The whole parawing discipline is still very new. My first parawing, or pocket wing as it was named I had in autumn 2024. And although development goes very rapid, the latest model isn’t always the best choice. An advice I can give you, think about your end goal. What would you like to achieve?
Spring 2025 Ozone came with the Pocket Rocket parawing and in the winter of 2025 they released the Powerpack. From the parawings I tried the Pocket Rocket was the best Parawing for me, at that time, a gamechanger. It can go upwind in an high angle and still be very stable. It has the known Ozone build quality and you can even pump a little bit on foil. As I got better at this game, two things really start to annoy me.
- First thing: On the larger sizes I could not retract the lines in one arm’s length. Especially when the wind would be strong, this is very difficult. I’d be missing the last 20cm taking the parawing in, and the parawing starts rotating, tangling all the lines.
- Second, 80% of redeployments, my lines would be tangled. This can be just me, not having the correct folding technique. But it is very annoying and will be happening to everyone starting to parawing.
As I have been progressing, I figured out in which situations I would like to use the Parawing:
- Ideally in sessions where I don’t have much time, and just like to play on the Northsea on the spot, without going too far out going back upwind.
- Downwinders on lakes, when the wind is onshore at my locals spots creating waves impossible to get out in. Then I sometimes drive to a large lake. On these lakes this means, small runner bumps where you have to get the parawing up pretty quick when it disappears on you.
- Downwinders on the North Sea where I want to play in the first 100meters from the beach. That means get out on the parawing, ride inwards and parawing back out again.
These 3 situations have one thing in common. Get the Parawing to relaunch a lot! This made me realize I needed a parawing with shorter lines that doesn’t get tangled a lot.
From Ozone they read my mind and launched the Powerpack! On average, I think the lines are about 35cm shorter, exactly what I was after. Also they changed the bar and bridle system, that should help in less tangling of the lines. For situation one, I still need to get back upwind. The questions is if this would be sufficient with the Powerpack?
It’s really winter, and fortunate I have been in the position to bring and test an 4.3 Powerpack on the exotic island of Boa Vista. Not the best parawing destination with gusty offshore winds. And you constantly get blown toward an rocky island. However, the effort I put in these sessions helped me feel the powerpacks abilities. Most important to me, I noticed it is much easier to pack away the Powerpack. What I also noticed that I still manage to get lines tangled. A little bit less then before. So this is something I really need to work on. As I only brought a 56 liter board, I went downwind on the start. But I did manage to get back upwind where I started. This would have been easier on the Pocket Rocket. But for me this is fine.
However, if your aim is to do full on upwinders and downwinders by yourselfs, I would recommend the Pocket Rocket. In that situation going upwind is very important and this where the Pocket Rocket wins. Then if you are good at downwinding and know you won’t need to relaunch as much, this is the parawing for you. Also for just racing and cruising around I would choose the Pocket Rockett over de Powerpack.
The Pocket Rocket can also be controlled a bit better in a wider wind range. It is easier to depower, and the longer lines do make it easier to pump it up to speed a bit easier.
So in short, if your goal is to re-launch your parawing a lot, I’d choose the Powerpack. If you like to do long runs, or really first like to focus on learning to parawing, maybe as a step up toward yours end-goal, choose the Pocket Rocket.
Hope this blog helps you decide which parawing will work for you!