like chewing gum with the wrapper on

show · Joined: 10 Sep 2006 Posts: 31

This is what Pritchard says about sailing with booties on. So I'm trying converting to barefoot sailing. I've got the straps tightened up and dialed in but I still find that my 2006 synchro is pretty slippery under the straps. Enough so that I've lost some confidence in my connection to the board.

Anyone have any tricks for roughing up the padded area for better traction? Should I rough up the bottoms of my feet?

sailingjoe · Joined: 06 Aug 2008 Posts: 1087

At first I thought you were referring to reading through these forums. However, you will need pretty tough feet and strong ankles to sail barefoot. I have seen guys doing it in cold late autumn waters in N.E. and wondered if the adage, >>No brain, no pain<< was apt. Whatever, apply superglue to the bottoms of your feet (don't forget to let it dry before walking in the sand) and sail that way.

pueno · Joined: 03 Mar 2007 Posts: 2807

jingebritsen · Joined: 21 Aug 2002 Posts: 3371

Booties scuff off non-skid and wear down deck pads very quickly. I've heard of people that use a tiny bit of redeck on the pads themselves. Dunno if that would work on yours. Maybe a variation of that? What that would be is pure guesswork on my part. What ever you do, try a small patch first. Don't want a gummy mess all over your board. Maybe even replace the deck pads?

Sailing bare foot is oceans better.

Paultergeist · Joined: 07 Feb 2008 Posts: 36

This may be a really dumb suggestion......but.....

Would traditional surfboard wax -- of the appropriate temperature "stickiness" -- be a way to go? I am thinking that one could liberally apply it to the areas where traction seems compromised. The nice thing about surfboard wax is it works with bare feet or with booties, and it is pretty easy to reverse (it will just wear off eventually) if you don't like the effect.

This may have already been tried.....

bred2shred · Joined: 02 May 2000 Posts: 989 Location: Jersey Shore

Surfboard wax will make a mess. Unless you sand off the non-skid, I imagine it'll be permanently stuck in there and eventually get full of dirt and sand. And it'll get all over the deck pads and foot straps.

If you'r deck is slippery, just get some re-dek. If you have trouble keeping your feet in the foot straps, make the straps tighter, get better straps, or get better deck pads. Or just go back to wearing booties, plenty of people wear them.

I don't like booties because they get full of sand/rocks or come off my foot. And they tend to squeeze the side of my foot when in the strap (that's the biggest reason). I only wear them when it's cold.

sm

coachg · Joined: 10 Sep 2000 Posts: 3550

I’m not sure that sailing without booties is so much better? I started off without booties and put a nice 1” cut in the bottom of my foot after stepping on an unseen rock. After missing two weeks of great wind I switched to booties. I forgot my booties a couple of times since switching to booties and found out a couple of things for me. One is some of my boards that are 8 years old probably could use a coat of redeck because my bare feet were slipping all over the place during gybes. Wearing booties eliminates that problem. Also, after about 3 hours of sailing the top of my feet started to hurt from being worn raw by the footstraps during gybes. Now I know why some of those guys wear what looks like duct tape on top of their feet. I don’t sail any better without booties than I do with and my feet are much happier when I wear them. I guess I just have sensitive feet. So if I see Pritchard jump in front of a bus, excuse me if I don’t copy him.

Coachg

LeeD · Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 1175

If the pads are slippery, sand them with 60 grit lightly, and or clean them with Brillo type pad and some soapy type solution.
Most pros don't wear booties. Not only are they pros, but they stand around a lot between sessions.....dry feet nicer than wet ones.
Change out your footstraps for some new ones that stick well when wet.....
Lotsa windsurfers say they absolutely cannot sail WELL with booties on.
I say, don't they wear shoes when they play basketball, run on rocky shores, or ski/snowboard?
Feel? Like you need to feel the attitude and direction of the board? I can look down once in a while, but I'm not close to pro freestyler.
I say, use what you want. Don't go by what some dumb forumdude says. Use your own judgement, pay your own consequences.

OleBCN · Joined: 17 Sep 2007 Posts: 14

I use booties in spring and late fall.
I noticed that, when I wear the booties over my wetsuit, my legs inflate like water baloons after a while.
This is aggravated when I pee Cool

.
Any thoughts?

swchandler · Joined: 08 Nov 1993 Posts: 10588

Folks developed and started wearing shoes of some kind untold years ago. It's not too hard to reason why. If one sails at locales with rocky bottoms that include barnacles and whatever, why risk cutting up you feet? If you do get cut, the healing time is arguably the slowest on one's body, and the risks of infection are also far greater, especially in tropical locales.

Initially when I started windsurfing, I did so for a while without using booties, since I was launching off easy sandy venues. But what I found is that the rough deck eventually wore through the bottoms of my big toes creating raw areas. Needless to say, booties resolved the problem with no real downside.

So, when I hear some folks put down the use of booties and go on and on about how they can't feel the board or whatever, I'm thinking that there might be a hard lesson to be learned in the future.