footstraps can hurt!

Now I'm not saying this boat has a history of nosediving, but... in this picture you can see the boat was fitted with the new style magic marine foot straps.

James & Julia

Um, OK... Just watched the video; agree, he was looking backwards right before he lost it, probably could have happened to anyone.

How do you get the boat back under control without capsizing, single handed downwind, with the chute up? Can you just sheet everything out and round up?

Mike

You foot deep, but not jibe, then either hope your helm is very neutral or hold it with your foot and douse. I've had to do it a few times.One of them (Hogsbreath 2002) I didn't get the

not jibe part

right and gave myself a concussion with the boom. Temporarily blacked out as the boat flipped over and came to with a death grip on a chickenline seconds (I guess) after hitting the water.

Originally Posted by Jake

Untitled by Green Room Graphics, on Flickr

This is what I'm talking about...a much more open loop than the DaKine style straps.

But Jake, the openess of the loop that you want, is fully determined by how you screw the strap on the hull.

Mounted on a horizontal level you can bend the strapends before the fixation a little so that they make a little horizontal angle to each other, resulting in any openess that you want. (Besides the fact that you can adjust the bow itself by the screw distance and the adjustable velcro-mechanism.)

Your fixation with one strapend horizontal and one vertical on the transom itself, I would never use. What do you gain :one or two inches more backward? But your method makes it clear why you have troubles with forming a nice fit for the Dakines.

I like to comment more on the almost standard common used strap position on cat-hulls :

Afb002 by northseajunkie, on Flickr">

You see that I created a much more vertical angled platform for my both feet and I made a specific full platform for my strap. The risk of being trapped in a fall, or when loosing the wire, is much less now. Besides it stands much more comfortable for your feet.

It seems to me that footstraps and their position are still a

stepchild

for cathull designers. You can see on the new Nacra-17's that they made a small step in adapting the hull form a little bit, but not enough TMnHO.

Downwind, got it. Probably not as easy as it sounds, especially if the crew is separated (said Captain Obvious)...

Mike

Originally Posted by Jake

This is what I'm talking about...a much more open loop than the DaKine style straps.

A word of warning. I've read reports that boats with straps positioned as this picture were said to not be class legal at the A Class World this year: it

increases the hull length

. You may agree or not with the decision, but the chief measurer was adamant. Depending on which class of boat you sail you may want to position them differently.

However, considering the number of F18 with straps like this, it's probably a non-issue for that particular class.

Originally Posted by pepin

Originally Posted by Jake

This is what I'm talking about...a much more open loop than the DaKine style straps.

A word of warning. I've read reports that boats with straps positioned as this picture were said to not be class legal at the A Class World this year: it

increases the hull length

. You may agree or not with the decision, but the chief measurer was adamant. Depending on which class of boat you sail you may want to position them differently.

However, considering the number of F18 with straps like this, it's probably a non-issue for that particular class.

Huh...so the footstraps should also be made out of hard stuff since it is, by his definition, part of the hull? That's silly.

Added to which, optional fittings are specifically listed and include footstraps. So, lets take this to the next step; fittings for rudders are also listed as optional items in the same section...by his definition of the footstraps being an extension of the hull, the rudder pintles/gudgeons should also clearly be included in the hull measurement. They are not and have never been even though the rules don't explicitly exclude them from the hull measurement in the same identical way the footstraps are defined. If we subscribed to his interpretation of what constitutes

the hull

, every F18 in the world is now illegal. The intent in the rule with regards of the hull measurement is clear and it doesn't include footstraps or rudder pintles....that guy is misopinionated. One man's opinion does not a law make.

What's next? If a crew retention line or trapeze ring swings outside the hull dimension, I'm suddenly illegal?

.

I can confirm what Pepin said. At the A-class worlds last Feb. It was determined that mounting the footstrap with the tab on the rear off the hull constituted part of the hull length and violated the class rule regarding hull length. Everyone had to move their strap forward to comply with the class rules. Rudders and their hardware are excluded, provided the leading edge of the rudder is no more than 3

of the transom. If the leading edge of the rudder is more than 3

of the transom, then the rudder is considered part of the hull measure meant, and the trailing edge is used to determine the 18' max hull length.

I don't have time to dig it up, but there are procedures for measurement, which apply to all boats. Then there are class rules and procedures.

