Im 97kg dry, beginner- intermediate parawinger riding code 1725s, medium fuse, 178 stab for lightwind, F-one Sevenseas 1500 for 15-20 knots, and code 980s for >20 knots.
I always seem to burn out my back leg regardless of my setup. It feels like i need excessive backfoot pressure all the time even though i keep moving my backfoot further back on the deck. It is definitely exacerbated riding toeside.
Fixes? Move my mast further forward? Use a smaller stab?
Cheers,
Matt in Norway.
Hi! Do you mean that you have to put pressure on backfoot tho keep the board leveled? If so move the mast forward so you have more frontfoot pressure. Everyone’s different, but I personally ride with about 60% front foot pressure.
Move mast forward, or longer fuse or bigger stab. Youre having to apply more back pressure as the centre of list isn’t feeling far enough forward.
I’d move mast forward, or a mast base shim.
how much of this issue is stance related? moving the mast around vs. moving feet? or does it depend on the board?
It feels like 90% back foot pressure, 10% front foot at the moment making the setup very pitch sensitive. I’ll move the mast further forward and see if that helps.
Parawings tend to pull more forward than LEI-Wings which pull more leeward. So you have more force on the front foot pushing down. I had to shim my mast, because foil tracks where not long enough in front.
mast forward or shim the stab if tracks are not long enough
Are we talking with the parawing doused riding bumps or under sail?
Are you riding straps?
I struggle with my back leg when pumping a lot of bumps, but the fix is to move your back foot farther back.
I have a single footstrap which is a quarter of the way forward in the inserts. So I could move that back 1cm. Back foot pressure is the same when riding with the parawing or going downwind.
Narrowing your stance, moving your mast forward or shimming your tail (leading edge down) will all help to take some weight off your back leg.
it’s odd to me that you’d have off pressure while under sail, but I’ve never been a strap user. I would say remove the strap then ride the board and find a spot where your feet feel good and see if your back leg suffers. Then you’ll have to play with mast position and strap position to re-create that feeling.
Continuing the discussion from Parawing backfoot pressure issue:
Thanks for all the advice. I removed the foot strap. I have moved the mast forward incrementally but it felt like the foil wanted to stall all the time so that did not help so much. Next step is shimming the stab. The code 3D downloadable shims are all positive ones (thick edge on the rear / leading edge up) and as i understand it that will exacerbate rear foot pressure. So i need a negative shim right? Have any heavy tall riders on code tried this? I am 105kg and 196cm tall.
I have had that problem snd in my case it was a mastplate shimming issue.
If your board is riding a bit nose down your back leg will be more bent and get tired sooner.
Shimming mastplate with thick part forward will level the board up inflight, same weight on both feer, no leg burn.
If someone can look at you while riding or take video/pics you can check if your board is nose down at cruising speed.
Here’'s baseplate recommendation that helped with back foot burning for a newer parawinger.
Otherwise, if its a foot position issue then Gwen has a good explanation of standing on the sweet spot and foot position relative to your hips. Counter-intuitively moving your back foot further can make this problem worse… instead move your front foot further back and maybe even move your back foot further forward to narrow your stance over the sweet spot. This made the difference for me dropping down in foil size to maximize the amount of glide and low-end stall speed. As a 195cm 100kg rider this means i’m mostly riding hip width, to keep up with small waves or wind swell. It could be helpful to see your stance while riding to see where your hips are. Straight front leg means weight too far back, and burning out that back leg. The smaller the foil the smaller the sweet spot, so tuning mast position on your 980s might be easier to spot the issue. When pumping this translates to a solid pressure in your front foot like a platform that you are able to hop off of, rather than a squishy seesaw you are going up and down on.
good luck!
This is exactly the opposite of what i would recommend for back leg burn…
Shimming this way would be useful for takeoff if you need too much board nose up to get i the foil to lift.
For downwinding we are riding downhill for long times so the board is already pointing down a bit even if well trimmed.If the board rides nose down on the flat then on a wave it just gets worse.
Oh yeah, you literally said the opposite I just noticed.
Your reasoning makes sense… and weirdly @FoilGraham’s also makes sense.
Negative angle attack will allow the foil to keep diving while keeping the board flying more neutral with even foot pressure. But positive angle attack will allow him to put more weight on the front foot when cruising at a slow speed without dropping off foil. So that could help for smaller windswell/low energy where tendency is to press harder on the back foot to keep the foil from dropping out.
If he is going too fast and using back foot pressure to keep from nose diving then negative angle of attack makes sense, but if he is going too slow and using back foot pressure to keep from stalling then a positive angle of attack shim makes sense.
Is he riding nose high, or nose low?
fwiw: shimming has never made sense to me, so forgive my ignorance. 
Yeah we are speculating a ton without seeing footage of the rider. My referenced quote was coming from a light weight rider, trying to make ‘close to stall speed’ riding as comfortable as possible in bay bumps. I remember a lot of back foot pressure as I tried to keep the foil on an upward angle of attack in weak energy and needing to pump higher off that already high angle to get additional altitude. The nose high board needed additional nose gain - burning out my back leg. The rear plate shim simply allowed a more neutral stance riding down small swell in those scenarios. If the rider isn’t nearing stall speed, then he shouldn’t head that advice. Given that he is larger, that may actually be a factor, especially if he’s trying to rely on minor, short period swell energy.
I ended up ditching the mast plate shim, then ditching Armstrong. No problem with my F4 gear now, but I’m in a different gear and I don’t have a bigger foil size in the quiver any longer. Less drag equals less time teetering on the verge of stalling out. Now it’s just an occasional grave dig and then back to trying to cruise or carve.
So many factors .
I was just speculating too, With footage maybe it would be obvious.
To test, I would just cut a small piece of an old credit card or something, and place it in between fuselage and rear wing.
Place it in front of the front screw. So leading edge of the rear wing points down when riding.
This will give the rear wing more downward force, wich will make the foil want to go up. Giving more pressure on the front door.
Haven’t played with shims in a long time. But back in my windsurf foil years, I used it a lot. Exactly to adjust front/rear foot pressure.
Moving the whole foil more forward will also give more front foot pressure. But using shims instead will give a bit more stability.
Shim the rear stab, trailing edge up. That will even up the foot pressure.