Chicken straps.

When the conditions (winds and/or waves) get too difficult, or when you wish to go very deep downwind, you might have some effect from placing your backward foot in the "chicken strap" (presumable with associations to the "chicken game"?).

When you are loosing control, the use of the chicken strap eases the sideward press on the fin, so that you don't get lifted from the water.

If you wish to go very low, you might sometimes keep the board planing a little longer (that is less press in the sail and lower speed) by using the chicken strap - probably because the board is leveled out with a larger area in contact with the water.

Undreamt of the reasons, the prize for using the chicken strap is a dramatically lower speed, and with more time on the water (that is training, familiarity and self confidence) the chicken strap shall probably gradually get superfluous. But of course - it does give a little peace in mind to know that it's still in place.

If you like experimenting, you might be lucky to find some new places for the chicken strap (or two chicken straps?) to create a better compromise of control and speed.

The chicken strap is fastened to a F2 FX 100 IV in the recommended way.

If you take a closer look, some extra plugs/holes can be seen - indicating that the owner has been experimenting in finding an alternative place for two angled straps.

On this Starboard 158 the blue arrows show the recommended placement of the chicken strap. The forward anchor point is a plug (blue arrow to the right), and the backward anchor point is the forward fin bolt.

The red arrows show that the owner has tried to use two alternative places for two straps - and to avoid the straps to twist there are even two holes in either end op the straps.