A quick update.
The non-servo conversion kit finally shipped a couple of weeks ago.
But meanwhile I had shipped my PT 4.2 (along with Skin 4m, received with lines incorrectly set up), back to 777 for a fix. Will have them home in a couple of days.
I totally got lost with all the iterative upgrade instructions, so I wanted them to do the job and check.
Earlier, 777 said the non-servo conversion was for those who struggled too much with the PT.
Now they have changed their view, it should be non-servo for all. Maybe they found during extended testing and adjustment during June and July, that the bar-line setup (similar to the skins), was good enough. Will post my findings soon.
PT future?
Just got back that a double surface V2 is not a priority these days.
"P.T. was simply ahead of its time, and people have yet to realize that they are not single skin wings."
I have not had much time with my (single)Skins, but they are sooo much better for learning parawinging. I could even start my first session out in gusty wind behind a molo, without thinking too much of the parawing itself.
Will prefer double-skins on snow though.
Im a old kiter with 1000+ days and have been winging since inception for reference.
The PT 777 4m I have a pretty close to unflyable in under 20Knot.
This PT is easily to most unusable piece of gear ive purchased in a really long time.
I've spoken to the guys 6 or 7 times and they keep saying that the bridal modification kit is on the way.
We'll see, and ill report back. The hope is that ill be able to use it confidently as originally intended
I still think it has a lot of potential.
Select to expand quotemartyman said..
Im a old kiter with 1000+ days and have been winging since inception for reference.
The PT 777 4m I have a pretty close to unflyable in under 20Knot.
This PT is easily to most unusable piece of gear ive purchased in a really long time.
I've spoken to the guys 6 or 7 times and they keep saying that the bridal modification kit is on the way.
We'll see, and ill report back. The hope is that ill be able to use it confidently as originally intended
I still think it has a lot of potential.
777 PT Update.
I recieved the non-servo bridal modification from 777 a week or so back(thanks 777). I have since installed and it has been a game changer as far as control of the PT- it now rips upwind and doesn't have that insane bar pressure that I get from the single skin para's.
Looking fwd to winter gales to get it out there and do what we do!
Got my PT double 4.2m back from 777 some days ago.
They had it picked it up and shipped it back fully upgraded.
At the same time I needed to return one of my new PT Skins that had a couple of incorrectly set up lines that dropped out while riding.
Thanks 777 for a complete check. Too much for me and I got a little lost on what seemed to seemed to be overlapping upgrades.
All should be well now, except that the wind season should have started..
Weight for the PT 4.2 is 39g down from 999g to 960g, with bar, lines and freeride covers.
Not a big drop, but certainly counts.
I had two small hours of 9-10m/s, but had to dedicate that session to new boards and wings.
However I did take some minutes to test the double on land before going out.
The difference is huge. I have to come back with a real riding report sometime, but this says something.
You can hold it stable and without tip collapse down to 20-30?, maybe even lower. Used to be 45?.
You no longer have to "reverse bank" the bar to steer. Although if you got used to the banking method you will certainly want to take advantage of the momentum this creates in big moves such as tight gybes.
The PT stays more or less put, tips does not constantly turn the entire canvas as it seemed.Select to expand quotemartyman said..
I recieved the non-servo bridal modification from 777 a week or so back(thanks 777). I have since installed and it has been a game changer as far as control of the PT- it now rips upwind and doesn't have that insane bar pressure that I get from the single skin para's.
Which single skins are you comparing with regarding bar pressure?
I took the Skin 4m up immediately after the 4.2m double, and I did not notice a difference having them on the leading edge.
Will try to check while riding them.
I think the bar pressure is the same for the double before and after the mods, but you could release more power before.
Although not exactly the same conditions, I felt earlier on that bar pressure was pretty much the same, while riding the Skin and the double.Select to expand quoteGrantmac said..
Do you think with the mod this could be someone's first PW?
Depends very much on how you value your time, opposed to buying more stuff..
I'm glad I bought the 3m and 4m Skins, they are extremely smooth and predictable, and really worth the price. As good as the best.
Will use Skins for now, try the double again when I have progressed some more. And certainly get back to the double on snow in a couple of months, for backcountry trips and play in curvy areas.
On water, remember that the double gets very heavy when wet, nothing has changed there.
You can still restart it pretty quickly when wet, in lots of wind.
If I only wanted to freeride, and had pretty good and strong conditions, I'd consider the PT double as a first.
If less wind and maybe unstable conditions, you can still learn with Skins using a DW board.
Olav,
Did you get it back with the non-servo bar? Have you gotten it on the water?
Select to expand quoteGrantmac said..
Did you get it back with the non-servo bar? Have you gotten it on the water?
Yes (good question), and yes a little.
