I don’t know much about whitewater helmets. I’ve only ever owned one, and apart from crappy outfitter rentals and trying on a few at the U.S. National Whitewater Center Pro Shop, this is the only one that’s even been on my head.

But I’ve found a lightweight and inexpensive water sports helmet that should work for the majority of beginner whitewater packrafters, as well as for weight-conscious paddlers regardless of skill level. The Bern Macon 2.0 H2O.

But first,

The Problem with Packrafting Helmets

Manufacturers don’t list the weights of their whitewater helmets, nor do I trust them to bother to properly weigh a helmet and reply to me if I ask them to.

Many climbing and skiing helmet weights are listed to the nearest tenth of an ounce, as they should be. Weight is important in those sports. It’s also important in our sport, but we are left in the dark when looking to buy a helmet. As a result, I suspect most packrafters choose their helmets without much knowledge of this critical metric. This is unfortunate, especially for those of us who put the “pack” in packrafting.

People will say, “It’s protection that matters, not weight.” This statement is a false dichotomy, and falsely assumes that adding protection is primarily dependent on adding weight. But with good engineering, we can have our cake and eat it too. See the entire climbing and cycling helmet industries. We packrafters should expect this as well.

If a new paddler buys a helmet that is too heavy to carry on their back for 50+ miles through the mountainous terrain of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, we may just decide to leave it at home. Lighter helmets make us safer because we may be willing to carry them in situations when we otherwise may not have. Risk tolerances vary, but this statement remains true in aggregate.

Many packrafters over the years have paddled with climbing or cycling helmets, though this trend is dying out for safety reasons. Those helmets are designed to take a single, high impact hit, and can shatter to more effectively dissipate the energy. Whitewater helmets are designed to absorb many low impact hits, float, resist being torn off, and not to shatter.  

Climbing and cycling helmets also protect different areas of the head, as demonstrated below with a Petzl Sirocco.

Bern Macon 2.0 H2O Watersports Helmet

Due to my ignorance of this topic, the following shouldn’t be taken as a trustworthy review. Here are my thoughts anyway:

The Bern Macon 2.0 H2O Watersports Helmet costs $70 and weighs 11.9 oz in size Medium. It has removable ear protection that can subtract 0.7 oz from that number if you’re really cutting weight. It has a chin-strap, and two different thicknesses of foam inside. The shell is ABS plastic. It has a removable plastic and elastic nape strap that goes around the back of your head. It has vent holes and no bill. It comes in a variety of nice color combinations.

The Macon’s lack of a bill isn’t ideal, as there is nothing to create an air pocket in front of the wearer’s face if they should be trapped partially underwater. The vents are nice when above water, but again, they may cause problems if the wearer is trapped partially underwater. I forgive these problems as there is no other helmet (that I know of) on the market that is in the same weight class as this one. If you’re paddling Class IV or V, you may want to reconsider my dismissal of these shortcomings.

The soft ear protection is fine. It does reduce the wearer’s ability to hear somewhat. It’s removable, but is attached well so that it shouldn’t come off accidentally. After removing it, the helmet only weighs 11.2 oz. The chin-strap is fine as well. Nothing revolutionary here.

Due to its thicker foam, the helmet is more comfortable on the head than a rental whitewater rafting helmet, but is predictably less comfortable than the $120-$230 helmets listed below.

There is a “nape strap” that snaps into the helmet behind the head, and runs downward around the base of the skull to keep the helmet from canting forward. This strap disconnects too easily while donning and doffing the helmet, although it has never come off accidentally while on my head. The elastic used in the strap will eventually wear out, and the range of size adjustment in the strap is small, though this is mostly forgiven by the elastic. I don’t think it does much, actually. It is comfortable, though. Bern’s customer service is excellent, so they would probably ship out a new strap for free if you ask.

The helmet provides a decent amount of protection for the forehead, and a good amount above the ears and down the back of the head. It provides more protection in each of these areas than a climbing or cycling helmet provides.

I wear a billed cap under the helmet, which keeps the sun off and would probably create a small air pocket if necessary. I have not taken any impacts to the helmet while wearing it, and I hope to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Important Note:

Bern has an extensive line of helmets that are similarly named. Don’t confuse the H20 version with the Macon 2.0 Skate, Macon 2.0 Junior, Winter Macon 2.0, or Macon 2.0 Bike. The H2O at the end of the name is important, as this is the only one to have received EN 1385 approval. EN 1385 is the major safety standard used to certify whitewater helmets. The foams are different, but I don’t know what else changes between models.

Helmet Weights

At 11.2 – 11.9 oz (without the GoPro mount pictured above), I believe that this helmet is the lightest whitewater helmet on the market. I may be wrong because I haven’t weighed the vast majority of them. I did, however, buy a kitchen scale and spend some time at the U.S. National Whitewater Center weighing every helmet they had in stock at the time (these are brand new, dry helmets without packaging). Here they are, along with the Bern:

Sweet Rocker L/XL: 21.0 oz

Sweet Wanderer II S/M: 17.6 oz

Sweet Strutter S/M: 18.9 oz

Shred Ready Zeta M: 18.5 oz

Bern Macon 2.0 H2O M: 11.9 oz

Others:

Vebodi Indo Surf Hat: 7 oz

• (offers partial protection; designed for surfing)

This is a very incomplete list, but I will add to it whenever I can. Let me know if you have a helmet that you’ve weighed yourself, and I can add it to the list. Comment or email me (see Contact Page). I prefer not to trust manufacturer’s numbers, as they seem to weigh the helmets with tags on or in the packaging, and then round wildly. Their numbers are all over the place, and usually wrong.