As previously discussed here, I’ve been taking a razor blade to my Neil Pryde FreeSurf harness, cutting away apparently useless (and certainly annoying) flaps, straps and tabs in an effort to make the harness more user-friendly. The original harness appeared to have pieces that not only served no purpose, but which would work their way out from under the spreader bar during a session, looking bad and sometimes interfering with hooking in.
The first procedure (removal of a meaningless strap and its support loops and thingamabobs) worked so well that I went ahead and cut off a flap sewn into the middle of a section of velcro. I could not figure out what this flap was intended to do, nor could anyone else I showed it to, so off it came.
The harness performs much better now. I wouldn’t say I recommend purchasing one, but if you already are in possession of a Neil Pryde FreeSurf, I encourage you to lop all this stuff off. It’s worked for me!
(Top: Peconic Jeff (a clever guy) stands mystified by the offending flap. Bottom: Closeup of the flap, which prevents a solid velcro connection while protecting nothing. My new theory is that this harness might be from a batch of factory errors, though the mighty Mike Burns says this isn’t the first harness he knows of that couldn’t be improved with a knife.)
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