legropes

[Beeline2.0]

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[skansand]

I applaud you Rob .. Alot of thought went into that and you made several very good points..i would definetly wear a leggie in big surf but for all those small-midsize day where i contemplate even wearing a leash id still wear the bicep cause i really hate the drag of a leggie .....maybe a coil-strait combo?.....hey when are we hitting taco bell reef?

[curlykneelo]

A few years back one company made a retractable leggy , just like the lead on a vacuum cleaner .
Didn't last long.

[KevinJFina]

Is legropes french for a date gone terribly wrong
anyway back in the day -mid 70s we experimented-with leash attachment
on the nose with a glass rope eyelet. I was great for getting out but not so
much fun it the pit at zuma on a 3-5 day on one early am. My buddy made contact with the attachment point and ended up with a huge knot-like the tie off point putting a huge depression in his forehead. Ouch!!!
We stuck with the top or bottom tail location from that point forward. The moral of the story is knowbody likes to be a knothead kneeboarder

peace

Kevin

[john -]

Is legropes french for a date gone terribly wrong


peace

Kevin

the short form is a "leggie" .....which could be considered a date gone right

[JackG]

To second Beeline's comments about why a bicep leash/nose mount leash isn't a good idea on a kneeboard while it is a on sponge, just think about what happens when you bail. With a sponge you really don't care about getting hit in the head or pretty much anywhere else. In fact is comforting because you know where you board is. With a hard fiberglass kneelo, you want to GET THE HELL AWAY from your board when you bail, lest it beat you about the head and shoulders.

[ShaunMurphy]

ankle leash= kneeboarder, footy, and the odd DK rider
bicep leash= prone/dk bodybboarder

- side note - geting hit by either of these boards in the face or head Does hurt, nice bruised cheek and phat bump on the head from the sponge and picking out fiber glass from the mouth from kneeboard (thank goodness it was a light glass job)

Any way back to leashes-
The arm leash doesnt really make sence for kneeboards or surfboards because the surfboard and kneeboard is much heavier then a sponge so when u do get sucked over the falls lets say or just getting dragged by your board, your arm is getting strained and pulled very hard through the water and the joints arent as strong as yuour ankle
u can take alot more pulling on the ankle then on the wrist or bicep.

But im guessing it really doesnt matter for waves 3 ft and under
I personally like the 5 or 6ft ( cant remember) leash i got from Freeline
very strong and light. Before i was using a 8ft leash like my dad
and it was good in the big stuff BUT after a set came through and iwas seperated from my board and the board was flipped over, Another set was about to come through
it was annoying cus it took to long to reel the board in and i had to take another set on the head

With a shorter leash though its easy cus its normally right next to u when u pop up ....or right over u ( maybe not to plesant, but learn to brace your self ) SO u can pop back up and get the hell out of the impact zone
-- sometimes those extra 2 seconds count

ALways carry an extra leash on the bigger days aswell cus u never know whats gonna happen

[KenM]

It is also worth remebering that two well known surfers, Jack O'Neil and Derek Hynd have each lost an eye in surf leash mishaps. In Hynds case, when a short and thin "comp" leash broke under pressure and snapped back and hit him. DON"T UNDER SIZE YOUR LEASH just for the benefit of having your board a little closer.

[ScottMac]

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[john -]

Hi Scott

surfed with a guy wearing surf sun glasses last week..would have to imagine they have some impact durability

surfed with 3 french guys at Bells last year who were here discussing surf glasses with the Rip Curl management

stuff for eye protection must be out there

[ScottMac]

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[surfhorn]

Mt first leashes were with surgical tubing. for that extra STREEETTCCHHH and TWANG back. Caught a square tail directly on the nose at Moss Landing once (19776-77). Not the best locale to have lotza' blood in the H2o.

[K-man]

Never had a leg rope problem,except for about 3 months ago.Got so excited,forgot to put the leash on my ankle Surprise
Made one of the grubs go git it,he didn't have a choice

[frankfqr]

I was surfing a certain "sidewalk" break with a prominent large rock midway. One deep barrel took me out and I rolled across the slab and ended up behind the rock. I could feel my leash was caught, but being in what felt like four feet of water I wasn't worried. I relaxed and waited for the immediate wave strength to pass. It never did. I forced myself to the surface, air depleted. You all know whats next, another wave on the head. Relax, relax, anyway I was frozen straight out from the force no use to fight it. Wait for the wave to subside. No use, what was up was I was stuck in the current with the flow coming over the top of the rock holding me down as well. Repeat process at least 8 times and I thought it was all over. No way, one last option. I reasoned I would use shear panic and incorporate adrenaline. I went into animal mode and fought it all with a deep breath, managed to grab the leash and pulled with everything I had left hoping to break it. It worked. I disloged and floated off into the channel. Worst experience ever. Moral.....There is some very wise advice in these forums. I think it was thru Bud,the tip on bending at the knees to bring your hands closer to the ankle strap. Excellent advise. There was no way I could bend at the waist in my situation. Next the release hoop. Once I got to the area around my ankle I didn't have time to find the strap, thats why I grabed the cord itself. If noted well these tidbits WILL SAVE A LIFE. How excellent is that?!!!! Thanks all.

