Hey all, quick question. When you are heading out for a session, are you walking out with the para flying or do you have it stowed and then deployed when you have paddled out enough. I am finding getting on the board a little tricky while flying the para, but not impossible. Cheers in advance
Nice to start with this.
What about water start?, I found it needs lots of wind to start.
Some advice needed here.
On my first sessions I went out with the wing flying. Now I stow the wing by stuffing it under my rash top, and paddle out or in at the end of a session.
The reason being the real benefit of having a wing is being able to stow it and essentially be unencumbered. Once it's stowed shore breaks and turbulence and lulls and wind shadows and all the other crap that happens is no longer an issue.
Possibly more importantly, by paddling you can get yourself out to a comfortable place and manage the wing at your leisure. If the wing falls into the water, which it will, it'll have about 50 kilos of water sitting in it. You have to pull it in from one end and let the water flow off, then sort it and throw it up to launch. It's easy enough to do with a little practice.
That's particularly important when you're coming in. It can be a pain trying to keep the wing flying and manage a biggish board and foil in a shore break. It's very much easier if the wing is stowed.
Even if you get onto the sand with your flying wing, when you bring it down it's going to hit the sand which will stick to the wet fabric. It's better to have a wet, clean stowed wing, than a wet sandy wing dragging on the ground.
The other issue is that I did my first sessions starting in a quiet spot near a boat harbour. The wind funnels over a headland and there was heaps of wind near the beach to get sorted and get out into the water. Problem is that once out the wind is very turbulent and parawings simply don't like to fly in grotty, holey wind. Things improved a heap when I moved to another spot about a km away in cleaner wind .... and paddled out past the shore break.
Thanks everyone. I have been packing it and paddling in, much easier to manage a big board, especially when it's shallow and the foil is out of the water. Frustrating part is our wind forecast has dogged it last few sessions. Suppose to be 20 plus and it hovered from 12 to barely 15. I have a 4.2 Flow Dwing, but I need a solld 15 knots plus to learn at 86 kilos. We get a lot of chop too, so it's not so easy to get to the stance position.
Curious what's the narrowest mid length people are riding successfully on the PW? I let my wingfoil experience inform my board selection for parawing and I regret it. At 18" wide with a rounded bottom I feel like I am trying to stand on a log with the parawing. You can use the wing to help provide counter balance the parawing is no such help. Hopefully someone comes up with a technique but I am not optimistic. I am looking for a mid length with a relatively flat bottom and between 21 and 19 in wide now. may go up in vol some as well, currently at -25l which feels huge for wing.
And for posterity I think ideal dims are +/- 15l to weight in kg and 21-19" wide. Length is less clear. Long will help early planning which will definitely benefit earlier starts with the parawing but beyond 6ft and it starts to risk issues with the nose getting into the bridles.
I'm going to keep advocating for the 4mm dyneema bungie harness loop. It helps when getting going because you can stay harnessed in while getting to your knees and feet without worrying about managing the PW or having it come unhooked unexpectedly like it can with a fixed line while moving the bar around.
Here's an image of the harness loop I made on the right. I use a free hand to stretch in onto the hook.