Five sessions on the L1 now, and two on the S3 5.3.
One difference, that you guys might help me with. With the L1, even when very powered up, I can hold the front handle with my front hand, let go of the rear hand and guide the harness line onto the hook. Never any issues. And it behaves perfectly fine.
With the S3, if I try to do the same thing, the parawing searches downwards and pull me downwind. And if I don’t put my rear hand back fast, it crashes into the water. So I have to hook in without any help from the rear hand if i am very powered up.
Any good tips on how to mitigate this?
Really like the S3. But I would say the L1 is much more “beginner friendly”.
Happy to have the S3 as the next size down from the L1. Wouldn’t want to have 5.5 and 6.5 L1 in the quiver, as I would rather have more performance and speed in the second largest wing in the quiver.
So would you say that the 6.5m L1 has a similar or better topend than the 5.4m Pt. Skin? I’m trying to get away with using something like the L1 and my 4.3 hybrid. Over powered 5.4 works okay until i’m getting yanked downwind toeside, but the lowend of the 4.3 isn’t great when im riding my sinker 60liter board. I’m trying to ride the parawing like @Hdip to tow into waves, do a little upwind downwind bump riding when its flat and avoid updating my sad bagged out strike v3
Difficult to say if the top end is better, same or less. I have only once found the top end on the PT Skin 5.4 were it pulled me out of the water. Changed to the 4.3 hybrid on the water, and was absolutely lit on the 4.3, cells shaking but okay. Could have used the 3.1.
But I am sure I can hold the 6.5 until 4.3 hybrid conditions.
Keep in mind, i like having a solid pull in the harness. And have spent years with windsurf, windfoil and wingfoil race gear, were you always rig for the lulls.
85kg, 1.9m, and absolutely horrible at using bumps/waves to get on foil. So I need some proper wind for the 4.3.
I haven’t ridden a hybrid. Only a Paia. I own a 4.2 flow dwing. Fairly sure I would be able to hold down a L1 6.5 until the dwing 4.2 would start working. It would be close though.
MPH #'s. I can start using the 4.2 dwing at 18 MPH with gusts above 20. I used the 6.5 at 12 MPH sustained with gusts 10-15.
Parawings really need wind, so the lower # of the wind charts matter to me when I’m looking at the low end of a parawing. If there is less than 10 MPH, the things don’t want to fly. I think that’s the tradeoff the L1 makes over the S3. Simple handling so that it wants to fly in lighter wind.
Sounds like one of the tuning differences between the L1 and S3 is involved in your front handle performance difference. The S3 completely depowers on just the front handle and as a result doesn’t turn well in that mode(no tension on rear lines). Sounds like the L1 has some B line tension when on just the front handle. It’s just a trade off in performance vs usability. For the S3 you just have to learn to palm the D grip or switch to a straight bar if you fly one handed often. Personally prefer the D Handle so I have just gotten used to palming it when needed to keep just enough rear line tension when needed.
Thanks for the tip. “Palming” it worked very well for hooking in, and also other situations.
Two solid 2 hour sessions on the 5.3 S3 this weekend, with the L1 in the backpack.
Having the L1 makes me more optimistic, and it makes me drive 2 hours for a forecast I wouldn’t have done before. Then, when I actually turn up it might be 5.3 conditions.
The 5.3 I like more and more. Easy to handle, and very fun riding powered up on the upwind.
The difficulties some have talked about, I dont really see. But having spent a lot of time on the 4.3 hybrid, might have adapted me. And not trying to use it in L1 conditions.
Have used the 5.3 for all my sessions lately, and really enjoy it. Strange thing, the first day I tried it I had quite a lot of power, and switched to my 4.3 777 Hybrid. And it felt so good coming back to the Hybrid.
Yesterday I went out with the 4.3 Hybrid, and changed to the 5.3 S3 on the water, and it felt sooo good to get back to the S3 again:) I think conditions where similar.
It really made we aware of that you need to spend some time with a parawing to learn to really sail it. Especially if it is of a completely different design.
Based on my experience with the 6.5, I wouldn’t be afraid to try the 7.5. Im 86kg and 1.90m. The 6.5 is very easy to handle, easy to collapse and easy to stow. So I don’t think another 1m2 will be a big issue.
But not sure if I really need any more square meters.
I sold my 5.3m s3 to replace it with the L1 5.5. I much prefer the L1 for the bigger size wing of my quiver (2.1m and 3.4 s3).
Light wind handling is a far better on the L1, and the reduced bridle lines makes stowing a lot more successful. The retract length is still very short for the size. Only downsides ive noticed is slightly less upwind ability and speed.
