Wakeboard Leash
 

A few years ago Mike Schwenne was experimenting with a leash for wakeboarding. The idea was that the board staying connected to you during a hard crash is one more safety measure, especially if you're wearing a comp vest as many of us do. With a comp vest......any comp vest, the combination of unconscious, wind knocked out, and board detached makes for a deadly combination. A detached but leashed board serves as a float or beacon for your position.

Anyone ever try anything like this? I was thinking about rigging one up. My reservation was the leash serving as a bungie and accelerating the board toward you.

It would be important to attach it to your upper body so if you were unconscious it would help you float with your head above water. Clearly the best place to tie it would be around your neck.

It's very unnecessary. A person that prefers a comp vest would most likely also prefer no leash. Also, I doubt a board would float an unconscious person that is out of their bindings.

I agree. Around the neck is best.

I don't think the expectation would be to float you, but rather, the boat can find you.

like the idea. but around the neck? last thing I want on a full eject fall is a loose board yanking on my neck

how about attach to the vest?

lol

Ok what am I missing here?

Lol

Oblivious to sarcasm much?

The neck thing was a joke.

I believe a common ankle strap would suffice. Anyone want to volunteer to scorpion with loose boots and see what happens? :-)

Yea. No idea what it means

maybe you could wear a sleeveless coat type thing with additional flotation?

Nah whipped cream hair gel is the obvious ticket here. Solid hold and floats your melon on the surface

These were really popular in kiteboarding for a good while, but everyone ditched them, even the "retractable" dog leash type that let out about 15 feet of cord before retracting were deemed more dangerous than they were worth.

Typically you'd see these leashes extend fully then the board would come rocketing back towards the rider. Usually into the back of their head.

Why not just wear a vest with suitable flotation?

Why can't we just make CGA vests more comfortable?

My Phalanx Vertex is just as comfortable as a comp vest
and the idea that anyone should worry about drowning after putting on a lifevest is actually ridiculous....what's the point

I've trained my wakeboard well enough to not need a leash. Just gotta be firm with them. If trained properly, they learn to circle around after a crash and wait for you. I'm taking deposits on wakeboard training school so I can train other people's boards as well...

I wouldn't mind a leash on my surfboard. I hate swimming after her on wipeouts.

Damn I forgot about shuvs...oh well I can't do them anyways haha

Get out of here with your logic, J.

If you wear the hyperlite snowboard type bindings, you could just use the small snowboard leash that attaches from your boot to the binding.

i'll stick with a CGA vest. not sure i'd want to catch an edge and get launched out of my bindings, just to have the board come flying back and smoke me when it recoils.

I actually think this is a very good idea.... In my mind I'm envisioning something like a surf leash, which is not stretchy and does not recoil. If you bail hard enough to come out of your bindings I think the water stops all your momentum pretty quickly, probably that of the board too. It's not like in surfing where when you pop up from a fall the wave is pushing the board back at you.

You would probably want to keep it pretty short too, so you don't have a bunch of cable or rope flying around while you ride. If you think about it, how often to you really ever come out of your bindings? You gotta crash pretty hard. If that's the case you come up out of the water with your hands over your face so you don't bump into the board. And if you're KO'd, bumping the board with your head is the least of your concerns.

The logic a lot of comp vest riders use (and I have used in the past) is that three conditions need to be met to put you at risk of drowning if wearing a comp vest.
1) Knocked out cold
2) Wind knocked out of you (air out of the lungs)
3) Ejected from bindings

If any two of these things happen, you probably hurt like hell but aren't likely to die. The board staying on your feet, as well as keeping air in your lungs go a long way to keeping you afloat if you get KO'd with a comp vest. In some of the ones I used to ride I would sink like a stone if I pushed all the air out of my lungs without the board on. With the board on, stayed floating. Wetsuits add some buoyancy as well.

So if you somehow stayed tethered to the board, even if KO'd, wind knocked out, and ejected, I don't think you would sink any further than however long the leash would allow. And as stated before, the board would be the marker for your friends in the boat to hopefully get back to you quickly and get you in the boat.

Even with a CGA vest, if you get KOd and land face down, your in just as bad position until the boat gets back to you. The risk with a comp vest is if you sink, the boat cannot find you. I think the logic behind the leash is the board would prevent you from completely sinking, and provide the boat a means to find you.

I wear a CTI knee brace so I think something connecting my brace to the board or binding would work and would allow it to be pretty short if you connected to the lower part of the brace and the upper part of the binding. But for those who don't need a brace maybe a strap just under the knee above the calf muscle or just above the knee would work.

I choose to wear a CGA vest now, 1) cause I have wife/kids to support 2) they have gotten way way better in recent years (Oneill Assault), and 3) my cable requires one anyway so why not wear it on the boat too? But I rode comp vests for a very long time up to and including last season for some sets and never felt I was taking too big a risk, again, subscribing to the comp vest wearer's logic described above.

I think a product like this leash would provide a 4th condition that would have to be met before someone is in real trouble.

So I think I'm reading between the lines here and realizing that this leash question/idea is really only about a body recovery kind of thing for people who potentially crash and burn, but don't want to wear a CGA vest. Let me throw this in just to confuse things; has anyone ever purposely tested things and gone limp while floating in a CGA vest to see how you would float if unconscious? It might surprise you how little you're protected even with a CGA approved vest......

It might float you face down - but when the boat circles back, they can just grab you.. as opposed to sinking in a comp vest.

