As soon as you start adding extra cells to a canopy, price unfortunately goes up 
Same is true for paragliders & skydiving canopies.
Okay I finally got my hands on a demo PPC Orbit, 4.5m. Wind was typical Hatchery, up & down 12 - 27knots with streaks across the river. Obviously just my own opinions based on how I like to ride.
The Good:
- For a 4.5m, it was very manageable/comfortable in that wind range & consistency when flying straight upwind. This was expected based on what others have said about double skins.
- When you get a tack “correct”, it feels like the nicest, easiest tack you’ve ever done (but read on in The Bad, the sweet spot for maneuvers is very narrow)
- VMG & upwind angle are slightly better than a single skin. At least better than the Pocket Rocket V1s - and I’m not really aware of any other single skin that goes upwind better than the PRv1s.
- When the wing was completely doused in water, it relaunches really well. The cells inflate quickly (even sopping wet with water in the cells), and you just give it a quick shake and off you go.
- Bar felt very comfortable.
The Bad
- You have to use a bigger size than you would with a single skin. That means a lot more material, especially given the double skin.
- The lines are SHARP. Like, sharp enough I wouldn’t go back out there without gloves on.
- Pack-downs are a pain, but not for the reasons you think. Yeah, of course there’s more material to pack down, but the main issue is the air that remains in the cells keeping it partially flying. As soon as you pull in the lines, unless you pull it in perfectly symmetrical you end up with one side of the wing still flying and messing the lines up or spinning around. Once you have it symmetrically in-hand, it’s actually easy to squeeze the rest of the air out.
- Unless you fly the wing perfectly through the window, the wing shape will collapse on manouvers. Tacks & even normal gybes. Anyone who’s a paraglider will know the feeling… The tip will lose pressure, and then the wing will dive in the direction of the tip. This one might be unfair on my part, I’m sure you can get used to the “sweet spot” on the bar where your not collapsing the shape, nor backstalling the wing. But I feel like that sweet spot is MUCH bigger on a single skin.
- Speaking of paragliding… if you’re in unstable air (like the Hatchery…) even flying it through a gybe you can sometimes get a frontal collapse and you run into the wing or it lands on your board.
- Also speaking of tip collapses, if you “catch” a wing tip on a wave, it’s more serious than on a single skin. Single skin wingtips will catch all the time but they kinda bounce off the water surface. If you catch it on the PPC, it will collapse the tip and again dive towards the collapsed tip. So you have to be more careful going over crests of the swell.
- Untangling lines is harder, especially if you have a “line-over” the leading edge or have a tip twisted in the lines. The wing will either be partially inflated, or partially have water in it, making it harder to pass the fabric through the lines (because it’s like a partially inflated balloon).
- The clam cleat rear line adjustment feels like a gimmick to me. Maybe I’m just used to the wings that are more on the edge of the window - maybe people who like deeper wings like the v1 Maliko will see the benefit more than me. Yes the rear-line adjustment brings the wing further back in the window, but it becomes very sensitive to a back-stall. Again, anyone who’s a paraglider will know the feeling. Also, if you ride powered with the cleat released, then try to pull it in, the knots will be jammed and hard to pull in. I think a simple stopper-ball will likely fix this issue.
- The “damp” feeling that makes the upwind quite pleasurable also makes the steering less reactive and the wing less “fun”. Not a big deal if you’re just wanting to get upwind, but I like to fool around sailing and it’s not very nice to “play” on this wing.
Summary
For me, The Good is nowhere enough good for it to outweigh The Bad. I’m sure there are spots where it makes sense. Really the only person I see this being better suited for is someone who wants to do really long comfortable & predictable upwinders and doesn’t care about ANYTHING else.
Yeah it’s slightly better upwind “performance”, but it’s not worth the cost of almost every other aspect of parawinging. Single skins feel far more fun, direct, reliable, & “easier” in all aspects except for gusty upwinders (and I don’t mind being blasted to shit on the upwind, it’s more fun for me but not everyone’s cup of tee).
Again, these are just my own opinions and how I like to ride - I’m sure some of the wing’s quirks could be forgiven given enough time to get used to it. But I don’t even see the need to give it the time.
I recorded part of the session. Some quick snippets:
And VMG comparison with some PRv1 tracks. The Orbit is the orange:
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Great review @Zarb! Did you feel like you were powered well enough to be getting best upwind performance or might there be more in it had it been steadier? That’s quite a wind range 
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Excellent review! I really appreciate the nuanced pros/cons and how you described the overall feel. Much better analysis than most “pro reviewers” offer. Can you clarify exactly what hours and day you were riding at the hatch so we can understand the conditions? The screenshots show today’s afternoon, but I would be surprised if someone used a 4.5m at that time (I was on a 2m). I did see Gwen on a 3.5m orbit today.
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It feels like it had more in it had the wind been steadier.
I actually would love to try this 4.5m wing in 25-30 knots of steady wind in relatively flat water. That would be a hoot.