While my

common sense

reaction is exactly the same as Jake's (and I believe I just made the same face as Chandler when I read Pepin's post), there may be more to the story. The class should work with that measurer to find out what he was thinking, and if still in dispute, should work with ISAF for clarification and/or retraining for the measurer, as appropriate.

Mike

Not sure I'm seeing things, but looks like her foot is really jammed in the strap - to the point you can see the front half on the other side. Wouldn't a larger opening encourage putting the foot in too far?

I like the idea of a break-away

fuse

that fails before your foot does.

Originally Posted by northsea junkie

Originally Posted by Jake

Untitled by Green Room Graphics, on Flickr

This is what I'm talking about...a much more open loop than the DaKine style straps.

But Jake, the openess of the loop that you want, is fully determined by how you screw the strap on the hull.

Mounted on a horizontal level you can bend the strapends before the fixation a little so that they make a little horizontal angle to each other, resulting in any openess that you want. (Besides the fact that you can adjust the bow itself by the screw distance and the adjustable velcro-mechanism.)

Your fixation with one strapend horizontal and one vertical on the transom itself, I would never use. What do you gain :one or two inches more backward? But your method makes it clear why you have troubles with forming a nice fit for the Dakines.

I like to comment more on the almost standard common used strap position on cat-hulls :

Afb002 by northseajunkie, on Flickr">

You see that I created a much more vertical angled platform for my both feet and I made a specific full platform for my strap. The risk of being trapped in a fall, or when loosing the wire, is much less now. Besides it stands much more comfortable for your feet.

It seems to me that footstraps and their position are still a

stepchild

for cathull designers. You can see on the new Nacra-17's that they made a small step in adapting the hull form a little bit, but not enough TMnHO.

NSJ- Are those 'Prindle' (Nacra) rudder blades? Look just like the old P16,P18,P18-2, P19 blade shape and style.

Mike's Spot on.

Yep, downwind. The flogging alone ( in normal or better breeze) of the kite up wind will flip you with no sheet tension.You definitely need more than 2 hands. That's one of the main reasons I don't like racing in the same start as singlehanded spin boats.

Yes, they are inspired by the good oldfashioned Prindle style.
I made the blades and the castings all by myself. I can pull the blades down after starting in the break with a rope from the luff-side at the tramp.
That's the main reason why I have chosen for this old design.

Are you agreeing with the interpretation/ decision, or just the narrative of what happened?

Mike

I've been thinking about this a little bit and trying to come up with a fuse geometry that would work. I think you would want a strap where a load applied vertically or forward (as you would get from a hard stuff) is not going to release, but a torsional load would blow the fuse.

It's also tough because the direction of the torsion makes a difference. I've been pivoted forward into the hull before when in the straps, but I wouldn't want that to release me necessarily because the stopping of my forward motion prevented a pitch and we kept truckin'.

I also think it would be important to be able to set the

breakaway

load on the strap as a function of crew size/weight.

I'm going to keep thinking about it, maybe try to build something.

Then again, would you risk an accidental opening during a race situation in an effort to prevent a fairly rare injury?

Not sure I would.

Doesn't matte to me, as long as it is applied the same to everyone, everywhere.

The 18' rule only has an exclusion for the rudder assembly, so therefore the strap is interpreted to be part of the hull.

What if I made a strap that continued down the back of the transom and then flared out at the water line to effectively extend the water line? I could argue that it was part of the footstrap design, if footstraps were excluded from the 18' length rule...

We always made out strap opening so large, that you had to twist/rotate your foot forward or backward to make it grip. Then if you relaxed your foot or pointed it straight, it would come out immediately.

My statement was to the narrative, but I agree with the interpretation also. See Mike Krantz's(#27199) above post. Sailing H-16s you might think what he says above sounds ludicrous, but A catters will do ANYTHING to get an edge,no matter how small, hence the cassettes to make L foils work. That sounded ludicrous until a couple of guys did it.

There was a windsurfing footstrap manufacturer a while ago that made break away foot straps (Footsavers I think they were called). Basically all it was they had an extra piece of Velcro that went between the overlapping Velcro pieces that hold the two halves of the strap together. This extra piece of Velcro

neutralized

a portion of the other Velcro so there was less force holding the two halves of the strap together. You custom tailored the holding power to your liking by increasing or decreasing the amount of overlap of this

extra

piece of Velcro. There's no reason you couldn't do the same thing on most foot straps made today.

