If you’re a fan of white water rafting, chances are you’re often exposed to strong sun rays, water spraying, and sun glare for many hours on end.
As a watersport addict, you probably already know that the combination of sun rays, water, and harsh wind in your face can dry out your eyes and lead to nasty eye sunburns.
Worse, the UV radiation from the sun over time damages the eye and can cause early cataracts as well as more serious retinal problems such as macular degeneration.
The glare from the water, and paddling toward a low-hitting sun, make things even worse.
Wearing sunglasses for whitewater rafting reduces your eyes’ exposure to UV rays and water splashes. However, most sunglasses don’t work well for action sports like rafting, mainly due to:
- Wipeouts: if you wipeout, your glasses may get ripped off your face or may even break on your face under a hard impact
- Lack of vision clarity: when navigating rapids, you want to be able to see everything around you, including obstacles like rocks or debris. You also need to be able to spot anyone who floats in the water
- Fogging: likewise, fogging will get in the way of your vision and hence quick reactions when paddling
Rafters need solid sunglasses that won’t get in their way, slow them down, or add to the risk when riding rapids e.g. by fogging up, limiting the vision, or breaking on impact. The Lip Typhoon are high-quality and high-resistance sunglasses for watersports. I find them to be a perfect fit for white water rafting as well as my other watersports. Read on for the details.
Should you wear sunglasses for river rafting?
If you’re worried about your eyes getting harmed by the sun, wearing sunglasses when white water rafting will reduce your exposure to UV rays and water splashing.
However, you need sunglasses that are specifically well-suited for the activities and situations involved in white water rafting. I’ll go over them briefly:
Rapids
Rafters encounter different levels of rapids depending on the river’s classification. The rapids can be challenging and unpredictable, and navigating them safely requires teamwork and communication. Your rafting sunglasses should have super clear and broad peripheral vision.
Obstacles
Rafters must navigate around obstacles such as rocks, downed trees, and floating debris that can be dangerous to both the raft and the paddlers. Good rafting sunglasses should be impact resistant in case something flies into your face, and should not shatter on impact.
Changing water levels and flow
Water levels in a river can change rapidly due to weather conditions, dam releases, or other reasons. Regardless, your sunglasses should keep water off your face and stay clear when splashed.
Rafters also need loss-proof sunglasses that will not get ripped off their face or will remain attached to them e.g. when coming across a strainer (an obstacle in the river that allows water to pass through but traps everything else).
Swimmers
In the event that someone falls out of the raft (hence becoming a swimmer), rafters must work together to quickly get them back in the raft or to shore.
Here again, if you fall your sunglasses should stay on your face thanks to secure strapping. Or if they do come off, they should remain attached to you while you’re being pulled (or pulling someone) back into the boat.
Flips
Rafts can flip over in certain situations e.g. hitting a large rock or wave at the wrong angle. Rafters must know how to quickly right the raft and get everyone back inside safely.
Good rafting sunglasses should repel the water after a dip into the water, and have the ability to withstand impact as you struggle to flip the capsized raft over.
Navigation
Rafters must be skilled at navigating the river to ensure that they stay on course and reach their destination safely. They need to understand the flow of the river and the features of the landscape.
Here again, rafting sunglasses must offer excellent visibility so that you can clearly make out all the details around you while navigating and quickly make the right decisions. Your glasses should not fog up and blind your vision thanks to a good air and water flow system.
Summer rafting
To fend off the intense summer sun, rafting sunglasses should provide UV 400 and glare-free vision, ideally with polarized lenses.
Frame curvature also plays a major role: the greater the curvature, the lower the likelihood that UVA and UVB rays will sneak into your eyes.
LIP Typhoon: best white water rafting sunglasses
After trying a bunch of different watersports sunglasses, I found what I was looking for in the Lip Typhoon. These sunglasses give me unparalleled vision when river rafting and have bullet-proof impact resistance. They also have the best retainer system I’ve seen so far.
Impact protection
The Typhoon frame is made from Grilamid TR90, a highly flexible and resistant Swiss-developed nylon thermoplastic. This means during a hard wipeout, the frame will flex without snapping and will spread the force of the shock around the eye.
The frame is also padded with soft TPU rubber all around the frame, which acts like a cushion and softens the impact. This, along with the flex, has helped save the eye of several Typhoon owners while doing watersports.
