Agree, with exception to all the F4 promo.
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to be fair they did a pretty exhaustive review of the current surf foils from just about every brand as well. And as much as we all have hype fatigue, the F4 Hype does seem pretty real
As someone who is looking g at parawings I thought it was an excellent summary from X foils on all the shit going on with parawings and what is what.
Also I appreciated some addressing the accusations of F4 hyping at the end. I thought it was straight enough
And some random thoughts after a long offshore downwinder in 10 kn building to 20kn conditions on PRv1. SUP downwinder turning to PW and bad stower good foiler
- chafe from lines, if I had to go again same day a glove would appeal. I was crashing a lot, lots of turns, so lots of stowing, but surprised at the amount of chafe
- A good test is to stand on your board in the lounge and try wrap lines around nose and stand on the lines and see if pumping they get under your feet and see where they snag. If you can stand on the lines in the lounge you will know about it after a few hours of being underfoiled (I was on 720s which was aimed at the later day)
- Started on 3.6m PR v1, wind was light, switched to a 5m PR v1 vacuum bagged (bag worked amazingly well!) and I expected that switching to the massive 5m would be trivial but interestingly the takeoff was quite a bit different, the 5m builds much less apparent wind than the 3.6m, once the 3.6m is moving it just starts to move fast and you can muscle it up, so I would say 4.3m v1 is probably almost always a better bet. 5
- 5m stow was a complete nightmare, just a circus. I think for long downwinders 4.3m is probably the best light wind parawing and if needed go longer on the board (I was on 7’6 but low volume) or bigger foil.
- Vacuum bag is great. Packs down way smaller into the PFD, seems to last vacuum for about 24hrs, only drawback is the long v1 bar, which I’ll probably chop. A high quality stash bag with a vacuum valve appeals
- I like the idea of one bar and switching wings. A neat bridle setup could be interesting.
- Ozone stash belt v1 could do withcompression strap to squeeze the water out of the spare parawing
- Switching back to the 3.6m after an hour on the 5m was a dream, felt like a toy in comparison, way more fun, and only needed like 3kn more to get it easy on foil.
- Parawing definitely takes the edge off what on SUP would have been a committed run, but all it takes is a massive tangle to be in a much worse situation where you can’t get on foil at all. But on the whole I think it’s great, lots of “parasailing” out to sea and dipping into and out of bumps and not worrying about falling.
- I dug this out the bag and had a laugh, from winter before BRM. I just lacked the skill, time, patience, conditions and aptitude, but it was Almost! (razor sharp lines, massive bar, useless kite, Hopeless. i may try get it going)
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I had the PRv2 4.3m and now the PR v2 5m.
They have improved the handling and the lines , the 5m v2 is easier to fly and stow than the 4.3m v1 IMHO.
I kind of need the 5m because my winds are most times very variable and floating a couple miles in a dying wind with leftover chop sucks.
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Nice, yes the PRv1 4.3 is absolutely the limit for me, I just borrowed a 5m v1 to try it out for interest as summer means lighter winds.
Unrelated: unmentioned Core parawing called the Lotus. My impression of Core is like Duotone Light, never any compelling foil gear, and especially irritating riders on socials 
It seems the Core Lotus is a favorite of Dmitry Evseev though, doubt many people have tried more parawings than him. It looks really refined and seems to have nitinol battens, like the Hatch v2, which will never deform.
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Batten organization is the most time consuming part of stowing for me. Does the nitinol spring back to it’s original shape every time? I thought I read it has to be heated if it gets deformed.
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Nitinol can be super elastic or shape memory, they will be using super elastic wire for wing battens. Super elastic nitinol can be tied in a knot and still spring back straight
It will never lose the factory shape unless you heat it up…
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Only problem with Core Lotus is that they use ripstop…
Lots of volume!
A review :
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Lots of volume isn’t really the impression I get from watching this… Sure, it’s a 3.2m, but the packdown seems to be really good.
Look at the 4m in ben’s video…
Yeah, I saw that, but he doesn’t seem to have a clue about handling it. He’s a kite influencer (and very good kiter!) who has to do this for Core I’d guess…
Core’s canopy material is not on par with industry standards, given $1k+ price point for 4m
Had my first go on the Orbit 3.5m.