For a conclusion on the servo bar, see for yourself what you make out of this:
Recap, we have four upgrades, that I know of.
The no.2 (first line-kit) overlapped the no.1 (knots only), none of them made much difference.
The no.3 (tip adjustments) and no.4 (second line-kit, non-servo bar) where scheduled for my upgrade-return. 777 said both make a huge difference individually.
I would have tried no.3 on my own, as I always felt the glider tips were central to the instability. But I returned it, as I think I otherwise would have to reverse the entire no.1 before proceeding with no.2. No way I will spend more time on the PT if not entirely sure the setup is correct, so you 777 guys do it!
The no.4 (non-servo) I'm not so sure about. I'm quite certain that the sliding function itself is not much in the way. But having that movement calls for lines that are maybe not fixed at an optimal position most of the time. This setup might complicate load spreading during even tiny fore-aft adjustments with the bar. I'm not a glider techie, but I feel my experiences correlate.
So when returning I wrote that I would prefer the servo bar, at least on snow, but stated clearly that if they thought the non-servo upgrade was for the best for all use, I would of course take it. They said all upgrades were necessary to meet the current best state.
So all done, returned with a message "I left the servo kit in the sleeve in case you want it back.."
And the product page is still all about servo. But then again I have a feeling that they won't touch it before results are back from more users.
My guess is that we have not seen the last of pulley bars on parawings. I think the PT just had too many parameters out of control, when 777 needed to relate to their actual market. And I think this tiny market were guys like me ("I know this and that, and I can always do some fast and cool freeriding while learning to parawing") I don't think 777 attracted the best and most seasoned parawingers, not with a super product hit, neither with a budget for top pro riders.
Now that they got the Skin, I got from them clearly that the PT is not a beginner's product.
At a time I blamed myself for buying the PT when I knew there were no reviews, and no videos that really made the PT parawinging look playful.
Of course, 777 could have been much more clear about requirements and limitations, they must certainly have known at some level.
But I think there were actually never "wrong" with the PT. Some smaller fixes yes, but the upgrades were really about "partially neutering" a first race parawing, to fit it in a market.
For instance, before having any upgrades I had a couple of amazing sessions on snowboard (meaning easier parawing control), proving an incredible wind range. (No overshooting for me, but some had that problem.)
The PT now sits further down in the wind window, and it is not so kiterace-flat. If I didn't have the Skins, I would probably try to progress with the PT.
Enough ranting, here's todays results.
I knew I would only be having a very short period of useful wind (mostly 10m/s, but dropping totally many times), and gave the Skin 3, the Skin 4 and the PT 4.2 each around 10 minutes with two upwind runs on one leg, and back on 1.5m 6s wind waves on some banks. No parawing takedown/packing today. Floaty DW-board, big foil (SeaDevil 1040 but could have taken the 840 and maybe something smaller).
The 777 guys think it is unfair to compare single and double skins, but I think we all should know the differences we are up to, so we can make an educated decision on choices regarding progression, time and money. Hope this helps.
The Skins fixed my confidence, after some earlier PT-humiliation on water. The two sizes behaved pretty much the same. But the 3 was preferred and the 4 was really more than needed for today's setup.
The PT double was much better after the complete upgrade. At least more friendly. Since I can fly the PT lower now, getting on foil is faster and easier. Note that I used it with freeride covers. (777 put them on, had meant to take them off but forgot)
At 190cm I can fly the Skins fully horizontal while getting on foil. That, and their very low weight helps, I would think.
Further out at stronger wind I think the PT 4.2 got on foil as easy as the Skin 3, but in less and more unstable wind going out the Skin 3 was clearly better. Then again, if I spent much time with the PT I would maybe be better with it, or simply not bother.
I only pumped the board, decided to not try pumping the parawing before I get some more stability dialed in. From earlier testing on land, the Skins turned out to pump pretty well for a parawing. Pumping the flatter no-mod PT seemed fully useless, after the upgrades, maybe.
I forgot to put on the watch, but I had good sighting on islets at my homespot, to reference upwind performance.
The PT appeared to have slightly better upwind performance over the Skin. Maybe equal without freeride covers. But this is me now. I think I'm not riding anywhere near efficiently across chop due to not-yet-there parawing balance, but ride more confident with the Skins. I have a feeling I will find the the PT "blade" to eventually outperform the Skins on upwind. For now I couldn't care less about a couple of upwind degrees, gotta progress to prepare for a bit bigger conditions.
I fell one time with each parawing, no crash test plan there. With the Skins this was rider error during big wind drops. Turned out to be surprisingly easy to restart. The 3m got sully submerged, but I just needed to hold this very light canvas out two seconds and it flying practically as before.
