Thanks for the report Erik. Good reality check. Seems to confirm that in less then 20 the parawing is going to be more challenging, especially the larger sizes.
With a dw board I am wondering if a 4m would have been more manageable and had enough power to get you going.
Kites need line tension for power, guessing that just like kiting that you need to make sure your using the board edge to resist dw drift during the start(point upwind for power). Used to use my FS peaks in really light wind conditions and if you allowed yourself to drift downwind it was much harder to start. Just a thought from a keyboard warrior and kiter.
It wouldn’t be a new foil discipline if you didn’t have to suffer through a few shockers to learn I guess. Hopefully the community will start to share some tips and tricks to help folks get over the learning curve quicker than the early adopters.
I’m interested to see if kiteboarding knowledge helps when I give the Parawing a go.
I’ve been kite foiling on the single skin Peak kites for 4 years and have had my fair share of water relaunches, deep water kite resets after crashing, deep water pack downs, swims back in and bridle tangles.
When I unpacked my first Peak I was ready to return it once I saw the bridles. After I understood how the bridles worked everything got very easy.
There definitely was a learning curve with the Peaks like a 1 hour untangling mission after my first session. That same tangle now takes about 15 seconds to sort out.
I few tip from the Peaks:
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To untangle the bridle always clear the A lines first that attach to the leading edge of the kite first. Then clear the B lines that attach to the center of the kite. Last clear the C lines that attach to the trailing edge of the kite. To untangle the bridles just give them a good shake.
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To clear the water out of the kite start at one wing tip and lift the leading edge out of the water allowing the water to drain. Swim to kite from the side to make sure you don’t get tangled in the bridles. Work across the leading edge, lifting the leading edge out of the water until you get to the other tip of the kite. The kite should be on its back with the leading edge of the kite out of the water catching the wind. If you apply a little tension on the A bridles attached to the leading edge the kite will stay in this position indefinitely.
It should look like this:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_F45NPpxR
- To pack up the kite in the water place the bar along a wing tip with one end of the bar even with the leading edge of the kite. Lift the leading edge out of the water and roll the kite around the bar. The water will drain from the kite as you roll as long as the leading edge is out of the water.
For me the most important things for Peaks are to keep the leading edge out of the water and always clear the A lines first if the bridle is tangled.
Beautiful tips thank you.
Can you clarify your body position to the kite in the water to empty the leading edge to get ready to get to the A lines?
Any video link?
The two links recently shared are good references. The leash video is a good reference to see how the kite likes to collapse backwards with back line pressure and how it lifts off with front line pressure. This is identical to how single skin kites like the Peak fly.
When launching it’s going to be important to have the board perpendicular to the wind like in the image above. If you allow the board to point dw you will slack the lines and bad things are bound to happen(bridles on the nose of the board for example).
When you can’t just toss launch the kite like in the videos from Maui that got us all interested you are going to need to learn the technique to water launch the single skin kite. Good tips above. Would add that you need to be patient. Slowly clearing the kite from the water. To much pressure will dig in the trailing edge and create the sea anchor effect. Ideally you have light tension on the front lines and let the wind slowly fill the kite until just the trailing edge is in the water. At that point you can pull more on the bar and the kite should release from the water.
Again this is all from the perspective of a FS Peak assuming it applies to these short bridled pocket wings.
Another brutal reality check is to watch the Foil the Greats YT video. Recommend watching the part at 19min when he is successful first. He is out in light wind conditions (10-15) with a 4m and is eventually successful but it was clearly a struggle in those conditions. Sounds like he did not have kite experience as well.
This video at the two minute mark is similar to my deep water relaunch:
If packing up for a swim in on the Peak I’ll wind up my lines and approach the kite from the wingtip and then keep myself upwind of the kite as I roll it up around the bar.
I wonder if the Parawing bridle tangles are mostly from the bar falling through the bridles? My Parawing is on order and I plan on starting out with a leash connected to the bar to help sort everything out on the water.
The depower on this looks pretty good
Much closer to BRM
Pretty quiet in here. Good video review and first impressions of the 5m. He has kite and wing experience and still struggled with the 5m so don’t feel to bad Erik. 
He actually makes it look pretty useable in this video, except he says he still thinks the pack down will be a challenge. Still think the 4m is the sweet spot for the biggest you want to pack down while riding but hopefully we will see some clips that make it look doable.
You have to make sure you’re going out in enough wind or you’re bound to be frustrated.
Im sure a lot of brands have parawings in development. What other options have people seen out there? I’m sure there will be some glimpses at AWSI.
