My Fanatic Stingray didn't have a bottom handle and since I ride strapless I needed something. So I put the foil on the board where I like it and carefully measured the balance point then put the handle there. It was pretty far in front of the foil tracks.

In contrast, my newer Duotone stingray does have a handle about 7 cm in front of the tracks and it's too far back and the nose wants to drop. If I had the CAD that wouldn't have happened.

With our launches it's usually nose first, but going in that's into the wind and coming out it's at my back. I rarely walk backwards unless the wind is really up.

I've retrofitted lots of them, and it's easy in a finished board as we mount everything then find the balance point. Much harder to estimate before laminate

I normally find for that sort of handle it's 3-4" in front of the tracks so you'd be pretty close to it but I reckon go forward a bit

as an aside- have fun with the routing there, the top and bottom are different shapes. And they have the potential to leak so rough up and glass that bottom join beforehand

Mark _australia said..
I've retrofitted lots of them, and it's easy in a finished board as we mount everything then find the balance point. Much harder to estimate before laminate

I normally find for that sort of handle it's 3-4" in front of the tracks so you'd be pretty close to it but I reckon go forward a bit

as an aside- have fun with the routing there, the top and bottom are different shapes. And they have the potential to leak so rough up and glass that bottom join beforehand

Thanks Mark! I was hoping you would chime in.

I have been tracking CG on the boards I have built and have average distance aft of the center of buoyance that will get me pretty close. I can figure out how to get the weight to balance, my concern is the windage being too balanced because the handle is so far forward. I want to keep the auto weather-vaning. I need to find the sweet spot and figure out the method of predicting similar results in different design shapes. Any minute now I will pick a distance and get on with it, I have been waiting on materials to come in so I had a minute or two overthink things.

Yeah, that handle is "something". I noticed the shape difference, the big side is at the board bottom, and it is smaller inside the board. My plan is to cut square and let the gorilla glue fill the void.
Do you think it is worth it to taper the hole for weight and/or structure reasons?
I have owned but passed on this handle on three builds now because it looked like it would leak. This board I am building is XPS so a leak probably won't matter and with heavier foam I am looking for every weight saving opportunity I can. On the pro side for this handle, it is really light almost as light as the foam it will displace. The other pro, I can use something I bought years ago.