So it’s been on my mind in the past.

Eye protection/sunnies should ya wear it, could the eyewear break and cut your eye up even worse than if you did not wear any?

I have always believed that standard sunnies were a nono because of this, but safely glasses or the kite surfing goggles, like seaspecs, I was not sure.

Well its finally happened to me mate, but i still don’t really have an answer, He was wearing safety glasses, the kind ya get for working on building sites, "good quality" (he's a self-employed builder).

He was doing a water start, over cooked it, went over the board (not a biggie) and somehow managed to get the bar to smash into his eye wear, which then broke and cut his eye lid and cheek.

He is ok, but not without a pretty scary wait for the doc's to confirm his eye will be fine.

The doc believes that the eye wear saved him from losing his eye.

I am not so sure, I wonder if the glasses needed to be more impact resistant.

Anyways i have done some google'ing, but I’m not really any closer to a conclusion.

I personally have some seaspec's, but i hardly wear them, I get fed-up with the spray on them and i just don’t like wearing sunnies anyway.

At the moment IKO do not state that eye protection should be worn in the sea, and actually state that sunglasses can be worn while learning onshore.

So what’s your opinion? Do ya have any personnel experience with this?

Please don't start a flame about why did he fall over the board, he should have had lessons (which he has had) blah blah. We have all done it, either from water starts when we were 1st learning or from more advanced stuff, like landing jumps/tricks wrong. I saw him do it and it was not a biggie, i have done and seen much much worse, just luckily not had the bar smack me in the eye.