from Boards on line; Ant Baker;
Hi Asle
harness lines are very personal, i use 34cm for flat water waves and racing, and then shorten them if its choppy, the conditions and your riding style tell you what you need, most people use short lines (20-26) because it suits there very closed locked in sail position, so changing lines to 30 lines will not make them any better infact it will make them worse, they will fall out of the lines and slap the water, what needs to happen is the sailing position to be more upright and straight arms using the harness not the arms, when this happens you will go over the front constantly until you buy some 30 lines like any change it takes time for this to happen, with a lesson usually an hour but by yourself and few weeks as you will not go cold turkey )
pro guys use there equipment as a tool to get the best results, amateurs use whats comfy which is usually wrong, there is 1 way to sail perfectly for you, you just have to find what that is
thanks for listening you can call me if you wish to chat
ANT
there is one othodox way to swing a golf club too, many have become world class by swinging it the 'wrong' way.
Greg Norman swung very upright,others swing crouched over,whatever feels natural go with.
i tried 30 inch lines for 2 seesions and i could not get upwind.
off the wind in choppy water was the only time when it felt right for me.
i have a closed mind and i sail what is comfy.
Weird hey, I got a set of 32" lines (81cm) and it took awhile to get used to them from 28". Im on the tall side of short but I like to get away from my rig (usually sailing slalom boards with seat harness) and at first I was too close to the water but when you hang off the rig and fully load the fin it feels sweet. Still learning!!
A guy I sail with uses 20" lines and i just cant get my head or the physics of being that close to the rig, very unco to me!!
When I recently researched to buy new harness lines, after I decided my home-made's weren't as adjustable as I wanted, I found the yanks measure the full length of the lines whereas the euro's measure from boom to the end of the out stretched loop. The latter makes more sense as harness line distance from the boom can change depending how close the velcro tabs are apart from each other but the overall length stays the same.
I bought 36" but found the base of palm to elbow measuring system works well for my mid height seat harness hook. Took a while to work that out due to boom height adjustment. I could have actually got away with 32" I reckon.
Been trying to adjust to longer lines also and having plenty of fun in the process - think I could still be carrying an extra litre of water from some classic @rse slaps during todays sail.....
I can see/feel the benefits of being more upright when I can get there, but it seems to be dependant on being fully powered up. When it's marginal or I hit a lull (very frequent where I sail) I can feel the sail wanting to rake back and I end up dangling off the lines as target practice for the next piece of chop. It's like the lift in the sail drops and to try and compensate and keep the sail forward you push off the back foot, which just sets you up for a stall as you lose MFP.
So for the long-liners out there. What bit of technique do you use to power through lulls with your upright stance and long lines? My technique for mid sized lines is simply to hang off the lines to try and get my feet as light as possible on the board and maintain MFP. There must be something else to it though right? I mean regular salt water enemas cant be part of the deal?
make sure to mesure your lines when changing brands
i had 30" dakine lines whent to 30" np lines
the np lines are 2" or more longer than the dakine
mesured from boom to hook
.
Simple answer is adjustable lines. i always extend them when sailing off the breeze and shorten then when going uphill. I use 26-30
IMHO its all about fin pressure. When your powered up long lines are fine but in a lull you loose the fin pressure and you sink the windward rail with your weight as the sail has less power so hanging so far away from the boom just casues you to drop and weight up/sink the windward rail.
I find if your over powered lengthen them out and if your underdone shorten them up.
Dont know if this is correct but it works for me
Short harness lines are a remnant of windsurfings darkest days... narrow,long and low volume boards, long masts, fat booms, short harness lines ... most has changed except peoples obsession with short lines.. get over them, they are rubbish, the only reason people find them comfortable is because they have been using them for 20 years...
Buy longer lines, move 'em further back and it will be uncomfortable (thats the feeling of learning).. also buy a new wetsuit, yours has holes in it.. and dont walk around the beach in your underpants, your making the sport unattractive.. ignore this community announcement if you have longer lines now than in 1999
i sailed 19" for quite a few years, which, as long as the wind was cranking, suited me fine. now I realise it made me ride my boom low and pulled the rig windward. when i moved state my local was predominantly marginal winds and i was constantly slogging when i knew i should be planing - the solution that worked for me (after a lot of experimentation) was a higher boom and longer (26") harness lines.
i find Ant's statement interesting that comfy is 'wrong'. i may not be catching micro-naps, but i always try and find the tuning spot in my rig where i feel comfortable and that usually means a fun session. then again - i'm polar opposite of pro!
make your own lines from a boat shop then you can have lines any length you want and they will last a life time too
). In lighter winds and when pointing up wind shorten your harness lines, but in stronger conditions lengthen then. I sail with 30" fixed on my smaller boards but have 26" - 32" adjustables for the big rig (8.8 CRed with iS122). Shortening them in lighter conditions keeps your body weight over the board more and thereby doesn't load the fin up too much. This also works for pointing hard as you can get your body in closer and forward to the rig.
). In lighter winds and when pointing up wind shorten your harness lines, but in stronger conditions lengthen then. I sail with 30" fixed on my smaller boards but have 26" - 32" adjustables for the big rig (8.8 CRed with iS122). Shortening them in lighter conditions keeps your body weight over the board more and thereby doesn't load the fin up too much. This also works for pointing hard as you can get your body in closer and forward to the rig.
Hmm dunno if it makes much of a difference but my go fast board is only 55cm wide so I don't know how much difference that is to the wide boards
Back to the main topic, but I generally am hooked in with my hands holding onto the boom with varying degrees of grip-strength based on the conditions.
So wouldn't the length of your arms be one of the key considerations of harness line length?
Ant's arms are about 10" longer than mine. His knuckles drag on the ground when they are not in his nose.
). In lighter winds and when pointing up wind shorten your harness lines, but in stronger conditions lengthen then. I sail with 30" fixed on my smaller boards but have 26" - 32" adjustables for the big rig (8.8 CRed with iS122). Shortening them in lighter conditions keeps your body weight over the board more and thereby doesn't load the fin up too much. This also works for pointing hard as you can get your body in closer and forward to the rig.
Good to hear UF. Sometime in the future you may also want to try to straighten your front leg and leading arm and twist your hips perpendicular to the board . The stance is initially very awkward but allows you to point really high and maintains a much better speed than if front leg bent and body weight forward. Don't quote me on this but I think it levels the board out reducing tail drag. It doesn't work really well in light conditions though as you end up going between the two stances mentioned above.
PS - look at all the fast guys sailing around you and try to copy what they're doing. Trial and error is the greatest learning tool.
I have also found the twist the body to face forwads technique very effective for going upwind with best speed for me.
I will say that this can all be very dependant on the tuning of the board. I find if I have the boom to high or the base to far back that the power in the sail becomes to far back on the board and I struggle to get this position and really struggle to get upwind. I seem to run a low boom compared to most, but I have shortish legs also. I am always putting the boom towards to bottom of the cutout on all my sails. Even with this setup I still struggle keeping my front foot in the strap when reaching.
I found in my case that I use adjustable lines that keep looseneing to max setting of about 30, and are difficult to adjust when sailing, so I learned this technique and it works well.
