Strap On Hiking Pads for Dinghy Sailors

Hiking Pads

You know the feeling halfway up a long beat in a breeze: thighs burning, the gunwale cutting a line across the back of your legs, and the choice between sitting up or losing feeling below the knee. Hiking pads move that line. Strapped over your wetsuit, they spread the load across your thighs so you can stay flat out for the whole leg and still have legs for the next one.

Our view: strap on hiking pads are the right buy if you already own a wetsuit you like and want the padding without replacing it. They go over a long john or skiff suit, come off in the dinghy park, and cost a fraction of full hikers. If you race a hiking singlehander every weekend and are due a new suit anyway, the hikers further down the page build the padding into the suit itself. Either way, sort the hiking strap first.

Sale

Rooster Aquafleece Headband

£20.00 £18.00

Rooster Aquafleece Headband

£18.00 £20.00

Hiking Pads FAQs

How do strap on hiking pads work?

They are stiff padded panels that sit across the top of your thighs and strap round the leg over your wetsuit. When you hike, the gunwale lands on the pad instead of your leg, and the stiffness spreads your weight along the whole panel rather than a single line. The result is that you can hike flatter for longer before your legs give up, and you do not come ashore with a bruise across each thigh.

Hiking pads or hikers?

Pads if you have a good wetsuit and want to add padding to it, hikers if you are buying a new suit anyway. Pads are cheaper, work over any suit and come off between races. Hikers have the padding sewn into a neoprene suit, so there is nothing to shift or rub and they are warmer with no gap. Sailors racing an ILCA or Aero at open meetings usually end up in hikers. For club racing, pads do the job.

Which boats need hiking pads?

Any boat you hike with your legs under a strap. That means the hiking singlehanders, the ILCA, RS Aero, Solo, Streaker and Phantom, and the crew in a few doublehanders like the RS200 and RS400. If you trapeze, or sail a boat where you sit on the side deck rather than hang off it, pads are wasted and a plain wetsuit with a reinforced seat is the better buy. See our dinghy sailing wetsuits.

How should hiking pads fit?

Tight enough that they do not rotate round your leg when you tack, with the pad sitting across the top of the thigh where the gunwale lands when you are fully hiked. Not on the knee and not up at the hip. Fit them over the suit you actually sail in, because pads adjusted over a rash vest will be loose over neoprene. Most come in a couple of sizes based on thigh measurement, so check the chart.

Are hiking pads allowed under class rules?

In most classes, yes, and in the ILCA they are standard kit at every level. World Sailing limits the weight of clothing and equipment a sailor can wear, including padding, and some classes have their own rules on top. Check your class rules before a championship if you are unsure. For club racing nobody is going to weigh your pads. The limit exists to stop sailors wearing water soaked kit for extra righting moment, not to ban comfort.