Hi everyone,
I've never used a harness winging before, didnt really feel I needed it. Now however I feel the wings are getting more and more powerful. I have some V6 F-One Strikes on preorder, and am pretty sure a harness is almost a must for prolonged sessions. What are your guys thoughts on waist vs chest? Im used to waist from wind and kitesurfing & foiling, but I see chest is the norm for racers. I am mostly looking at it from a freeride / freestyle perspective. Anyone tried both and can outline the pro's and cons for both or what feels more natural?
Cheers!
Depend the size of wing, size of board and size of foil.Without a thick wetsuit/gloves on a relatively floaty board and relatively big foil...and relatively average size wing, I'm good without harness. If I'm on a sinker, or with gloves...or with a super small foil that required a lot more power...I need to upsize my hand wing and I use a lot the harness. I don't use a 7m...but when I try a 7M and up...I feel I need a harness.I'm very minimalist with my harness, I'm using the manera leash belt with a harness hook. But you can go beefer if you want...I just ride 5m and less so no need to a big harness in my case.I prefer waist...chest is too high for my taste.
I've been using harness since I started winging 3-4 years ago. First waist, like I was used to from windsurf and windfoil. And later chest.
Before I used to ride very powered up. F4 race foils and up to 7.0 wings. But now I ride smaller wings, mid length board and F4 Orca foils that gets going very early.
Used to always have at least one size bigger wing than everyone, and now it is almost the opposite.
90kg, and ride all year round in Norway.
In all cases, I absolutely love the chest harness. With the chest harness I can stay hooked in at all angles. With waist harness it could get a bit scary at any other angles than upwind.
You also get the wing higher up, and a more efficient stance. I can really not see any benefits with the waist harness over the chest.
My main use now is to hook in, go far upwind, and then enjoy the bumps downwind.
I'm on the wingman, that is very pricey. But I see there are more options now.
I was in the same boat a few months ago, and a holiday in Maui finally forced my hand (ha ha). I have an Endure Mystic impact vest/harness. I initially thought that there is no way that a chest harness would provide enough support, but I've sailed ridiculously overpowered without issue. I use a 26" windsurfing monoline (with a piece of neoprene cloth to protect the boom and make it easy to twist to rotate up out of the way when pumping). Initially it felt too close. Feels completely natural after a few sessions. BTW, newer, stiffer wings have a very stable center of effort (my 2026 D/LAB Unit and a very high PSI 2025 F-One proto I demoed), so you can get away with a monoline.
