DMC Soft Surf Helmet

Recommendation: No different from the new V2 version, the DMC Soft Surf Helmet offers low to moderate protection for any size wave. Decent coverage, despite the gaps, and neck sun protection too. Insanely light, but it’s so light it’s hard to achieve a decent fit. Because of this it’s impossible to avoid water dripping in your eyes. However, it works well over wetsuit hoods.

Available directly from DMC Fins or check the SBR sports price or Amazon.

Review

Protection

The DMC Soft Surf Helmet is made from Vinyl Nitrile. A fairly popular material used in helmet liners in a wide range of sports, including soft shell skiing and snowboard helmets. VN is unique in that it is a closed cell foam that comes in varying densities which offer different impact absorbing qualities. All characteristics that are quite useful in surf helmet construction. VN won’t take on any water, and the varying densities can be used in conjunction with each other to control varying degrees of impact energy - from low density for minor impacts (which can also double as a comfort liner) to high density for more G force.

Oddly, the DMC doesn’t appear to take advantage of these unique-to-VN material characteristics. As far as I can tell, the DMC is made from a one, very thin medium density layer. Good enough for bumps, but most likely not something that will suffice for high speed impacts. For that, you will probably need 2-3 layers of different densities. Plenty of room for improvement on a next iteration though.

Performance

The DMC Soft Surf Helmet is an overall excellent performer. It’s insanely light and minimal, and works well on your bare head or over wetsuit hoods, especially due to its ultra-low profile.

There are only about 2 things that could be better in terms of performance. The first is that it’s sort of hard to achieve an ideal fit and avoid water dripping in your eyes due to the fact that it’s so feather-light and has an awkward, rugby-style, lace-up back. Perhaps just increase the protection to kill two birds with one stone, making it more protective and a littler heavier so it feels more snug. Second, as already mentioned, the back mechanism to tighten the helmet is a classic, rugby-style, lace up back. For one, it’s hard to make it fit super snug because how would you tie something tight when the laces are on the back of your head? You can’t have someone do it for you every session, and it’s a surf helmet, so it should be tight enough that you would need to untie it to take it off. Perhaps implement a stretchy, elastic mechanism instead so you can easily achieve a snug fit.

Conclusion

The DMC Soft Surf Helmet is a well-designed helmet made for surfing, but doesn’t necessarily fit the bill in terms of protection and fit. However, I was able to easily remedy these issues by adding my own liner. Check out my discreet page for ideas - I used the Gamebreaker Stealth Helmet Liner and cut it to shape.