Kai Lenny Developing New Big-Wave Helmet After Pipeline Head Injury

Perhaps more than anyone in surfing right now, Kai Lenny is working to push the bounds of performance, both for himself and his equipment. Recently, that drive took the form of a unique big-wave gun design. Now, he’s setting his sights on protective gear.

Kai knows first-hand the importance of impact protection at the sort of heavy-water breaks he frequents. While competing in the SUP division of the Da Hui Backdoor Shootout, Kai wiped out on wave that ended up sending him head-first into the reef, and then to the hospital. Though Kai later described the injury as the worst of his career, it actually could have been a lot more dire if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet at the time. Luckily he was, and the device absorbed so much force on impact that it literally split in half.

“First time wearing a helmet at Pipeline and it may have saved my life,” said Lenny afterwards. “I don’t remember much except that it was during my heat in the #DaHuiBackdoorShootout and the lifeguards sat me down in a chair at the Beach Park. I have a solid concussion and some bleeding out of my left ear. All should be fine, just need some time.”

This experience inspired Kai to delve deeper into helmet design, as he told RedBull in a recent interview. He pointed out that surf helmet design hasn’t changed all that much in 40 years and seems ripe for innovation. The first avenue he’s looking into is updating the materials.

“Based on what I’ve learned working with a few really smart people is that you can actually design these helmets where the crash structure is carbon fiber, which won’t break, even if all the fibers will break internally,” Lenny explained. “You wouldn’t want to use the helmet again, but what it does is it takes all of the force and it spreads it across the helmet. The way the carbon is laid out is going to basically diffuse that impact across the helmet, so that, internally, the fibers break while on the surface level it will probably look as if nothing happened.”

With that in mind, Kai has begun the development of his own helmet design. He’s working with Aidan Mobley, an engineer involved with SailGP. Mobley’s experience with the futuristic carbon fiber designs of racing sailboats turned out to be a perfect fit for the project. “He’s such a great person to work with because he builds these carbon structures and has connections through the America’s Cup,” explained Kai. “We gelled perfectly.”

Kai’s enthusiasm for helmets is part of a building wave of acceptance for protective gear in surfing. That’s a good thing, because it not only protects surfers’ skulls, but also helps to fuel innovation like Kai’s experimentation with carbon fiber. Who knows, one day his design might save the life of one of his peers.

The post Kai Lenny Developing New Big-Wave Helmet After Pipeline Head Injury first appeared on The Inertia.