Adjustable harness lines

[SurfShark]

Hi,

can anybody shed some light on the usage of adjustable harness lines? Do the lines have to be shorten/lengthen while going upwind/downwind and how can i adjust the lines to sail better in light/overpowered conditions? I have not seen a lot of local racers using adjustable lines so will they really help alot in formula sailing to get speed and angle?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[<thye@hotmail.com>]

Hi surfshark,

You've not be observing, adjustable line been around for many years, most IMCO and fomula racer use then. The adventage of being able to set your lines in different conditions greatly increase your confident to stay in control in most wind condition.

Being just 60kg and holding down a 9.8 my line setting is set further back (about 6 to 7 grips)to make use of my weight, leverage and pivoting point of the lines to act as my back hand.

On closehual shorter lines enable my body to pivot forward amd sheet in the sail without using my back hands and in heavy wind where I'll be pull upright I'm able to lengthening the lines to give me more leaverage and control.

Like wise on downwind, longer lines enable me to keeep the mast upright to sail deeper. The lenght of adjustment depend on boom height, leverage, pivot point, weight, wind condition and other factors.

As a guide longer lines will provide more leverage and shorter lines on direct loading onto the harness.

I sail with more front hand heavy so my line are sets for back hand adjustment.

Get the new AdavnceTech adjustable lines, they are much much better then the Korean make one. My last set lasted me 8 years.

[SurfShark]

Hi Thye,

thanks for the advice, now i have a rough idea of what to do and the thing left now is to try them out on water. I guess i have been doing the wrong thing all the while then: During overpowered conditions, i normally run my lines short as somehow i feel safer being closer and on the board, more in control kind of feeling. I often avoid adjusting my lines as much as possible while doing different points of sail, as i will sometimes upset the board or the sail and its quite scary to be planing at full speed and ur board/sail goes out of control (a decent chance for a spectacular catapult). I guess i will need more practice adjusting my lines on the fly and practising what you told me. I am currently using a set of DIY adjustable lines made with cleats, lines and webbings. I will get more advice from you the next time i see you around. Thanks alot.

[sukhdev]

Anyone who wants to try a set of the sailworks adjustable harness lines which use the Advancetech pulley system is welcome to borrow our demo set. for the past few years i've been using Dakine and chinook adjustables. Other than wave sails, all my sails have adjustable lines.

Like thye pointed out, being on different points of sails needs different length lines. Also useful when moving rigs between different sized boards eg I use my nitro iV 9.3 on exocet tf100, 147, exocet tf90, hyper, etc and i set the rig up slightly differently on all of them.