Leg ropes — why, where, and where not

Leg ropes — why, where, and where not

Watch the walkthrough

Watch on YouTube ↗ · Jetboard Australia — "Jetsurfing Pro Tips: Leg Rope Installation Demystified" (~8 min). Timestamps below follow the video's own time.

A leg rope is close to essential for surf riding. This covers why, the one place you must never attach it, what length to run, and a load-spreading mount that won't tear out of the board.

Why use a leg rope — 0:36

• 0:40 — In big surf a fall loses the board. Hanging onto the handle works up to a point, but a big tumble can damage the tether cord and pull it out of the board.
• 1:01 — If the tether breaks, the accelerator cord can pull tight — the board accelerates on its own and shoots off. So in a big wave, let the handle go.

Where to attach it — 1:26

• 1:26 — Never on the hand control. It carries the magnet and the wiring to the engine — a jerk can break it and cause intermittent start/stop, which is dangerous in the surf.
• 1:47 — Attach it to the board. On a swivel binding base you can drill an extra hole in the bracket and tie the leg rope through it with a reef knot.
• 3:29 — Run it to your rear leg. Not your wrist or arm — going over a big wave you dive deep and the board comes back through it; you want that pull on a leg, not an arm.

What length to run — 4:05

• 4:07 — Use a short, boogie-board-style leg rope. A long one can wrap the board, get pulled under, and be sucked into the jet — tangled in the impeller it's a serious problem.
• 4:52 — A reef knot on a drilled swivel base lets you take the leg rope off for shallow / fresh / small-wave sessions and tie it back on for big surf.

The strong way to mount it — 5:24

1. 5:32 — Better than a drilled bracket: a base plate that bolts under the binding with a tie point for the leg rope. It spreads the load across all the binding bolts — six points instead of four.
2. 6:32 — To fit it: remove the binding, take out the two mount screws, set the plate over all the binding holes, and bolt the binding back down on top — the plate is sandwiched and can't move.

Where NOT to attach — 5:58

• 6:01 — Never to a single binding bolt. The bindings thread into a captive nut glued into the carbon-fibre hull — it doesn't take much load to tear that out, and the repair is a structural job.
• 7:11 — And not the hand control — it's relatively strong but it's the wrong thing to load.