I think another good usecase would be if you don’t mind riding a larger board (for waterstarts) in stronger winds, you could take one of the smaller sizes and have a much easier time than the size of single skin you’d usually take out. If I was already up and riding, I’d much prefer to be on a 2m or 2.5m Orbit instead of a 1.9m PR. The PRs in those sizes are way too “jumpy” and the Orbit would smooth that out. But starting a 2m or 2.5m Orbit on my board (negative 30L from bodyweight) would be very hard…
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Today, 2pm - 4pm roughly! Yeah there were a lot of very small wings out there. It’s a testament to how much this can handle. I was definitely the largest parawing out there by a very large margin.
There’s a behavior in paragliders where if you’re on a wing that’s too big for your weight, it induces more collapses because you’re not pressurizing the canopy enough. That MAY be what is going on with the behaviour through maneuvers - but I doubt it. You’re dangling full bodyweight off a paraglider, and that’s not what is happening here. Maybe if I was on a 3.5m it would have been more solid?
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4.5m in todays conditions is pretty amazing, I was just downwind between the Hatchery buildings and White Salmon getting beat up on a 3M PR V2. I would say it was the absolute max for the 3M V2 and towards the end (about 1:45) it was too much.
I don’t think I can really improve on these angles with this gear, I was perfectly powered.
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Nice wiggles! There’s going to be a “wiggle factor” released soon for people who want to track how surfy their downwinders are.
Wiggle factor, love it! She should classify them as various pastas.
My VMG downwind is almost the same as upwind 
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@Zarb what was your double skin experience prior to this demo?
Paia in the parking lot. Otherwise a hell of a lot of time messing around with parawings both on the ground and in the air.
And I know it doesn’t really count, but closed cell foil kites too.
Actually a remarkably positive review for double skins then. To have zero experience with them on the water and such a successful single day demo is a big deal.
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BRM L1 6.5 review. Rode it twice in the light wind it was designed for. Topanga in Los Angeles. Today there were waves to ride too.
Thing is good. Riding a 60L board and I got up in 12-15 MPH wind consistently.
The thing just wants to fly. It get’s off the water easily. If you hold the D handle with 1 hand it just naturally goes to the 12 o’clock position and waits there for you. I would fall off and be in the water, just held onto the front of the d handle with one hand and it would patiently just float above me and help lift me back onto the board.
The thing is huge, but if you drag a wingtip going over chop, the wingtip just kind of bounces off the water. It doesn’t drag and throw you in the water like an inflatable hand wing would.
Jibing is the same as any other parawing. If you can keep tension in the lines, it’s no harder than others.
It sits deeper in the window which is why you get extra low end and grunt to get up. But that also means you will definitely need to hook in to drive it upwind. I figured out the angles a bit better today. So I would say it took me 2 sessions to figure out how to go upwind properly. It’ll probably get better too with more sessions.
The D handle also keeps the thing from tangling really well. I didn’t have a single tangle today. I was going with A line stows. You have to look at the handle to separate the A lines and gather both sides together since they are attached on each side of the D handle.
Redeploying wasn’t too bad. It’s so big you can’t just throw it out. You have to look for the blue marks on the leading edge and spread it out a bit to get some wind in the sail. I had quite a few stash, ride wave, successful redeploys today. That will get better with time too I’m sure.
So my only complaint is not really a complaint since I always hook in anyway. As long as you use a harness it’s a great parawing for our light wind wave spots.
Thanks go out to Frankie for grabbing a demo for us in LA. If anyone wants to try it, it’ll be floating around Malibu for awhile.
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I’ve had five sessions on it now since I received it last week. (L1 6.5)
Very happy to have it in my quiver. Bought a S3 5.3 also, based on the impression from the L1. And got to use that a bit today as well. S3 is a little more demanding and technical I would say, but love cranking upwind on it. Upwind is fun on this S3.
The L1 6.5 I find super easy to collapse, hold in one hand, and throw out again. Line length is about same as on S3, but feels like much less lines. So less line material, and just a little more canopy.
Size wise, I don’t really feel any drawbacks with the 6.5 Vs the 5.3. It’s just less fun sailing upwind.
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Nice, that’s exactly the comparison I was looking for. I was originally looking to demo the s3 5.3, but he had this L1 so he gave me that instead.
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3m starts at $1600
Yup. It’s just an ozone version of a BRM s3.
Lot’s more cells and lines than the ozone PR v2. Tangle nightmare if you don’t know how to manage lines I hear.
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But it’s ozone so the influencer crowd loves it already. Will happily stick with my S3 quiver, eat popcorn and enjoy the show at this point. Have sung the praises of how transformative the S3 has been for me personally enough already and still I am baffled by the PRv2 buzz.
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So are you done needing a hand wing for light wind wave riding? This sounds like the answer.
The Afterburner price is easy to justify if you get 30% more range, or 30% more VMG, etc. Maybe you can replace a quiver of 3 Pocket Rockets with 2 Afterburners, get better VMG, and carry fewer pws in your pack. Not saying any of this is true, just hypothetically the price could be worth it.
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