In sailing, the boom comes across the boat during tacks and jibes and has potential to impact a participant’s head and cause injury. To our knowledge, there are no sailing specific helmets on the market in the United States. To determine the effectiveness of a wakeboarding helmet to mitigate the risk of head injury, we measured the boom angular velocity on a 24-foot keel sailboat during controlled jibes. The boom motion was recreated in a laboratory setting and positioned to contact the occiput of the instrumented head of a Hybrid III 50th percentile male anthropometric testing device (ATD). Tests were conducted with an unhelmeted ATD and with an ATD wearing a wakeboarding helmet. Boom angular velocities and head accelerations for unhelmeted impacts were highly correlated (R2 = 0.996). The watersports helmet reduced head accelerations by 52 ± 4% when compared to accelerations from unhelmeted impacts.
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ASME 2010 Summer Bioengineering Conference
June 16–19, 2010
Naples, Florida, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Bioengineering Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-4403-8
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
Protective Capabilities of a Watersports Helmet for Boom-to-Head Impacts During Sailing
Lenka L. Stepan,
Lenka L. Stepan
Exponent, Los Angeles, CA
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Reed Thomas
Reed Thomas
Exponent, Phoenix, AZ
Search for other works by this author on:
Lenka L. Stepan
Exponent, Los Angeles, CA
Irving S. Scher
Exponent, Bellevue, WA
Reed Thomas
Exponent, Phoenix, AZ
Paper No:
SBC2010-19717, pp. 305-306; 2 pages
Published Online:
July 15, 2013
Citation
Stepan, LL, Scher, IS, & Thomas, R. "Protective Capabilities of a Watersports Helmet for Boom-to-Head Impacts During Sailing." Proceedings of the ASME 2010 Summer Bioengineering Conference. ASME 2010 Summer Bioengineering Conference, Parts A and B. Naples, Florida, USA. June 16–19, 2010. pp. 305-306. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/SBC2010-19717
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