I caught a North version in a video clip. Assume its their own version rather than a rebranded BRM, but looks pretty similar from what I could tell.
I really want to see the Ozone offering. I have no idea if they are developing one, but I have to imagine so since they make some of the world’s best paragliders and foil kites. If designed specifically for all the key characteristics, I can only imagine how much better v2 will be
Can you provide a link to the clip?
Here the generic foil podcast clip with the North pocket wing that xfoils/kite Puerto Rico apparently has early access too.
Seems the fellow podcasters are hanging out at AWSI.
I had two sessions with the BRM parawing in Hood River.
The first was a lightish day with current opposing the wind. I have been kitefoiling and wingfoiling for quite a while and found it very easy to use/adjust to. Took out the 4m with my 60L Omen Flux and 1050cm2 front wing.
The wind wasn’t strong but it would have been very low effort to get up with my 4m inflatable wing. I was definitely on the edge but able to pump the board onto foil reliably and set a small upwind angle almost right from the first tack. Harness line was a MUST for me, wouldn’t have stayed up long without it. Super easy to hook in and fly with one hand, really enjoyed this aspect of it and the wing seemed a lot more stable less twitchy when hooked in, however, that’s probably due in a big part to my inexperience flying two handed.
Other takeaways were it was a lot more user friendly than I expected, but I definitely need a longer board for light wind, whereas, with the inflatable wing I’ve never felt the need for anything bigger than the 60L Flux. Didn’t have an chance to pack it down as the swell was super small and it was a challenge to make much progress up wind in the light conditions/current.
Next I got to try the 2.9m in proper conditions. Much easier to make progress upwind powered up (and helped by the typical HR current opposing wind setup). Take it with a grain of salt as this was only session number two but I’d say I could cover between 10-20% of the ground upwind as I would have with my 3m inflatable wing. I was on a 44L board (not by choice, rather due to water hand over) but managed to get up with some aggressive board pumping.
When I made it all the way upwind harness design made the packdown super easy and it was 100% incredible to be downwinding on my prone setup!
I’m defintely in on the parawing concept, will be adding the 1.9. 2.9, and probably 4.0 to my quiver for downwind and to keep working on the upwind/downwind concept.
I’m very optimistic that with a combination of skill improvement on my part and design tweaks the parawing concept will make upwind/downwind runs on mid-length boards the ultimate foil experience! At least in my case where coastline and life get in the way of coordinating many DW shuttles.
Thanks for this helpful post! I’m also trying to improve the upwind capabilities of the para wing and looking into using a harness to help. On downwind runs I find I don’t need a harness but I’ve only been able to manage going upwind a few hundred yards at this point due to challenges getting a good angle and being able to hold on while powered up. Of course a harness should help with this. I was wondering if there are is a certain brand or type of harness lines you prefer with the para? I would think that the elastic/bungee type of lines like the Ozone harness lines might pack away easier than other lines and help keep the line in the hook as the wing and handle are moved closer to the body while making adjustments. What type or brand of harness lines where you using and how well did they work for you? Thanks!
The one I used was just a spectra line Jim Stringfellow rigged up. Worked well enough but he was talking about the idea of a small loop on the bar and having a hook on a line attached to the harness which I think would be even better in terms of further reducing stuff attached to the bar.
Bungee would work too but the downside would be it would require a bit more to unhook. In practice I found as soon as I was hooked into the harness I was pretty much 100% one handed flying unlike an inflatable wing where I’m 90% two handed even with the harness. All this to say I don’t see myself pulling the parawing toward me at all once hooked in so a bungee wouldn’t provide any extra security but just make for a bit cleaner bar.
I was using the BRM harness which was really great, highly recommend getting that harness with the parawing, simple, clean, but well thought our and effective design.
I agree the harness works really well for stowing away the wing and glad to hear it worked well for you to hook into. Thanks so much for the info. I hope to see what Jim Stringfellow comes up with for a harness line. Yes, I find myself one handed when downwinding with it as well. It’s a nice feeling being more open with the arms and shoulders. Definitely another advantage over winging and mostly having the hands on the handles unless the wing is parked. I’m also working on a strap solution for having my paddle on a sling and getting it out after putting the wing away. On the smaller bay runs we mostly have here, I need the paddle for maintenance paddle strokes to keep things going.
Just use any old piece of rope. Or paracord and then run it through some cheap tubing from Home Depot. If you must buy a premade product then I would look at the DaKine Solo harness line like this.
Or this one I just found.
Good idea about the solo/mono harnesses. That will help to make more room on the bar.
There are a few new videos from BRM on their Youtube, including this one on light wind launching
