Taking A Knife to a Neil Pryde Harness, Part One

When my DaKine Thermoform bit the dust a few months ago, my good friend and OG Puffin Steve gave me his waist harness.   He’s a seat harness man, but found himself harnessless in Bonaire and bought the best thing he could find:  a Neil Pryde FreeSurf waist harness.   Now its mine.   And it drives me nuts.

The thing has too many bells and whistles.  Furthermore these bells and whistles (by which I mean straps and flaps) not only do absolutely nothing, they squirrel around and get in the way, popping out from behind the bar after an hour of windsurfing.   After several sessions I joked that I was going to start cutting all the extraneous crap off of the thing, but after a few more sessions I actually resolved to do it.  

So I am.

In the interest of science I’ve decided to do the amputations as a series; I’m not lopping off every offending part at the outset, in case I discover that some of them actually are (or were) valuable.

The first doohickey marked for death was the little strap that attaches to the harness belt, and all the associated clips and rings that hold it in place.   Understand that as the belt holds the harness on the windsurfer when the hook is disconnected, and even if this harness had no belt (or if the belt failed) this strap is too flimsy to hold the harness in place, it is utterly redundant.    So I cut it off a week ago.   Here are the sad little pieces:

I have sailed with the modified harness once, and no ill effects were noticed on the water or on land.   I showed my handiwork to Peconic Jeff, who couldn’t figure out where the strap had been.  When I showed him, he took a long puzzled look and then said “what did it do?”   

And so on.

So the first stage of cutting the nonsense off of the Neil Pryde harness is complete, and appears to be a complete success.   Unfortunately the removal of that silly strap did not alleviate problems created by another extraneous part…worse than extraneous; really…perhaps it’s a factory error.   I’ll be cutting that off next, and then we’ll see if the harness is just ridiculously designed, or if I’m a fool.  (Okay we know I’m a fool, but maybe not about this harness…)

Stay tuned.

Comments

[mike burns]

Oh no! You didn't cut off the Doohickey!!!! Seriously, I don't think half the harnesses on the market are designed by people that actually windsurf. I've been using a "self customized" DaKine Nexus that I've been very happy with. But it has seen better days, so I picked up the new DaKine NRG. It's the replacement for the Nexus. I haven't used it yet, but my ankle is feeling a bit better, so I'm thinking I might give it a go on the next windy day.

[michael]

Mike, maybe you want to skip the sliding backwards in the straps for a few session? :)

This harness has become a source of entertainment. The next piece (a flap that the factory MUST have put in the wrong place, IMHO) comes off tomorrow.

[Andrew C]

I personally like the Epic Gear Waist Harness. It is very simple with no extra fancy bits, has great back support and is very comfortable. At around $70 new, it is also a great price.

[aaron]

My Dakine T3 strap-slack is always coming out of it's sheath and getting in the way of my hook, but I have no idea how to fix it permanently.

[Michael]

Mike, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only Mike performing harness surgery! And I think you have a point about some of the designs (if I showed you this NP harness you wouldn't believe how ridiculous some of these components are.)

Aaron, I have a similar problem with the next doohickey I'm cutting off...it's no fun landing a jump or coming out of a jibe and having to struggle to hook in. If you can't cut the slack off, maybe you want to add something to the harness to better restrain the slack. I had Olaf at the Avon Sail Shop add things to my old Thermoform (a car key pocket, for example).

[Bunty]

I have to say I would not swop my Neil Pryde harness for anything. It is a waist harness that has been integrated into a buoyancy aid. The spreader bar is attached with a toothed plastic thingy that goes into the spreader bar. I will be sorry when I have to finally ditch it once it has seen better days (have had it for around 5/6 years already and still going strong). As for excess bits of strapping flapping around - I hate that!

[bowsprite]

can you save those pieces for my next quilting bee, thx.

[bonnie]

gale warning, snow...will the windsurfers be out there shredding this weekend while the kayakers look out our windows and grumble?

[the editor]

Bonnie, we're getting into true crazy here. Which means if I can get Peconic Jeff or the Wolf or Scott to join me, we'll be out for a little of it.

[ralph]

I actually had a close call because of adjustable harness lines. The the plastic handle on my MS line slid into my hook somehow. As I tried to unhook for a jibe I fell under the big sail and couldn't figure out why I couldn't disconnect. Luckily I was able to take get my head out of the water in front of the mast and eventually got the harness off. It took up hauling the sail to see the problem. I cut those off too. Scary.

[Michael]

Ralph, would that be a hang up like the one discussed in this post? I'm usually using a reactor bar (that doesn't have the opening) but I think putting a piece of duct tape across the top would be a good idea to prevent lines from getting in there and snagging.

[ralph]

Michael, it was exactly like the pic in the post. I was under a 9.5 and as usual sailing by myself. Very scary stuff and reading the full post was like reliving some close calls. I'm releived I'm not the only one thinking of carrying a knife.

Are there any harnesses that will release the bar on BOTH side? Thanks for the info all.