While latecomers to the parawing party have chosen one single handle and the consumer has run with it, we found that dual handles allow for another dimension of control and wider comfortable wind range which is a major drawback of many parawing designs.
Once flying the pocket wing comfortably, the handles can be clasped in the same hand offering the same freedom as a single handle.
Need more power? place a handle in each hand and open up your shoulders. This will project a greater surface area to the wind.
Managing gusts becomes instinctive, closing the hands together to close the canopy and reduce area, a single handle will never offer this level of control.
Our V1 pocket wing didn't really go upwind so this became the main priority in developing the V2. The V1 remains a great, simple choice for those wanting an alternative to paddling up at the start of a run but it isn't the tool for running loops.
We can now confidently say that the Pocket Wing performs brilliantly upwind, the dual handles are joined by a harness line as standard making this even easier. This summer, in Hood River, we tested the V2 alongside the leading Parawings and found that its performance upwind was excellent, opening up the opportunity to just run laps over our favourite sections of the river.
Stowing was always our first goal when we defined this discipline several years ago.
We use short bridle lines, a soft rolled leading edge and a very light cloth to ensure that the Pocket Wing really does fit in a pocket!
Parawing, like foil assist, is best when you're not using it so we never lost sight of this during our development programme.
Our Dynamo wingfoil wing was amazing for "Downwingers" but we were always left wondering if we could find the freedom of downwinding without a wing at all, without sacrificing the performance of small boards and foils.
We distilled the requirements down to:
