Bottom Handle location

Question for y'all. Has anyone played with bottom handle placement for windfoil?

On my last board I installed it just in front of the tracks, which seems typical. It worked fine, but it's so far aft of the CG that the nose wants to drag. I can lift it with the sail by sheeting in to send the sail towards the ground, the sails center is above the boom, so the boom is the fulcrum and therefore the UJ gets lifted. Counterintuitive and with a small unwanted down force but it's been working for me. Carrying the board unrigged by the handle is doable but would be easier if it was closer to the cg.

On an experimental board I moved the handle forward about 7.5 inches to get it close to the CG. That balanced the weight better, but I seem to remember hating it when rigged in the wind. I think what was happening was the setup stopped weather-vaning and just wanted to push me over. That was a couple years ago, and I didn't ride the board much, so my memory's a bit fuzzy. The weather-vaning is really important in the white water, it lines the board up with the wave and keeps the drag lower, so I want to keep that feature.

I'm getting close to laminating a new board and wondering whether to split the difference or just keep it just in front of the boxes. What do you think?

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BullroarerTook said..
My Fanatic Stingray didn't have a bottom handle and since I ride strapless I needed something. So I put the foil on the board where I like it and carefully measured the balance point then put the handle there. It was pretty far in front of the foil tracks.

In contrast, my newer Duotone stingray does have a handle about 7 cm in front of the tracks and it's too far back and the nose wants to drop. If I had the CAD that wouldn't have happened.

Thanks, mate! That's really useful. Do you usually carry with the tail into the wind or nose first, or do you switch to keep one end pointed into the main force like if the there is a strong side shore current or the waves if not lined up with the wind? I switch what end is in front of me to keep the tail into the biggest energy. Have you ever felt like the board is "sheeting in" and trying to push you over? It's got me thinking this behaves a lot like sailboat balance or rudder balance. If the balance point gets too close to the center of area, it starts to steer and overpower you. On the other hand if you grab the kit by the very end all you can do is point into the big force and will struggle to make any ground cross wind unless you crab walk, I'm starting to look more closely at handle placement relative to the deck's center of area across the boards I've tried or have data on.