[SCGARY]

Use the creatures of leisure matt lacky model bicep leash with an added big-wave nomad coil to give that extra length...... i like this because theres no drag of a leg leash behind you and if your ever caught on a huge sucking rock with 15 foot whitewater pounding into you at mavericks and your leash is stuck, freedom is just a arms reach away.

Bicep Leashes??? -- Well you asked for it!!!

Well the only people who predominantly use these are bodyboarders,
or maybe an odd longboarder.

Traditional leashes , plug in tail, wrapped at the ankle offer several advantages:

-- when your diving underneath a wave and your body is safely anchored
in calm water,
but the wave is pulling your board, with your leg you can pull back.
You can even pull back enough to dislodge the board from the wave
before the wave and the board pull you back into the vortex.
With a bicep leash, you cant pull back, at least not beyond 3 inches, instead you can be pulled sideways
and then your 'kicking with fins' and 'your breaststrokes with your arms'
become a mute issue.

Also , with a traditional leash attached to your ankle you can submerge to
a maximum leash depth before your body has to tug your board down.
With a bicep leash, your be pulling/tugging your board down at about 50%
of the distance of a typical ankle leash setup. Consequently, you''ll have to begin your dives earlier and expend more energy to go down an equivalent depth. In addition, much of your energy on deep dives will be expended to
fight torque of the boards resistance pulling you sideways.....Very inefficient. Of course much of this is a moot issue if were only talking about
shoulder high waves.



Lets imagine an avg. wipeout, where the surfer falls off the board and the
board continues on its trajectory.
With a traditional leash, the surfer falls, and the board continues travelling
in a way that maximizes the distance between the surfer and board.
With this configuration the leg is closest to the board, perhaps 6-8ft
depending on leash length. With the head being an additional 6ft seperated
from the ankle. Depending on the situation, if the surfer is floating flat on the water, that could maximize board to head
seperation up to 6+6=12or 14ft. Now if the surfer floats up to the surface
and then treading water, then max. board seperation might be more on the order of 6-8ft. The goal of wearing a leash, or at least having a sufficiently long leash, is to somewhat maximize the distance between the head and the board.


Now lets imagine that the surfer is wearing a bicep leash.
The surfer falls off, the board continues on its trajectory, the leash can
be attached at the nose or tail. But no matter what the scenario of the wipeout is , the head and board seperation is never longer than the leash.
Since the leash is attached to the bicep and the head is alway coincident
with the bicep. The max. board to head distance can be frequently a foot shorter than the length of the leash.


Now, if that board that our head is trying to avoid is turned into a blue
soft sponge, then wearing a bicep leash may have some advantages.
As we are no longer concerned about self preservation and head injury,
this setup minimizes the distance between a grabbing hand and retrieving
the soft blue sponge. Since the bodyboard has less floatation than practically all other surfcraft, deep dives are less critical and maybe
the bicep leash is an attractive alternative.

All my years of KB'ing the Lane(60's and 70"s) with the leash attached to the nose/arm I had few if any of the hypothetical problems you listed above, and this includes surfing in double + OH surf.
My experiences using a nose/arm attached leash on a KB;
1) I rarely let go of my board and in the instances where the board got separated from me the only issue is with the lower resistance of a nose first punch thru. The board can come shooting back at you . If you are aware of this possiblity then it's not a problem
2) Board retrievel thru a wave is very easy since the leash being attached to the arm makes it almost an automatic grab with your hand making it very quick to pull the board right to you instead of having to reach down to your ankle to grap the leash or swim to the board after you've yanked the leash as much as you can with your leg.. As far as being pulled sideways, Never happened. With a nose connected leash the board doesn't have near the water resistance that a tail attached leash does. Think hydrodynamics.
3) Never had a situation where the leash kept the board too close to me resulting in contact. Any board injuries from my own board would have happened leash or not. This includes a face plant into my board following a late drop at the Point(Lane) resulting in 15 stitches to my lower lip.
4) On the really big days when you loose hold of your board when caught inside. I found the board will 'follow" you thru the wave like a dog on a leash with alot less resistence then a "tail first" follow with the leash attached to the tail,
5) On the down side, with the leash attached to your arm you are always aware that it is there, unlike a ankle leash where you tend to forget about it. Swimming freestyle and it's related body roll, can be tricky with the board trailing behind since the leash will be flopping around beside you. When just kicking, no problem. The board just planes behind and you almost forget it's there.

Although I currently don't use a nose leash I am thinking of installing one one on my next KB board. Not a consideration for my shortboards.