I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. Pretty much all summer long we get 12-20knt onshore / cross onshore E/NE winds every afternoon at my local spot in New Brighton. A handful of us get out winging regularly at the beach with mixed results. The usual setup is to battle out through the surf zone, ride out to sea for 500m, turn and try to catch the DW style bumps towards the beach. Rinse and repeat.
Sometimes the conditions are amazing, though the general rule is the better the bumps the harder the paddle out. The beach here has a pretty flat profile so it can be a long way to get out the back, and if its stacking up with shoulder high 8 second period whitewash it can be near impossible to get out, and its not uncommon for someone to put a foil through their wing.
That brings me to parawing, a lot of the content is from dedicated DW riders, Hawaii, Gorge etc. What do you reckon about the utility in a setup like this?
Sounds a lot like my conditions. When its really good its sketchy to get through the big shorebreak with a wing. The parawing helps in this regard since you pack it into a belt and then deploy once youve paddled out past the surf zone. You probably aren’t going to fully pack the parawing into a pouch in those conditions given the shorter rides (unless you are going to loop it unpowered by pumping), but you can pull the lines, hold it in your hand to surf, then toss it out to redeploy and get back upwind. It definitely works, but your redeploy needs to be on point since you will be doing it a lot.
In my opinion, wing is a better tool for those short-ride looping conditions, other than the sketch factor of paddling through the shorebreak, but I’m still experimenting and may change that opinion. Others who I ride with disagree.
Cool thanks for the reply. I need to get my hands on a demo one to feel what its like. We’ve got a few flatwater spots near here so could try it in reasonably safe conditions.
starting in flat water is ideal. I would say your conditions are probably good for pw, but you may find yourself going for longer upwind legs to take advantage of packing away.
I’m interested in this as well. On the really good wind days in Florida, it just isn’t practical to take a wing out through the shore break.
Does anyone have a recommendation for what parawing would be best? Upwind ability would be most important across a wide wind range, plus enough grunt to get up on the smallest board possible. Easy redeploy. What do people like?
We’ll guinea pig it together…. it’ll be fun! On the right days it’s freefly from wherever we bothered to ride upwind to.
I was thinking also that coming back to shore could be sketchy. We’ve had a few occurrences of getting seaweedly stuck on the inside, and just kind of getting washed in, but you probably don’t want to have that happen with a PW in 3ft. If it’s in the air, all good, otherwise disaster!
My conditions are like that (getting it wrong here),
Pros
Getting out through surf, only limit is how big a wave you can push through with a big board, and strapping the parawing down tight so it doesn’t escape. As in the video above
if you can get a good peaking wave that doesn’t break, you can justify packing it away and the surf style is amazing
Cons
The wing is way easier to handle once you are up and riding in the surf than the parawing, and you can get amongst it way more easily, peeling off breaking waves at the last minute knowing you have instant power and control, which means tighter surf laps, (but then you have the risk of breaking it through the surf, which is why I sold all my wings).
Getting caught with your parawing out and partially caught in the water in the breaking surf is WAY worse than with a wing. Not only do you risk destroying it, but you risk it wrapping lines around you and sinking you .
Hey Oldmate I know Brighton well. The constant relentless beach break over the shallow bar (North/Waimarie)doesn’t give you much time to get out. Added to that the cross current & it seems the constant onshore. But I can imagine that if it was more NE - cross shore, once out it would be perfect for PWing. At least with the PW in a pouch behind your back you can paddle out with the board turtled. If the pier had a set of stairs that would be perfect. Otherwise getting out on the boat ramp behind Sumner would be better but that’s a drive.
When it gets too rough where I live we head to a more sheltered bay that only works in a onshore. However I wouldn’t PW there as if theres a tangle etc you are pushed into the steep beach break. So there’s places where I would & wouldn’t PW.
As a side note they are pretty cool things to play with.
Put it in the pouch. Paddle out beyond the break. Put wing up and ride 1 to 2 k up wind. Tow yourself into a bump and colapse the wing. Don’t stow it, just bundle up in a manner that gives 9/10 redeploy. Ride bumps to just before the wave zone and redeploy and repeat. Do till your exhausted.
If your riding bumps successfully with a wing then parawing is the future for bump riding. You will never want to do it with a wing again.
Cool, that’s pretty much what we tend to do, long tacks out, and on the right days, riding the bumps all the way back for a km or so. Not sure the PW will cover all the wing days, but for sure some of them would be epic.
Ferries are nowhere near as good as what they were a couple of years ago. The old Fiordlander II was literally ploughing a big trench in the sea, offering over 3kms of pure wake riding, even on the upwind leg. The replacement catamarans are much more efficient, faster, and don’t really make anything usable in terms of swell.
For sure plenty of good bumps in the middle once it’s over 20kts against tide.
Hey, I’m visiting NZ in a week and bringing wing and parawing gear along! How’s the wind this time of year in Christchurch? Will be there for a day or two early next week.
Haven’t used the parawing in groundswell yet, but definitely enjoying it in windswell. Looking forward to skipping the hassle of a wing in the impact zone by paddling out with a well stowed parawing. Though definitely finding it gains a LOT of weight even when stowed, basically the whole thing fills with water, and then tries to release itself Having a small compressible dry bag might be better than standard stash belt for any duck driving.
Have also had the lines end up wrapped around me a few times. Tends to happen in lighter wind when turning downwind too quick, but slowly getting used to the aerodynamics of the thing. Easy enough to release a tangle or line around your head in wind swell, but nightmare scenario in real breaking waves. I would definitely be trying to stay away from anywhere waves are breaking when not stowed, or willing to abandon it!
I’m using the flow D wing, 4.2m in around 20-30 knts with a traditional wing board. Stays reasonably manageable at the higher end and goes upwind about as well as my wings.
We should be well into the start of our windy season, though we are having some unusual weather patterns recently so it hasn’t manifested as much. Still a good chance there will be something around next week. Naval point in Lyttelton harbour or North beach surf lifesaving club are the two spots most likely, but send me a PM the day before or something, we might be able to link up.
Good info regarding the parawing lines, i don’t desire getting wrapped in lines and drowned so would need an emergency knife to cut them or something. I’m waiting for the next windy day and will try and get my hands on one to try on land.
I know many people that have replaced wings with parawings. Parawings are pretty sick to launch where there are waves. You can paddle through waves, maybe catch one and pump out the back. Then launch the parawing. I hate dealing with wings and waves to get out.
Is there a spot you can launch upwind that’s mellower? I tend to launch at a safe spot and downwind to the surf spot. Also, with 12-20 knots, I can use a 4m parawing and a midlength or a 3m and a DW SUP.