Nico wrote:

lucky as you to have a windsurfing wife.

Yes, I know how lucky I am. Now if she would just "learn" to rig and carry it to the beach....

Aloha,

Oh she knows how, most of them do, but we get sucked into it anyway, trust me I know.

Nice quiver BTW.

...Now if she would just "learn" to rig and carry it to the beach.... ...

Hehehe you want too much. But we are happy to work for our women, as they work much more for us in all other things...

Nothing to to, my woman doesn't take any kind of plane; therefore not much money to do it, you know the italian situation. But for learning living in Venice gives a tons of opportunities, let's see in 2012. Now I have the proper rig, I have to work on a wider board, Fanatic Sting Ray 138 lt, 73 cm wide, was not enough stable for her.

Sorry for OT

Didn't the DaKine footstraps used to be called "Core Contour"?

They are my personal favorite, been using them for years.

Yes, back when they were still sold as windsurfing footstraps. I still have some of them - the white ones. Now they are silver or black.

Aloha,

lucky as you to have a windsurfing wife.

Yes, I know how lucky I am. Now if she would just "learn" to rig and carry it to the beach....

Would an annual trip to Maui do it?

Aloha,

They are my personal favorite, been using them for years.

You got your post in while I was typing. Tooold may no longer dance but there is no degradation of his eyesight and you are not missing anything either.

I'll answer in reverse order.

My experience with Peter has almost been like my experience with Jeff when he was the only sailmaker in the world who was willing to make me a 9.0 wave sail. All the other sail makers laughed at me which is not much different than the reaction I got when I was looking for a 160 litre WAVE board.

A UL rigged US on a Thommen board with my own fin (and Dakine straps) - pretty much nirvana for us.

The footstrap question is a long story to a fine tuning issue that took quite some discussion and trial. Is it a longboard, is it a waveboard? How much do I have to be forward to get on a wave, how much do I have to be back to cut back. Be damned if I am going to get in and out of the straps and run around on the board like the SUP'ers do. Also I had to find out the best spread to allow adequate weight shift but still be comfortable on the sweet spot. And not least it had too also meet with Joanna's approval.

To make a long story short I will share with you Dolf's empirically derived formula for ideal footstrap placement:

Board        Rear Strap    Spread
67        25        43
74        25        43
83        25        43
92        25        44
105        26+?        45
130        <35        46
160        35        47

The rear strap is the horizontal distance from the tail to the rear strap rear screws. The spread is the distance from the rear strap front screws to the front strap rear screws. Two measurements are still being worked on but are within a few cm.

The upcoming 112 is not listed as that is a real question. Is it a bigger production 92 or a smaller Baby Blue? It falls right in the non linear transition from the production boards to the big customs. Peter is patiently giving me the data here so hopefully we can make a reasonably accurate decision.

As you very keenly observed it makes for somewhat different placement than conventional, but it works great on a board that is definitely not conventional!

Aloha,

We stole a product from the dark side - the kiters. We only use Dakine Control Footstraps on the front straps. Many years ago they used to be windsurfer straps but now are listed only as a kiter product.

They are the only footstrap that is tapered so your foot is held more evenly and solidly (my feet are tapered getting thinner at the toe end, not flat like other footstraps), BUT because they are tapered they do not roll and lock your foot in place in case of emergency. Your feet always come out easily when they have to. Better on all counts.

I could rave about them but you noted our obvious commitment to them, and Joanna has laid down a simple law that they will be on all our boards. There is one downside. They are not adjustable except by changing the mounting screw settings - not quickly done. No problem for us as Joanna wears booties and I don't, so we use the same settings. They make an adjustable model which IMHO does not work and I strongly dissuade anyone from buying.

We have tried them at both adjustments as we belong to the old school that to be safe footstraps must be very tight or very loose and never in between to be safe. They work well both ways, but I am just converting them all to very loose as it gives me more leverage in the bottom turn. That conversion is a job that I borrowed a drill for. 

For the back straps I have not found any product that is appreciably better than anyone elses, so we use whatever is on sale somewhere. There is a Dakine Control backfoot model which has a funny little shape that is supposed to give you a similar effect as the front straps, but it is all the same to me. No worse, but no better.

Aloha,

Just also noticed that there is a very short distance beween the frontstraps and the mast track on both of your new ones - any special reason ?

Thommen fan huh

Good points, thanks.

I'll do that on the next photo shoot when we get our next board, hopefully on our Spring trip.

Aloha,

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Our board quiver is starting to look more and more like an exclusive Thommen line up:

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And will be more so with our plan to combine 2 present boards into one more new 112 litre version of the "Baby Blue".

I have been reading with interest the several threads on longboards. With Peter's new boards we have everything that a longboarder could want plus a wave board. Truly amazing.