The lenses also play a role in impact protection as the Typhoon comes with high-quality Zeiss lenses built with impact-resistant polycarbonate or polyamide material, guaranteed not to shatter on impact.
In contrast, lenses made with mineral glass or CR-39 found in many sunglasses will shatter into pieces under a hard shock.
Loss-proof attachment system
The next thing that sets the Lip Typhoon apart from other sunglasses for rafting (and other action waterports) is its unique 2-stage leash and necklace mechanism.
The first stage is an adjustable cord that you cinch at the back of your head to keep the sunglasses tight when wakeboarding.
The second part is a silicon necklace that goes around your neck and is attached to the leash part of the (first-stage) cord. If you have a rough wipeout and the glasses get pulled off your face despite the cinched cord behind your head, they will simply hang off the necklace and leash.
This setup is pretty much a guarantee against losing the glasses even in case of impact when rafting in rapids.
Fog and splash-free
The other key aspect for rafting is vision clarity and comfort – defogging, splash resistant. LIP sunglasses have a special patented venting system with small channels cut into the frame and rim, as well as cutouts in the lenses themselves (top and bottom).
The small cutouts around the lenses means the water drains very well and prevents fogging.
The glasses also have hydrophobic and oleophobic coatings on both the inner and outer lens surfaces, so the water really beads off the lenses when you get sprayed while rafting. This results in the lenses staying clear when paddling hard on the water.
Vision clarity
The Typhoons give you amazingly clear vision and broad peripheral range when paddling. These are premium Europe-made Zeiss lenses that maximize contrast by filtering out blue light. As a result, I’m able to see all the details on and around the water that I might not see with the naked eye.
The injected polarization layer on the lenses eliminates the glare from water reflection and further reduces strain on the (fragile) eyes. This is particularly noticeable when rafting late afternoons and the glare on the water is really high.
UV protection
The Typhoons have an 8-base (wrap-around) curvature that closely follows the contours of my face, providing excellent peripheral vision and minimal gaps for stray UV or water to penetrate into my eyes.
As far as I’m concerned, these glasses feel super comfortable and really stick to my face because of the wrapping shape and wide rubber-padded arm tips that tuck behind my ears. They won’t budge from my face even when slapped hard onto the water or against the raft.
Affordable rafting sunglasses: the LIP Surge
The Lip Surge is a more affordable version of the Typhoon, priced at $105 to $168 depending on the variant.
The Surge basically has the same features as the Typhoon – same advanced frame material and curved shape, same leash and silicon necklace system, same fog vents and water/oil/scratch-resistant coatings.
The only difference is that the Surge sunglasses don’t come with Zeiss lenses or treatment. The lenses are polarized as well, but not “Zeiss polarized”.
You do feel a difference in the clarity of vision between the two sunglasses. The Typhoon will also typically give you more mileage (if you treat them well) due to the well-known durability of the Zeiss lenses.
That said, if you’re not ready to fork out the $200+ for the Typhoon, the Surge are your next best choice for river rafting. I would certainly have picked them up had I not invested in my beloved Typhoons.
Prescription sunglasses for river rafting?
if you wear prescription glasses for riding river rapids, LIP may once again be the answer. LIP’s RX package includes either the Typhoon or the Surge frame (with the leash retention system) fitted with NXT single vision or progressive lenses.
The prescription lenses also have hydrophobic, oleophobic, and anti-reflection coatings.
To choose an RX package with LIP:
- Go to the RX page
- Choose the frame model – Typhoon or Surge
- Pick a frame color
- Select your lens type: single vision fixed tint or varifocal / progressive
- Fill in the prescription details form
- Wait 3 weeks for the glasses to get ready
The prices for the prescription Typhoon and Surge are similar – $530 vs $520. You can also add options such as polarized, mirror, and anti-fog coatings. You can access the Typhoon RX or Surge RX page directly.
Final thoughts
The LIP Typhoons check all my boxes for rafting sunglasses, namely for the very high-quality frames and lenses and the loss-proof retention system. To me, they are worth every penny and give me the best eye protection I can get for my river action trips.
The Surge is a cheaper version of the Typhoon with most of the same features – quality frames, secure retainer mechanism, and ventilation system – but with non-Zeiss lenses. Another key point to mention is LIP’s exceptional 3-year warranty.