Are people wearing weighted comp vests or am I missing something? I've got a Jetpilot A-10 vest and although I've had it longer than I can remember it's saved me out cold and ejected twice. Sure it won't kept me up for forever but if we're just talking about the time it takes for the boat to get back to me and pull me out it did that job perfectly.

^^^Sorry. I'm calling BS on that one. If you were ever literally out cold and limp with no board on and without anything to hold your face out of the water, you would have drown. It would have been semi-believable if your board was still attached and you got lucky by ending up on your back. No board and out cold in a comp vest? No way...

No BS there. The point he's making is that you are more likely to survive if rescued immediately vs people having to find you on the bottom of the lake.

Yeah, I've owned and test many comp vests. Expel the air in your lungs and you will sink I think. I always do at least.

If you think about what happens during an edge catch, I don't see the board rocketing toward you with a non-bungie leash. When you catch an edge, the board stops, and you continue traveling. If you travel far enough to yank the board with the leash, I think the board is going to push / scoop the water. There may be the rare scenario where the board re-planes and travels toward you like a Wakeskate, but that happens now on occasion anyway.

Also....out cold face down doesn't mean you drown necessarily.

So what stops you from breathing in water if you're out cold? How is that any different than people who fall asleep in the tub and drown?

I passed out once as a kid in a "how many laps underwater contest" and didn't inhale any water (and won). The key point here is how fast you get rescued, not whether you inhaled water. If you passed out in a bathtub, it's unlikely anyone will be rescuing you quickly.

You guys must have some pretty crappy or loose boots. With the setup I have now, there's no chance in hell I'm going to get ejected from my board.

My foot and ankle would break before I come out of them.

Yeah, I noticed that in the boots that come out in recent years I've yet to get ejected.

Which is why I don't cinch them down too tight. I've been stuck half way out. My ankle will never be the same.

It's a personal preference. I prefer to come out. I agree that with the newer boots seem not release as well.

Interesting idea. I like it, I only wear comp vests and have definitely had a few close calls. Luckily I was still connected to my board. I just don't like the bulky feel of a approved vest. I have no idea how this would work but it would sure be cool if someone could make a vest that had an air bag in it or something. Like if you catch your toe or heel edge it automatically inflates and keeps your above the water. Some type of accelerometer that would sense the massive amount of G forces that go along with a edge catch and deploy the air bag.

You need to re-familiarize yourself with the different Type's of PFD's (i, II, III), as those indicate what level of safety and float position should be expected. A type 3, which most/all wakeboard vests are, is designed to float you head up at/above water surface, but not face up, that is what the orange over the head vest you get on a rental boat are for will guarantee. This dumb leash idea is so that a drowning body can be found easier/more quickly, just as a CGA vests already do. The leash would also increase the likelihood of the board coming on attack missions if you did eject, almost increasing the risk and danger.

Call all the BS you want, all I'm saying is I've had two separate occasions where I've come out of my board catching an edge on a landing (one was learning 360s, the other learning raleys) and my comp vest floated me enough for the boat to get back to me and pull me out. It probably helped that I was not a heavy kid, but regardless if comp vests don't float at all I might as well wear t-shirts. I understand that if it was a prolonged period of time it might be different but the vest did it's job for the time it took to pick me up.

Best I can tell my A-10 would float me if I was out. It definitely provides flotation. But that may not be the same for everyone.

Wear a CGA vest. If you can't ride as good with a CGA vest, them you need to practice more.

I went down on an edge catch last summer. Bad concussion followed and gave me a hard time for about a month. When I went down it knocked me out very briefly. Came to upside down in the water struggling to get to the surface with no air in my lungs. Scariest moment of my life. Was wearing what I thought was a sufficient enough vest. Not type III but wasn't a super thin vest. Went to the store a few days later when I was finally feeling somewhat ok again and picked up a type III vest. They have come a long way over the years. Is it more bulky? Yes. But the material used now a days in a decent vest is super lightweight and flexes very well. Don't notice a difference in my riding and when I fall my head stays well above the water. Never again will I ride without it or something less.

You mean THIS crash, Jason :D

https://vimeo.com/135156905

^ouch! That back edge neck snapper is just what I did last Thursday. Knocked the wind right out of me. But I had one of those Costco CGA vests on that I picked up for the public lake riding.

No one has mentioned the life-cycle of any vest. All vests lose float over time, use, improper storage. Leaving a vest wet in a storage locker all the time will kill it.

It is all about commonsense and risk. If you are aware of what you are doing and comfortable assuming the risk, go for it.

The thing that kills me are all of the "pro" edits coming out of the asian cable parks with no helmets. A head injury, 24+ hours from a modern hospital is no joke. That his how you get a hole trepanned in your skull by the local medicine man.

Jesus why don't we work on a vest with a built in HANS device instead...

This can't be too far off. They just recently introduced a vest for skiers/nowboarders that deploys like an airbag when you wreck hard to protect you. Also have the quick deploy Avalanche cocoons.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/olympic-...atthias-mayer/

Yeah, the problem with that device, and the one that also inflates for motorcycle racing is that it is very expensive when it deploys I believe.

The ultimate is a vest that is thin, that blows up on a high impact crash to both float you and prevent whiplash. But it would have to be easily and cost effectively reloaded multiple times a day potentially.

It looks like they are coming along.

http://www.bikebone.com/new-2016-hit...ast-inflation/