Riding with a harness

How to conserve energy when wingfoiling

You don't really need a harness for wingfoiling, because the holding forces when foiling are so low that your arms only get tired during long sessions.

A harness would also only get in the way when learning the sport, because there is an additional line dangling in front of your face that also gets in the way when changing the position of your hands.

A harness is only useful if you want to travel longer distances in one direction, i.e. cover longer distances. Or if you like to ride with a lot of pressure in the wing in order to be as fast as possible and to be able to sail upwind, e.g. at regattas.

The harness is a waist belt with a hook at the front (sometimes movable sideways). You use this hook to attach yourself to the harness line, which is attached to the handles (or boom) of the wing.

You hook yourself into the harness lines with the hook and then you can lean into the wind while the harness holds your body weight. Your body weight counteracts the wind pressure. The arms are thus relieved and only perform steering movements.

Gollito Estredo shows how to sail with a harness in this video tutorial.

Tip: Before you take to the water with your harness, you should practise hooking and unhooking the hook into the harness lines and also handling the wing on land. In this way, you can also quickly adjust the harness lines to the correct position, because they should always be centered at the centre of pressure of the wing.

Basics Riding with harness Level ★★☆☆ Rider: Gollito Estredo Text: Jürgen Schall Photos/Videos: Duotone DE

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