Another possible solution would be to use a break-away screw to mount the strap to the boat. A nylon screw would have much less holding power than the stainless machine screws normally used.

I don't really understand the rationale of using only one foot strap. I've windsurfed for almost two decades and the only time I've ever had any concern using the straps is when one foot pops out and the other stays in. The potential for foot and knee injury goes way up when one foot is planted and the other is unrestrained. Seems to me that having two foot straps mounted on the hull would go a long way towards improving safety and giving a more secure ride for the crew.

sm

The F18 rules exclude anything that isn't specifically listed. Footstraps are specifically listed as optional items. At the point a footstrap stopped being a footstrap or started performing another function, by definition, it has become something else. If that

something else

isn't explicitly listed in the rules, then it is clearly excluded and therefore illegal.

The a-cat rules are a lot more basic and generic (used to fit on one sheet of paper and be easily legible) leaving a lot of loop holes open (arguably for the sake of development). The situation is a good bit different for the F18 class.

having your back foot in the strap serves to help limit your forward motion when the boat drives through waves, etc.

A free front foot allows a wider range of foot placement for various sail trim, pointing angle, water conditions.. Such as a wider stance for chop/swell than flat water...

The straps on a cat and on a windsurfboard serve two completely different purposes:

On a windsurfboard and kiting board the straps are used to control your board (by you!!!) when the conditions make that necessary.
On a cat the strap is used to maintain your balance when the wire and/or the cat is pulling you or trying to sweep you off. No way you can control the hulls by your feet in straps.

If you read my prior post, you'd see that I am very open-minded about this matter (the process, not the rule). If this is how the class wants to operate, that's perfectly acceptable. Other folks here (not H16 sailors, BTW) seemed to disagree with the call. I simply provided info on how this should be handled if there was a lingering dispute.

It would probably help you to stop dismissing everything I say as a liberal H16 sailor who couldn't possibly understand anything. The Hobie class rules have a

no-loophole

clause, which I personally take more seriously than others I have observed. For example, running trap shock lines through a grommet in the tramp wasn't specifically allowed, but was being done locally before the factory started building them that way. To me, it wasn't spelled out and shouldn't have been done without a rule change; others thought it was no big deal because it didn't make the boat faster. They said it was done to keep the traps separated, therefore making maneuvers easier. My point was, if there wasn't an advantage, why were all the top guys doing it? Again, I have no problem with a rule change, but it needs to be done properly, and until it is, loopholes should be treated as the enemy.

Mike

Wait, did you just say Hobie 16s are the enemy? or you're the enemy?.... sorry, long day at the office, must not be seeing well

Bret's wife is running the Magic Marine business and she has the footstraps and is sending me a pair. Thanks for the info everyone.

We're a bit sensitive aren't we. Don't know where you got liberal from and are you not an H-16 sailor( that's the only class you refer to from personal experience) which is a strict Single manufacturer one design and NOT a development class, therefore you do not have to deal with such issues as rather the rudders count as hull length if they are outside of a 3" arc, or rather the curve of your foils extend beyond a .75 meter measurement from the centerline. You do not have to try to read attacks into all of my posts, if I attack you it will be abundantly clear. Jeeeze, take a Midol.
p.s. I sail/own a Hobie 16 and an F-18 also, so I'm fully aware of how different class rules operate.

Just observing patterns. Don't worry, I usually triple up on the Midol before reading your stuff.

Mike

Mike,

I'm not sure if you were talking about F18 rules, but your post gave me pause. I went back and reviewed them and nowhere does it say the hull measurement should exclude the rudder fittings (or anything else). The reference drawing has a hull, rudder stock, some sort of casting and a tiller arm and indicates the measurement is from a vertical plane tangent to the bow to the furthest aft point on the hull. There are no rudder pintles/gugeons (or obviously, footstraps) referenced on the drawing either - page 31.

The only text that references the hull measurement is as follows:

http://usf18.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/f18classrules20130101.pdf

If they are indeed making disqualifications (or requiring modifications) on it, the issue should be reviewed and a rules clarification issued.