Foiling Faster

The Development, Success And Subsequent Banning Of The Ingen Toestrap

Some time back in 2021, Sam Whaley from Ingen Sailing came to Casca with the premise for a toestrap that would make the Waszp a more user friendly boat to sail. The problem was that the current toestrap laid completely flat to the trampoline making it incredibly tricky to get your feet under when exiting a tack or gybe. The secondary problem was that the supplied toestraps were unbelievably stretchy and actually quite slippery. Essentially, once you had wrestled your feet under the strap, it wasn't possible to get a positive lock to the boat.

So here was the brief from Ingen - The straps needed to float in the air so as to get feet under easily, they couldn't stretch under load and they needed to grip the feet when hiking. "Oh, and not too bulky or heavy either please!"

Getting rid of the stretch and reducing weight was easy enough. A few years earlier when doing some work with Chris Gould of Creation Covers, he had ditched padding his toestraps in favour of layering 2 layers of toestrap material. He had came to the conclusion that non-padded toestraps were painful because the toestrap material rolls upwards or simply scrunches up and so you're never getting the full 50mm width of the toestrap spreading the load on your feet. If you double the toestrap material, it becomes stiff enough that it doesn't deform and you get the full 50mm of load spread and therefore no need for all the thick bulky padding to make it comfortable.
I wasn't a fan as I still like squidgy padding but it would work perfectly for what Sam wanted.
In between the layers of toestrap material we also put a layer of Dacron, just for extra stiffness and reduced stretch.
Next the grip which was the easiest part - Progrip. It's not fancy or special but it's good enough for almost every single sailor sailing a trapeze boat, so Progrip would be a good place to start for the underside of the INGEN straps. So, we had zero stretch, we had the grip and we weren't adding any bulk where it wasn't needed. But in reality, this was all for nothing if we couldn't make the toestrap float in mid air.

We needed an object we could attach to the strap for it to sit on and ride up into the air, we needed a riser.
Sam sent me a couple of foam options for risers that he had been considering but they weren't quite right for a complete package. He was however onto the right track shape wise. We needed something a bit more pleasant looking but I was keen that whatever we used was hollow so that it would be mostly air. We found some acceptable 70mm tubing, cut it to 50mm wide to match the width of the strap and found a rudimentary way of attaching it and the first strap was fitted to Sams boat for testing.

The first two problems.

The main issue though was its tipping point. Once the strap rotated past a certain point, it flipped onto its side and stayed there. The only way to right it was to reach into the boat and set it back upwards. Somehow we needed to increase its tipping point so that it could safely rotate further and naturally spring back upright without flipping. The obvious answer is make the riser wider at its base. At first we tried a 70mm base leading to a 50mm top, but then pushed it out further to an approximately 80mm base narrowing to a 50mm top. This hugely increases the tipping point of the strap to a point where it simply will not flip at all whilst sailing. 

The secondary issue was some subtle movement in the riser so we had to look at the locking mechanism. In order to eliminate any side to side movement, we decided that it must be under constant tension pulling in opposing ways. To achieve this, the Dyneema lines holding it in place, criss-cross as they travel through the riser creating a competing left pull and right pull. To guarantee high tension, the lines are stitched with the toestrap curved so that when the strap is tensioned to be pulled straight, the Dyneema lines take a disproportionately high amount of the load through the strap.
Lastly, for neatness and trampoline protection, all of the riser securing system is wrapped in Weathermax.

The next on the water test it performed beautifully. So we put it into production and manufactured the Ingen Riser Straps to exactly Ingen's specification.

It was a fun project that improved the usability and enjoyment of the boat and it was a joy to work with Ingen with their creativity and passion.
However, when you make something that boosts race performance so clearly, you’re always going to risk that item getting banned and that’s exactly what happened. 
To be fair to the class, they did at least grandfather the rule change so that boats under ta certain sail number can still use them meaning that people who had already spent money on them didn’t immediately have to just throw them away. So if you have one of those numbered boats and you don’t have a set, get in contact with Ingen and get yourself a pair!

We thought that might be the end of the story but a little silver lining appeared. A stunning looking boat called the Switch also has a similar problem, and whilst their toestraps do have a small lift, again they've used such cheap webbing (rather than actual toestrap webbing) whereby the stretch in the strap makes them almost unusable. By pure chance the INGEN straps fit perfectly in place, and have a higher amount of rise. 


So they're now officially the Ingen Switch/Waszp Riser Toestraps.

If there's ever an item your business needs developing, we're always open to working with other business and much like with INGEN if we develop a project with you, it is exclusive to you. If a would be customer tries to come directly to us, we'll re-route them back to you.