BRM: New gear coming soon

The S3 is a beginner wing. I’m a beginner.
I tried and failed 2 years ago with the Flow Dwing. I spent days trying to get to my feet with the Dwing and sold it. Got to my feet once on it. Such a frustrating experience when you’re old and arthritis makes everything so painful and difficult.
The S3 has none of the crappy flying quirks of the gen one parawings. If you buy one, study Greg’s videos. Don’t be a know it all and try to figure everything out yourself. The handle is super easy and intuitive with Greg’s tips. The wing flys and behaves great. Really happy with mine.

Learned something about Greg’s harness line. I bought the 30cm. It’s ok, but a little short. So I thought I’d just sew my own. I have everything to make an identical one. But then I noticed something when getting ready to sew my own Dyneema loops. My line is soft and floppy. Turns out, Greg has taken those tiny plastic rods he uses on his parawing and put it in the core of his dyneema rope to make the harness line loop stay open for the hook. You would never know this as first look. When you get to touch one of Greg’s harness lines, flick it with your finger and you’ll feel it. Feel the looped ends of his line without the rods inside, it’s super obvious then.

More playing on the S3 5.3m but had to switch to the Paia 3.1m when wind started blasting:

I got my first session in on my 5.3 S3 yesterday. Honestly surprised there is not more hype. It is everything it was billed to be. If you read Greg’s description of the benefits of the design change they are all real and not marketing hype.

It was a typical Florida light wind day, 10-12 with very occasional gusts to 13. No whitecaps to be seen. I was on my neutral mid length and Unifoil Evo 205. The starts were so easy due to getting so much back with each pump. It’s very direct and unlike any pw I have pumped before. Much closer to a wing. It’s deceptive how much power it can generate because the bar pressure is so light.


Once on foil the fun really starts. The S3 feels more like kite foiling than a pw. It builds apparent wind so fast and just accelerates upwind. I think it’s pretty accurate to compare it to the early days of kiting when we transitioned from low aspect kites like the early Wipika designs to higher aspect kites that actually went upwind well. Less fighting the pw to go upwind and more the S3 just pulling you upwind if that makes sense. Picture Eliot Loboe cranking hard on a pickle fork vs modern liters cruising on a surfboard if that helps 😂


I did a bunch of hooked in riding too using the new vertical stash belt, extended hook and mono line and man I am sold. I was a purest who wanted a clean bar and only used a string fellow hook before this but that mono line disappears on the bar. And when hooked it it’s so balanced you could go hands free and it just wants to accelerate upwind. Pulling in on the back of the handle is like stepping on the gas.


It jibes well for a higher aspect pw once you understand how it likes to be handled. I did not need to do down loops or any fancy tricks. I made sure to get it started before I made the transition to avoid it getting locked in going the original direction. It was actually trippy because I didn’t realize how light the wind was on my first couple of jibes, assumed it had filled in because the apparent wind had me going really fast, yet the pw was falling out of the sky if I was not careful in my transition to keep tension (standard light wind pw problem)

It sails dw great too and turns really nicely. I was a skeptic of the D Handle but I am a big fan now. The light bar pressure is such a game changer and it was the primary reason I bought the S3. I have been having issues with numbness in my hands after pw sessions(over 50 problems) and after and hour and a half session I had no fatigue in my hands. Pretty nuts honestly. I think it was less load than a wing.


I did not have any issues with handling, learned on my demo session on the 4.2 that twisting the handle to steer off the A lines was key to keeping control while taxing and getting to your feet. I can comfortably do my normal start with the pw positioned low in the window. No need to keep it overhead.


I am very happy and listed my current quiver including my beloved Maliko 5.1 as soon as I got home. I don’t think everyone will embrace the new design so I expect mixed reviews but for me this is a big upgrade over current pw designs on the market.

What harness line length is suggested? I'm 5'10" and hooking in from waist.
Also, anyone have issues getting the 5% discount to apply? I have a referral code applied and a 4.2 in my cart but no dicsount showing up, even at checkout.
Thanks
Tony

Harness line length is greatly affected by how much “strap slack” you ride with on your stash bag/harness. I see a lot of people riding will that strapped stretched out 6 inches from their belly. So hard to advise based on that.

Thanks all ... first PW so I probably just need to go with the site recommendation of 30cm and see how that works, then go from there.

As far as the referral it may be because I am not a new customer ... I bought kites, the original clouds, way back when ... long ago.

S3 2.7 in the beginning, then switched to a S3 3.4, and very soon even that was not enough. I was with a 830 cm2 front wing and 60 L board (10 L below my weight in kg). Quite frustrating, but still super fun to find out the low end range of different parawings in our super unreliable winds.

Then switched to a 2.5 m2 wing and 570 cm2 front foil and had an amazing session. Later the wind picked up a bit and the S3 3.4 would have definitely worked. That just shows how picky the parawings are about the wind quality. Envy the people having more reliable winds.

I now have a few sessions on the 5.3, riding it underpowered, properly powered, and overpowered.

What I liked:[/b]
- It is very stable in flight, which seems normal given the number of bridles supporting the profile.
- The top-end range is good, but it pulls hard in the harness. I've read reports of people using it in 30-knot gusts, but I still have some doubts about that... At 22–23 knots, I was already maxed out with my 105 kg. The upside is that I'll be able to use it with a smaller board.
- It is very light on the bar. Most of the pull goes through the harness. It's the same feeling as kites with very light bar pressure that load the front lines.
- It pumps like a wing, and for me that's its biggest strength. It significantly improves the low-end range, and since I'm a heavier rider, that's crucial. I even managed to get up on foil while hooked into the harness just by pumping the board two or three times! I was genuinely impressed, properly powered but it was mind-blowing.
- The canopy cloth is incredibly thin and light, but since I don't fully pack the wing yet, that's not (yet) a major factor for me. At this stage, I still carry it by the leading edge with one hand.

What bothered me:[/b]
- The D-bar is not intuitive at all for me. It's great while riding, but for packing, redeploying, etc. it's not ideal. I prefer a regular bar, especially for redeploying or riding one-handed in switch stance, because I can place my hand exactly where I want. On the BRM, the sweet spot is located at the intersection with the "D", which makes things more complicated. I tested the wing with the bar from my Quest, but it doesn't fly as well, especially during gybes where it tends to fall to the opposite side. The D-bar has split A-lines, allowing you to steer and control the wing by pivoting it.
- The harness line: it's positioned right at the sweet spot, but you're forced to use one hand to hook in. I tried the Quest harness line, which is excellent, but it sits behind the sweet spot on the D-bar. As a result, you lose some depower and it's not ideal when riding switch.
- Water relaunch isn't easy. The wing tends to stick to the water, or rather, it easily folds into a ball once it crashes. You often need to get back onto the board before relaunching it. The Quest or the Frigate stay more spread out and relaunche easily, even when you're still in the water.
- The gybe, especially in the low end: sometimes the wing falls to the opposite side. That said, these were among my first sessions. What I later understood is that the wing needs to be kept high during the gybe, rather than into the middle of the window like you would with the Quest, for example. After that, and when properly powered, I was successful almost everytime. I still need to test this in lighter wind and try some downloop gybes.

I'm giving myself a few more sessions to get used to the D-bar and find a solution that makes the harness line easier to hook into. Any tips on that would be greatly appreciated.

The wing is definitely more technical to use than a Quest, but it is also clearly higher performing, with both improved low-end and top-end range. That's when riding it. For staching and redeploying it is not as good in my opinion.

This is how I got PKS bungee lines tied to Greg’s balance point. Now the lines swing in and out of harness hook no hands, like proper windsurf harness lines.