Daniel Paronetto (00:11)
Welcome to the Lab Rat Foiler podcast. My name is Dan, I'm your host. And today we have Cynthia Brown with us. Synbad, how are you?
Cynthia Brown (00:11)
Good.
Excellent. Thanks for having me on your show.
Daniel Paronetto (00:24)
look, I'm actually really thankful for you accepting this invitation. We don't know each other at all. We both froth on para winging and I think that's how we connected. So thank you for your time. Thank you for joining and your vote of confidence on something that you'd never seen before as well. Cynthia, so before we get started on para winging and we're going to, you know,
dive deep into that. I'm really always curious to understand about people's backgrounds and sport and where they come from. So can you tell us a little bit of your story in sports and how you got to where you are today?
Cynthia Brown (01:00)
Well, it really started in 1979. I was in Connecticut where I grew up and my brother was the captain of the Yale sailing team in New Haven and I believe Hoyle Schweitzer drove around to different sailing clubs and gave out windsurfing rigs because he wanted people to get into the sport of windsurfing. So my brother got one of these rigs and it was back, you know, wood booms.
wooden universal, you bang into the board, the whole dagger board you pull off and put on your shoulder. So anyways, I was visiting my brother and I was able to ride this windsurfer. I mean, not really ride it, but you know, struggle with it. And I was immediately hooked. And so from then it turned into a 20 year passion of windsurfing until 1999 when I saw the first kite and I was like, oh my God.
Daniel Paronetto (01:59)
Yes.
Cynthia Brown (02:01)
So what I loved about windsurfing was airtime and jumping. And when I saw the kite, I was like, my God, that makes airtime massive and hangtime massive. I have to do that. So I basically sold my soul to the devil and arranged to become a kiteboarder. And my first and one and only lesson I ever had was with the godfather of kiteboarding, who's Corey Rosler. I don't know if you've heard of him.
He was the first one really to kiteboard. He developed these frame kites, like big stunt kites, like six meter stunt kites with a rigid frame and like a 40 pound aluminum reel bar, had a, did you ever see one?
Daniel Paronetto (02:50)
No, it's like, it sounds like a death trap, really.
Cynthia Brown (02:52)
Yeah, it was gnarly. anyways, it was like a five foot long aluminum bar with this reel that you could reel in the kite lines, the two line stunt kite, and you could let it out with a handbrake from a bicycle. So you launched and landed yourself, which was gnarly in itself because every time that kite, like if it went to the left,
you tried to correct it by the time you corrected it, was already in a nosedive the opposite direction. And it was.
Daniel Paronetto (03:25)
So are you just
launching, like hot launching the thing? Basically?
Cynthia Brown (03:28)
Yeah, you stand on a beach and you, it's huge and you have to hold it and kind of toss it in the air and let the break out. And this is all unhooked. This is way before we were hooked in. And also you have to add the fact that he had a slalom ski as his board of choice and you had one foot in a binding and then the back foot would go like, you know, in the slaloms.
in the back and then he had a weight, a scuba diving weight on the tail to sink the board so that when you're in the water floating, you know, trying to launch this kite after it hit the water and you had to reel it in and try and throw it back up, the thing would pivot and balance rather than you, you know, being sideways with this ski on. So it was gnarly. But he was a ballerina on it. If you look back at the archives, I he was amazing.
Daniel Paronetto (04:17)
Lord.
Hmm.
Cynthia Brown (04:26)
And then the, of course, the tube kites came out, the Wippego wing and, and all. And I saw those and I asked somebody, you know, like what you're, what you're riding with that tube kite looks kind of easier than what I'm trying to ride. And they said, well, no, what you're riding is better because it's not so dangerous because when it goes down, it doesn't relaunch. It stops. It sinks. basically sunk. So.
Daniel Paronetto (04:49)
Mmm, yeah, it stops.