I have an upwind that is kind of a benchmark. It’s about 12 minutes every time. A little more or a little less depending on the wind, sail and foil.
First try on the orbit: 7:51
It’s not perfect. I have some things to sort out with it before I’ll say much more. However, that level of improvement on upwind is something that cannot be ignored.
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2nd and 3rd try? Still well under 12 minutes?
Added/different perspective on BRM S3 and L1
Just switched back to BRM. Quiver of S3 2.7/4.2 and L1 6.5
For reference, I mostly do downwind laps on our lakes when it’s nuking, occasional mediterranean and atlantik stints, heck even went to Hood last year.
I mostly rode the Malikos and Kanahas (still have my trusty D cloud kites) then PRv1 and PP. Some short dabbling with a Frigate and 777 PT Skin/UDW/LTX).
Tried my S3 2.7/4.2 and L1 6.5 quiver for the first time all in the same day and i am seriously impressed.
I had ordered the standard bars with them and Greg had kindly switched them to the bar setup for me already. I might try the D-handle later on, but for now i am happy to cut that variable out. also i ride one handed a lot, so the bar seems a better choice for now.
The thin profile, very small LE and tiny stowing, by far the smallest compared to any other brand, has been talked about by other people already.
What i think hasn’t been addressed so much is the very different on/off depower, a typical BRM feature for anyone that has experience with older pw and kites of Greg.
But it is more pronounced than on the older BRM’s.
You have a bigger range of sheeting angle with a lot more noticeable variation of backhand load compared to other wings. Fully sheeted out you have a lot of depower and the bar pressure is very low (with reduced steering, see below). The hand positioning on the bar is a bit different too due to this, a bit more backwards compared to the ozones.
Sheeted in slightly you can feel a distinct first pressure point that you can also see with a kink disappearing in the canopy, similar to a sail. But different than other parawings where you would stall it if you sheet in more than just a bit further, you can sheet in a lot more and really load it up to crank upwind at full throttle.
Flying it both slightly of fully loaded in a straight line is very intuitive and a lot of fun really.
But regarding the handling when starting and in maneuvers, one needs to be aware of the on/off sweet spot for steering, as well as the slightly different bridle setup. If depowered the steering is rather slow, but as soon as you sheet in a bit they turn very quickly, even the 6.5 turns very fast, like a much smaller wing, let alone the 2.7. This needs some getting used to with a bit of finer muscle memory, but I think will be a lot more rewarding once there. Also pulling on lines for turning is different as the bridle setup is different, you can make it collapse more easily (i still need to figure this out better too), funnily enough you can also just pull the combined back orange line next to the bar for turning it. Some people commented on them sticking to the water and I know what they mean, especially the tips tend to do that a bit. But you can easily start them holding the two blue cells or release the tips with some pulling on bridle lines, it’s just different technique (i am still figuring out the most efficient way so comments welcome)… and there’s no annoying cells full of water like in the PT skin or hybrids, which also tend to dive down a lot when underpowered.
On a sidenote, for my up/downwind laps style of riding, the spacing 2.7/4.2/6.5 seems excellent with just enough overlap, i can easily take all three wings for full wind range with me as they pack so tiny.
I am not claiming the BRM’s are for everyone, after all we all have individual tastes and Greg has always had a very specific, out of the box approach to design. Thankfully so, or we probably wouldn’t be talking about parawings at all. But people claiming BRM’s are dog shit (like some in guy in the Parawing FB Group) truly have no clue what they are talking about, those S3s and L1s are some of the best wings out there. Being a yacht design engineer, I can’t help but humbly claim though that a somewhat similar stronger sheet in/out feel is the way to go for parawing design.
PS: Just for the sake of completeness..Yes, they pump very well/have very good lowend (better than my PPacks)/super good highend./big range, go upwind extremely well, are very fast, super nimble, combined with the tiny packing and short lines i don’t see why i would put up with little annoyances of hybrids or double skins..
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Yesterdays conditions? Stevenson area? For a 3.5M double skin in what was relatively modest wind, that’s pretty great.
Had same issue from a slow speed crash breaking the tabs. Super annoying. They need beefier buckles. Otherwise it’s been good.
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Curious if you had the collapse issue on gybes & tacks like I had on the 4.5m?