I have a 2008 North Fish which I haven't used yet and need to set up the foot straps. Can anyone tell me if it is OK to ride it with the foot straps in a central inline position rather than set up with one end just off centre? Does it really matter or will this cause ankle or knee injuries?

Thanks for your input.

laurie said...


Regards ankle / knee injuries... from what I hear the main cause is when one foot comes out, and the other stays in .. the board then rotates and twists your ankle/knee.

I did exactly that about 4 weeks ago - its pretty painful. Ankle is almost better now, I'm lucky it didn't do more damage.

I'll come clean .. I did my ankle/knee on the weekend with straps. Ouch.

Been making the transition from strapped to strapless over the last month, and it's been great fun.

Did the front foot only in the strap idea for a while (and the back foot out) to get the hang of it. I almost busted my ankle doing that, and decided it was a bad idea.

Was strapless yesterday, having a ball, and borrowed a friends board which had straps. At the stage I'm at, strapless is really "delicate", but can charge really hard with straps. :-)

Anyways, was charging hard, full of confidence after being unstrapped & now strapped in, and a wave somehow got me .. happened so fast, can't remember exactly how. Just lots of pain, hurt the big toe, ankle & knee .. pain in the LCL mainly - in some strange way I feel "lucky" that it's only a mild injury, rather than annoyed at being injured at all? Weird.

Such is sport...

Straight and loose, need to do little shuffles to get toes closer to the edge

But i prefer strapless until the surf gets too solid

eppo said...

I have the 2009. Really this board rides best either with no footstraps or as I mainly do just the front one in. The back is set too far back unless you want to add holes.

I also have the 2009 and mostly use straps.

I have my straps in the centre position, but quite loose so there is no stress on the ankles. I quite like having straps on the board as it's always wanting to do little chop-hops over any bit of ocean bump.

Regarding planing, I often just take the back foot out of the strap and place it on the deck right in front of the strap. But I only really bother doing this when I gybe a lot. On downwinders, I just keep the back foot in and really have no issue with planing.