dangers of what ever you do for fun feel free to wear stupid safety gear or stay at home but please don’t make it normal for us to have to wear a leash, helmet, sunscreen, use rubber fins, or only surf soft waves. Can we leave just a bit of hard core alive for freedom sake. Let me make my bad decisions or good ones. I fear the VAL will bring on the death of gnar for the safety of kooks and they will do it by writing legislation canceling the rad. There is so much more I want to say but I’m sure that it will be read as hate speech so I will refrain. Aloha hard.
Oh I hear you. I still don’t wear a helmet snowboarding but know I’m being a kook for it. I just wonder if helmets will become ubiquitous in surfing.
Not entirely. I type this from a Utah resort. Younger (late teens, early 20’s – the stupid age) local rippers still don’t wear helmets; not all, but many. If you’re a dope smoking snowboarder in the above demo than you skew toward no helmet.
Do an honest tally in the lift line. Not one from punk heart.
If helmets in surfing does take off, it will take a generation of time to make it happen. Same reason most over 40 still just don’t feel right wearing a helmet skiing/snowboarding.
It’s why I don’t but had revelation at Jackson that being old and not changing is a sure mark of kook-ness.
No Chaz. That’s wisdom. Kook-ness is changing for safety sake. Wisdom is changing for performance sake. Like letting your mid length get you more waves and surf better when its over head. Wisdom.
I don’t skate, but I baffles me how helmets have never gained traction in that world apart from kids. Surely it the most dangerous board sport for head injuries.
Skaters know how to fall. That makes it a lot safer than having some random kook hit you out of the blue.
Oh yes, in that instant things go south a skater can decide how to contort his body to minimise the outcome of the impact.
Pray that it won’t Chaz. I’m the old kook at the skate park that won’t wear pads or helmet but man it feels good to be alive.
Every time a hear someone say, ‘stay safe…’ I wanna strangle them. Nothing worth doing or has ever been done with the ‘stay safe’ mentality. It’s the mentality of a people that are about to be thrown onto the dust bin of history.
My parents always told me “have fun” and “I love you” when I was leaving the house as a kid because I was raised knowing that I would have to deal with the consequences if I did anything stupid or dangerous. And I did. Learned many thing by not being safe. Great life lessons.
Understood…I never wore a helmet when I was a kid on my bike [they weren’t invented then], but my 8yo daughter does. I still say “have fun” and “I love you”…your thoughts?
That, and “dinner’s at 6.30 – better be there!”
I think it’s more the attiude of ‘don’t take risks’ which is unhelpful because a lot of times you need to take a risk to progress.
In the workplace, stay safe is a different matter and working in say construction without PPE is eventually gonna get you hurt. In fact it will probably get you sacked beforehand.
and that’s why having sharks near the surf is a good thing……will have my underwater drone shark ready soon…so I can have a peaceful surf because it’s all about memememememememe!!!!!!!
Over here the rich haole’s hire the best local surfers to make sure there aren’t any sharks in the way or waves they can’t surf. We got all the top dollar VAL’s making sure the “pro surfers” make it though the covid era.
What about if having a helmet means you don’t waste your entire Indo boat charter because you scalped yourself on day 1. What about if it gives you that little extra confidence to charge over the ledge? What if it means a nasty wipeout doesn’t mean the end of your session, or a week out of the water? All those scenarios mean more waves ridden, and that can hardly be a bad thing. And, what about if wearing a helmet meant you still had enough brain cells left to give the topic meanigful consideration?
Ya but then greasebutt69 will call you a pussy on BeachGrit. And then whatcha gonna do?
Well Chad, you are right. But what about all the exciting stories and situations that over planing and thoughtful safety stop from happening? The world would probably be better off if no one did anything un-calculated and stupid. And the guy that gets to surf the waves you would have after being shipped home scalped or because you are too scared to push over that ledge is happy to make sure those wave get ridden. And to play your thinking out to the end. Do you wear knee braces on both knees for ever surf? I do not know a surfer that surfs well that has not had to sit out a swell due to a knee injury but I only know of a few that have been out for head trauma of any kind. All that to say if you want to pad up for your adventure go for it. It’s not stupid to be safe. It’s also not very awesome or inspiring. Watch Andy Irons surf and imagine him with a helmet on.
The weird thing about helmets is as soon as you put one on you start whacking your head on stuff.
Maybe it’s just with the helmet you actually have the memory of whacking your head?
Yeah that’s a good point. Now I think about it there’s a couple of dents in my head that are ‘origin unknown’.
please correct me if I am wrong, but was gath not surf specific?, can’t recall seeing them being used anywhere else.
i think kayaking was their purpose. I stand corrected downvoters
pretty sure that was just a misunderstanding. when rick first designed the helmet he was explaining to his parents that had been testing it at Margret river. they just assumed it was for kayaking.
I reckon there’s some wires getting crossed. Rick Gath was from SW WA and the kayaking there is pretty average. May as well float down the river in an inner tube. Bit hard to believe a guy would develop a helmet for kayaking in that part of the world unless he happened to be a kayaker on the side.