Alas, the PT had freeride covers and by luck I managed to bounce it off the surface a couple of times while getting up on the board again. The SeaDevil can turn very controlled also at low speeds. So not thinking much and going slow when gybing onto a small wave, I could not keep up with flying the PT. But of course that could be handled one way or another in the future.
Btw the "depressive PT" is maybe gone. At one moment, fast upwind made the PT abruptly seek down, but I managed to counteract. But maybe it was all from the unstable wind. Will follow that up.
Maybe I'll take out the PT and test some more, but the next sessions will be Skins. Maybe then I can also understand the PT better.
Anyway, the session definitely terminated. Had to get ashore and run to the house, as strangely sneaking clouds had lightning strike a couple of hundred meters on each side of me. Having playground in Skagerak and the North sea, the waters with the highest temperature rise wordwide, has mostly given us a lot more wind and waves so I don't complain. Still, should be the best wind period now. Something is off, weather variations has increased the last decades.
Finally, here's the PT 4.2m bar and lines with all four upgrades:
To compare, here's the Skin 4m bar and lines:
So the PT has 3 sets of lines, while the Skin has four.
Came to think of that after I had noticed how much smoother pitch movements on the bar is with the Skin. The PT is more abrupt.
Hi all,
I've been following the discussion here and would like to clarify a few points from Olav's comments regarding the P.T. development. It's true that we had a slight setback at the very beginning due to a production error in the lines. However, we acted quickly: first by providing customers with simple corrections they could make at home, and later by sending out replacement lines to properly resolve the issue and avoid loops on the product. This was one of two updates and not one of the four, as has been suggested here.
We personally had great sessions with the P.T. in this configuration, which is clearly shown in our YouTube videos.
AI may be powerful these days, but it's not powerful enough to fake this kind of video 
. Since the release of another double-skin parawing, the PAIA, it has become more evident that double-skin wings are a different breed altogether. They demand different conditions and skills compared to single-skin wings, something Olav is now discovering in his move into parawing foiling with both options.
Through customer feedback and shared videos, we also noticed that many riders struggled to adapt to the SC bar. While it's a fantastic innovation and adds great potential to the P.T., the system is still a little ahead of its time, and many riders needed more adjustment than expected. Instead of releasing a "V2" and leaving our existing customers behind, we decided to provide a free replacement kit that allows everyone to switch to a more conventional setup without the SC bar, making the handling easier. This was the second and last update.
P.T. has been unfavourably compared to the single-skin parawings from the beginning, as it is the first product of its kind on the market. Now, we all know the two have little in common when we go out on the water, as they demand different approaches to riding with different feelings in return.
I apologise for jumping into the thread, but I felt it was essential to clarify a few points that were being misinterpreted due to a lack of information.
Kind regards,
Matjaz Klemencic
Customer Service, Triple Seven Kites
I wanted to give a shoutout to Matjaz and the crew at TripleSeven who just went out of their way to help me with a customer-related issue (which was due to no fault of their own). Quite amazing from a small operation like theirs. Excellent customer support and service.
Select to expand quoteArthurAlston said..
I wanted to give a shoutout to Matjaz and the crew at TripleSeven who just went out of their way to help me with a customer-related issue (which was due to no fault of their own). Quite amazing from a small operation like theirs. Excellent customer support and service.
hows that PT Skin going AA?
is there a problem with these double skins sinking . if left on the water like the old foil kites we used ? Can someone comment on these and excuse my ignorance
Select to expand quoteflowstate said.
hows that PT Skin going AA?
I just started using it - about 4 sessions in. I have nothing to compare it to. I'm starting to manage regular runs, and still in the kook phase. Hydro Gav gave it a very good review. The one issue I've experienced that he mentioned as a niggle was that the tips fill up with water if you allow it to happen. It's not a drama and easy to manage.
I suspect I've made all the mistakes everyone makes who starts the parawing journey: too light wind at times, too small board and foil initially etc. I'm now starting to get the hang of it. Expletives were expleted along the way.
I ordered a 3 Skin from them too if that answers your question. I've had to cut short most of my sessions due to being overpowered. So far the sizing runs pretty true to my wings.
One thing I will add, even after only 4 sessions, the thought of pumping a wing and all the extra gear and the size and hassle it entails, already makes the parawing experience feel "lighter". This feeling caught me by surprise. I think I now understand the comments you read from punters who hardly used their wings after taking up a parawing. I was always skeptical of those sorts of comments. I think I now have a better perspective of it. I can see a future where a wing is best in waves and the parawing is the choice for most of the other disciplines.
Select to expand quoteeppo said..
is there a problem with these double skins sinking . if left on the water like the old foil kites we used ? Can someone comment on these and excuse my ignorance
Can't tell you myself. I'm on a Skin.
