Fanatic's Footstraps Are Too Narrow

My feet are size 10 1/2 (American) and standard width.   In 16 years of windsurfing I've never had any issue with footstrap width, whether I was sailing barefoot, with booties, with winter booties, whatever.  Until I bought my new Fanatic.   The board (which I otherwise love) has its footstrap inserts set too narrow for comfort unless I'm sailing barefoot. 

Is there a standard width for footstrap inserts on production windsurfing boards? Apparently not, based on some measurements I took on Sunday.   Consider these widths, in centimeters:

JP Freestyle Wave 93 (2006) 16.5

JP Freestyle 109 (2005) 16.2

Naish 8' 11" (2000) 15.5

Fanatic Freewave 78 (2008) 14.25

So my JP Freestyle has almost an inch more room than the Fanatic.

What to do? It's easy to compensate for on the back footstrap (just run the strap one extra hole for booties, and two extra holes for drysuit booties) but is not so easy on the front straps.   I tried running the outer screw one hole forward of standard placement for extra room...this worked fairly well for reaching and jumping but I did notice the increased angle when jibing...it tripped up my footwork a bit.   Between the additional increase in width needed for my drysuit booties and a desire to run the straps at their conventional angle, I took things much further, and now run my front footstraps all the way to the "outer" set of holes.   (While this may sound nuts, remember that this board's straps are factory set to be almost an inch narrower than JP's for example.)   I think the next step is to place a large washer under the outer screw, to take up some of the extra footstrap room.

I'm also going to experiment with aftermarket straps to see if I can improve the situation.

As soon as the water warms up I'll probably restore the board to it's "factory settings" and only sail barefoot.   I love sailing this board* but I'm just a little annoyed with dealing with the footstraps.   I got lazy about extending the rear strap to accomodate heavy booties, and paid for it a couple of weeks ago when I got stuck in the strap during a fall, and tore a ligament in my foot.

(Photo: The footstraps now span both sets of holes. This actually works well when I'm in thick booties, and I have regular width feet.)

Comments

[James]

I wonder if running DaKine's Core Contour straps would help your situation? They seem to have a little less "meat" on the straps than some others...

[Michael]

That's exactly what I'm going to try, James. Also, I'm hoping that if I do opt to use the "one extra hole" strategy on the front straps that the shape of the Contours will make the change in angle less of an issue.

[Brian S.]

It's hard to believe that these guys don't know people wear booties!
I knew a guy in FL who had large feet and was also very tall, and he always had extra inserts installed in his boards. This will cost something and effect the graphics, but if it's a board you really like and will likely keep, it might be worth it?
BTW, the inserts themselves are very cheap, and available from Fiberglass supply:
http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/Product_Catalog/SurfSailcom/surfsailcom.html

[g-42]

My feet are 12 EEEE - so I hear you on this one. One way out of this would be for manufacturers to default to wider strap plug placement, then give customers several sets of metal washers in different widths to use to adjust the effective width of the straps. That would only work for double-screw plug arrangements, though, as the extra distance from the screw hole (if adjusted to narrow) would create more leverage for strap twist (which might overcome whatever anti-twist device is used).

Another option would be plugs that are a little wider and have two screw holes along the length axis of the board - that would allow you to choose whether you want wide, sort of wide, sort of narrow, or narrow straps. Can't be that expensive to mold such a part, and they wouldn't be that much heavier. Given that most mfg's chose to skimp on double plugs (along the width axis of the board) and instead give us plastic anti-twist do-hickeys makes that an unlikely scenario, but it sure would be cool.

I hate sailing with booties anyway because they numb the ride (kind of like driving in a car with numb steering - you end up over-correcting on the steering input), but when it gets too cold, there's just no way around it. Having the whole thing be painful (b/c of straps that are too narrow) just adds insult to injury in my book.

Luckily, on my Exocet slalom board, the width on the straps seems OK for me; hopefully that will be true on the formula board as well.

[pyro]

The picture of the board seems to show three positions or holes to install the footstraps into. Does this mean they actually have three positions that you can install the footstraps into? You are measuring the holes that are furthest apart from each other? I'm a little unfamiliar with the board, since my old board only has one position. But I was looking at this board, and am now concerned about this since I wear booties all year.

[Michael]

The board has three positions for the footstraps in terms of how far from the tail they are. It also has footstrap holes for inboard (wave oriented) and outboard (slalom oriented) positioning of the forward footstraps. In the photo above I have the front footstrap set extra wide (for this board) using both the inboard "inner" screw position and outboard "outer" screw hole.

[Bunty]

The guys who design all this stuff definitely never wear booties. I can't even stand the thought of wearing them, but obviously you guys have to have something on your feet in winter otherwise you would have no feet left after all the frostbite!! It is certainly something that is just so basic it's difficult to think that it has bypassed the fanatic designers.