Ozone Pocket Rocket

Parawinging is more than officially here. How and where it eventually proliferates we can’t predict, but nearly every manufacturer and their dog’s nephew Kevin are producing one. Ozone’s legacy in paraglider and single-skin foil kite design, as well as their brand-owned factory setup, puts them in pole position for the parawing arms race, and they’ve been fast and responsive to the market with the Pocket Rocket. It comes in six sizes from 1.9m to 5m, we tested the 3m and 5m thoroughly on higher aspect foils from 1250 to 880 and narrower downwind and mid-length boards ranging from 87 to 122L at 90kg. For the more fashion-conscious Pocket Rocketeer, custom colors are available from the factory.

Physically we’re looking at something fairly similar to a single surface kite, with ribs in the leading edge to give it a super clean front profile. A band of Dyneema line runs across its span to provide structure across the wing shape. The bridling divides into three layers, which attach to the leading edge, center and trailing edge. These attach to the joystick at three points respectively and are color coded so it’s not too tricky to untangle if you get into a pickle, which if you’re learning, you inevitably will. The bridling is all spliced smoothly so it doesn’t catch on your hands as you collapse the wing, and is a sensible diameter to avoid any chafing.

Coming from a kite and wingfoil background, flying the Pocket Rocket was easy. It’s very stable; controlling it with the carbon joystick style handle is literally child’s play. Twist left for left, right for right and angle front and back to sheet the wing for more or less power. Pointing the stick away from you stalls the wing in front of you and produces power, and pulling the red top half of the joystick brings the wing forward in the wind window or up to zenith and lessens the power.

It’s made from Ozone’s highly hydrophobic Ultralight material which beads and sheds water effectively, which we think is super important when trying to relaunch it in more marginal conditions. There are also two circular drain vents in the wingtips which dump water well if you’ve managed to bin it sideways. A quick pull on the front lines, and so long as the leading edge isn’t submerged, it clambers out well from a multitude of weird positions. If you do completely drown it, we found it best to gather the front ribs together and get it on the nose of your board and then give it a little flick forward into the wind to redeploy. As you get better at handling it, you inevitably drop it less, and this is not so much of an issue. By default, as long as there is wind, it wants to fly, which is helpful!

Getting onto foil requires a little retraining if you come from a wingfoil background. Pumping frantically with your arms isn’t going to do much; if anything we found it best to stall the wing deep into the wind window during a gust to maximize downwind pull and then work your legs rather than your arms to release the board and activate the foil. Once up and foiling, it’s playful to handle, and coming from winging we were jibing downwind easily almost immediately and starting to throw some successful tacks after a couple of sessions. It’s well trimmed and smooth in operation with almost no flapping or vibration when depowered. Holding ground and going upwind was easy enough in consistent wind and water conditions. Getting some speed up and feathering the wind to the edge of the window was achievable. We’d say definitely hook in if you’re doing some serious upwind legs as it’s far more comfortable. At the top end of its wind range, you see that band of Dyneema stabilizing things and making the wing push forward when it gets overpowered and they’ve somehow eliminated wingtip collapse.

The design focus of the Pocket Rocket is without a doubt stash-and-deploy downwinding; we obviously saw this is an initial milestone for our progression. Run towards the wing a bit to take the pressure off, and slide one hand up to gather the bridle, collapsing the canopy, and you can then tuck the wing under an arm or up a rash vest. Ozone sell an optional stash belt, which is essentially an elastic bumbag/kangaroo pouch to jam the parawing in once on a long running swell. For a beginner, this is a great solution if you need to paddle back, as it gets everything neatly stowed. This has a little drain hole in the bottom to let water out and the webbing can accommodate a plastic harness loop which carries over from the wing harness range. The Stashbelt makes life much easier and is lightweight, minimal and a bit of an essential extra. We tried a couple of different leashing methods and settled on a simple bungeed wrist leash attaching to the end of the joystick. If you let go, this keeps the wing flying and leading edge out of the water. Purists would perhaps say no leash, but this felt a little risky, particularly when offshore. A harness line is sold separately which loops over one end and is trimmable to find a decent sweet spot to balance the wing once hooked in.

Wind range has been a sticking point for the parawing discipline compared to equivalent-sized wings, and we’d say the 3m and 5m have a sweet spot of around 3-4 knots either side of their suggested wind strength where they feel truly comfortable. Where this sits in terms of windspeed will depend on your weight and board setup, but on an 87L mid-length at 90kgs we found the 3m seemed to go best around 25 knots and the 5m was comfortable from around 15.

Rather than a pure downwind tool, in this emerging and rapidly developing sector, Ozone have created a relatively practical and entertaining way to get around on the water, and at this point the Pocket Rocket sports a generous wind range, respectable upwind ability and is as accessible as it currently gets to stash and redeploy. It’s made our introduction to the discipline as straightforward as we think possible, and less of a proverbial shit fight.