Cynthia Brown (04:55)
That was the beginning of my kiteboarding career, which I became a pro kiter pretty much in 2005 with Ozone sponsoring me. And I did a bunch of national competitions in freestyle and big air and course racing.
Daniel Paronetto (05:19)
And where was all this happening? Were you in Maui already or was that somewhere else?
Cynthia Brown (05:22)
No,
I've only been in Maui for two and a half years. Yeah, I'm new here. This is like the ultimate dream. Like, because I'm a senior citizen, you know, kind of at the end of my career of sports, I wanted to be in the best place in the world, basically for Wind and Water Sports. So, so.
Daniel Paronetto (05:27)
Okay.
Good call good call. So where were you before
that when you were learning how to kite and doing all those crazy things? Mexico. Yeah, that's where you do crazy things So you've you've been through your windsurfing stint your kite surfing stints, when did you start foiling?
Cynthia Brown (05:49)
I was in Mexi- Baja. Yeah. No rules.
I started, believe it or not, very early, probably, I tried to do the math. I think it was around 2010. I was visiting Oahu, at that time, that's when Laird Hamilton and I think Dave Kalama were all on the air, the metal, you know, the air chair with snowboard boots.
Daniel Paronetto (06:30)
Yep. Yep.
Cynthia Brown (06:31)
And I was on Oahu and my friend John Almanson said he had one. Someone had one that he would sell me. And so I bought it. So I drug it to Baja and had the clickin' snowboard boots. And I was foiling behind a jet ski in hopes to like tow into something, but we couldn't find anything at that time. So it kind of sat in the garage until somebody told me, you know, you can kite with that.
Daniel Paronetto (06:53)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (07:01)
And that must have been like 2010, I think. So I tried to kite with it with the snowboard boots and bindings. And it took like four people to launch me because I had to click into the board with the bindings on dry land. the board weighed like 30 to 40 pounds, super heavy. And so two people had to carry me and a third person had to carry the board.
and put me in the water and then another person had to launch the kite and then hook it into my harness. And so, what?
Daniel Paronetto (07:34)
That's harder than downwinding. That sounds harder than downwinding in car
shuffles and all that. Logistic nightmare as well.
Cynthia Brown (07:41)
And well, and then it was really dangerous because if if when I crashed if I was backwards I Couldn't flip the board around it was so heavy and I couldn't fly that if you flew the kite backwards just really hard I don't know if you kite it but you
Daniel Paronetto (07:56)
Yeah, yeah,
that's where I started as well. I started coding.
Cynthia Brown (07:59)
When you, yeah, if you're hooked in, you fly it backwards, you usually pull the wrong way and it goes into a death loop.
Daniel Paronetto (08:04)
Yeah, yeah.
So then you've done, well, you tried kite foiling for a little bit and that was going okay-ish.
Cynthia Brown (08:14)
Well,
no, that was on that air chair thing. And then what happened was the, the course boards came out for kite racing and they were more efficient than that air chair. They went up, went better. They went down, better. They were faster. So I abandoned that whole thing and started with, started writing a course board and I was racing. And, and then I think it was, I think it was
Daniel Paronetto (08:18)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (08:43)
2015, I saw Johnny Heineken in Sherman Island, California with a hydrofoil and it was the sword from France and it was like the top end race foil and not many people were doing it. And so, and I saw that and went, oh my God, I have to have that. So I waited like six months and I got my first race foil. So that was like 2015. And so I did.
Daniel Paronetto (09:10)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (09:12)
kite race foiling on a national level and then a little bit, did some races in Canada and Mexico, of course.
Daniel Paronetto (09:21)
And then from kite
foiling, you progressed on to winging them, guessing, sub foiling first. Yep.
