Are inflatable wing upwind/downwind deflaters still a thing in 2025?
Is anyone combining with Parawinging to get easy good upwind distances, deflating, packing it away and then using the PW to pop and go downwind?
Given it seems that the comfort and control of the PW is still not that of traditional wings, it seems there might a strong use case?
Anyone else had the same thoughts?
I aim to test at earliest opportunity.
Select to expand quoteWindyBear said..
Are inflatable wing upwind/downwind deflaters still a thing in 2025?
Is anyone combining with Parawinging to get easy good upwind distances, deflating, packing it away and then using the PW to pop and go downwind?
Given it seems that the comfort and control of the PW is still not that of traditional wings, it seems there might a strong use case?
Anyone else had the same thoughts?
I aim to test at earliest opportunity.
Just go upwind with a parawing
Yeah I don't think having an inflatable wing and parawing for an upwind downwind would be worth the hassle. Some of the latest pwings go upwind just as well as an inflatable wing. With my flow D wing I struggle to notice the difference in upwind angles from an inflatable. I recently tried an ozone pocket rocket and that was even better, felt like it was actually better upwind than an inflatable, felt like kite foiling.
Plus once you consider the extra time and hassle of deflating and packing up a wing it just wouldn't be worth it. You will drift downwind when deflating and packing the wing. You will then also lose some ground getting going on the pwing. At that point you would have cancelled out any upwind advantage of the inflatable and you would still need to carry the heavy backpack on your way back downwind.
I'm barely scratching the surface of what I can do with the parawings but already prefer the pocket rockets upwind to the wings upwind.
Thanks for all the tips. The pace of change and progress in this sport is pretty extreme !
After my fairly negative comment earlier in this thread I ended up doing a wing upwind- parawing downwind today and had an epic run. I didnt use the inflatable wing because of better upwind efficiency I used it because the wind was too strong to go upwind on the parawing and I didnt have anyone to do the car shuttle.
At the moment I only have a 4.2m pwing which I can go upwind with until about 25 knots. Over 25 knots I can hang onto it long enough to get out into position then tuck it away and downwind.
I winged upwind and went into shore to pack the wing down. It would be a real pain doing it on the water and I didn't want to get water in the bladders.
It was quite a heavy lump on my back but conditions wet cranking today so it didn't bother me much.
Overall I still would have been much better off just going upwind with the right size pwing. I do think the wing + pwing combo is more hassle than its worth if your just looking for upwind efficiency but if you don't have a full quiver of pwings ior the right conditions it's a good option for a solo downwind run.
