Zac Majors had a bad landing on the practice day at the Santa Cruz Flats Race landing in stiff winds behind the eight story hotel at the Francisco Grande. We got to watch the whole thing and I spoke with him later. At the time he felt that he might have broken his thumb on landing.

From our point of view it looked like he was coming in with his hands way too high up on the down tubes and way way too slow so that he was getting tossed around pretty strongly. From his point of view he was pulling in hard and still getting tossed around strongly. Could we both be right?

Rob Kells came up with an answer that says we were both right.

Rob states that pilots who fly harnesses with back plates often have this problem (as their back plate wants to push them down) of coming in with their hands too high on the down tubes. They are pulling themselves up on the down tubes to counteract the tendency of the harness to push them down. So they are holding on strongly to the downtubes and doing a pull up.

Holding on strongly (which, of course, you would also tend to do when landing with a lot of turbulence, like Zippy was doing) high up on the downtubes transfers you center of gravity backwards because the apex of your glider is behind your hang point (so that when you flare, you can flare with authority). This means that just when you want to pull in and get your center of gravity forward to get on some speed, you are doing just the opposite, getting your center of gravity further back.

In addition, you are holding on strong and pulling in hard, but you are really just pulling down and even though it feels like you are pulling in to get that speed, you are actually doing just the opposite of what it feels like. The harder you pull "in", the more you shift your weight to the back. So it feels like you are doing the right thing, but your aren't.

So the idea is to get your hands low on the down tubes, or stay on the base bar, or put your feet on the base bar (like I sometimes do) and pull in from down low, not up high. Your hands don't need to be at your shoulder height until you are ready to flare.

A back plate harness will naturally rotate you forward and down and you can stay down with it. Maybe rotate up half way to get your feet down a bit and your hands on the lower ends of the down tubes. You can just hang there as your harness will support you in this configuration.

Thanks to Rob Kells and to Zippy.