Barton (5511km):
2349 days ago
Lac Bay, Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean
NP EVO5 7.8, iSonic 107, Drake Carbon Slalom 40. Wind: ~ 17 knots. Launched about 4 PM.
Today was a mini-Christmas for me. Just as I finished rigging, Taty arrived with my new-to-me 2017 iSonic 127 board and Drake carbon race 44 fin. In addition he gave me a set of 28 inch harness lines . We discussed foot strap locations and spacing and made the following adjustments: on the iSonic 107, the back straps stayed the same (all the way forward) but the front straps were moved from the farthest back setting to the middle setting. The thought being that this would widen my stance and allow me to get slightly lower. On the iSonic 127, Taty put the back and front straps in their middle location, again to widen the stance and the back strap location might make the board a little livelier.
With those changes completed, I swapped out the 26 inch harness lines for the 28 inch lines. Wow, what a difference! I am amazed that a 2 inch difference in harness line length would make such a difference in ride comfort and gear controllability (true, I also changed the front footstrap location so that might also have contributed to the improvement). Whatever, the impact was being able to get a little lower and farther from the rig which resulted in a much more comfortable and controllable ride. I no longer felt like I was constantly on the edge of getting pitched forward with each gust or bit of chop. I then spent a little time adjusting the harness line locations resulting in a much better balanced rig and a lot less stress on the arms. All in all a successful tune. Did it improve my speed? Hard to tell with the short session I had but it doesn't matter because the sailing was a lot more fun .
I returned to the launch area about 5 PM with the intention of giving the 127 a quick go. Fortunately, I checked my phone first and learned that medication that Claudia really needed had finally arrived at eZone. So, a much faster than normal for me derig had me at eZone 10 minutes before they closed - another success!
*** Breaking News*** For now I will just leave this teaser... We may soon have a very skilled sailor as a team member on The West Coast Speedsters.
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