Cynthia Brown (09:25)
no no sup foiling sup yeah
sup foiling was I wrote it down because I it was in 2017 and the wing so I sup foiled and then slingshot came out the first well actually when I was in Hood River trying to learn to to sup foil downwind in 2009 I was like 18
or maybe it was 19, I can't remember. I saw Ken Winter come out at the hatchery. I was sitting out there, you know, like struggling to get up on foil. And he came out with this homemade wing he'd made with a PVC boom, like strapped on. And he just came out in the water and just popped up on foil and zoomed past me. And I was like, my God, I need that. I go, hey, I was like, hey, can I trade you this like $500 carbon paddle for that?
thing in your hand, I gotta have it. And so that fall during the AW SciShow and Hood River, Ozone had their first, they had a prototype hand wing and I begged them, I was like, you can't leave Hood River without giving me one of these. So, I mean, I gotta have it. So I started then and it was just natural.
Daniel Paronetto (10:26)
Yep.
Amazing. That's pretty early. That's so
early in the down-winding kind of world.
Cynthia Brown (10:53)
yeah, like Dave Kalama would show up from Hawaii and Hood River and I was just blown away. thought, well, I can sub foil. I can do this. We just come home from Mexico and we'd been sub foiling all fall. And my husband and I jumped in the river thinking we could be like Dave Kalama and paddle up on the river and go downwind. And it was like, it was gnarly. I only got up on foil when it was blowing 50 and it was completely by mistake. And
Daniel Paronetto (11:16)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (11:22)
I foiled all the way through the hatchery like once and somebody saw it they were like, my God, I haven't seen a woman do that. That's amazing. And I said, trust me, I've never done it. You'll probably never see it again. I and I actually, then the wing came out and I didn't have to do it anymore because it was too hard.
Daniel Paronetto (11:34)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Was that the hardest form of like discipline and foiling that you were exposed to?
Cynthia Brown (11:49)
Yes, sub foil downwind and yes. I, so what happened was the wing came out in 2019 and I dove headlong into that and never tried to downwind sub foil again until moving here to Maui in 2022. yeah. End of 22. And I mean, this is just the Mecca here. And it's like, so I knew I had to do it. And so I,
Daniel Paronetto (11:52)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (12:19)
I ordered a barracuda from Dave Kalama and I put in my time and it was a long, hard learning process, but I finally got to.
Daniel Paronetto (12:30)
It is, but it's
worth it though, isn't it? Once you... I mean, there's nothing better than going miles downwind carving your way. Yep.
Cynthia Brown (12:36)
There's nothing better. It's amazing. But it is hard. mean, it's a,
my heart rate was going up to a hundred. I have a monitor so I could check it. It was going up to 186 BPM every time I paddle up. And in the beginning you're paddling up like at least 13, 20 times, at least trying in a nine mile run. And it was intense. A lot of work.
Daniel Paronetto (12:54)
Mmm.
Yeah,
it's a brutal learning curve, sup downwinding. I went through it myself as well and I would just put myself in these worse positions than I could put myself in, going downwind for 10 kilometers, not knowing how to get up. So it would take me like four hours. And I would just float for that entire time. And after maybe 10 paddle ups, I was totally gassed. And I knew that my 11th was not gonna be a strong.
Cynthia Brown (13:21)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (13:33)
as my 10th and I'm like, I'm done, I'm done here. And I still had another nine kilometers to go. So yeah, it is the toughest, but I'm glad I learned it when I did because I think if the Parawing was out back then, I might've just skipped the whole paddle thing and went straight to the Parawing.
Cynthia Brown (13:33)
for sure.
Probably, I agree. I'm so glad I learned it too. I think I learned on really difficult foils, so my learning curve was worse probably than most. I learned on Mike's lab foils, which are really fast and efficient, but the low end is not like all the others out there.
Daniel Paronetto (13:55)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah. And is that what you're writing today, Mike's lab?
Cynthia Brown (14:15)
It is, though I did, because of learning to paddle up, I guess it was last summer, my friend McFlowy, you know, Walter Hendricks.
Daniel Paronetto (14:27)
I know of him, I don't know him in person or, yeah, I know who he is though.
Cynthia Brown (14:29)
McFlowy, he's awesome.
He just said, Cynthia, like, just try these foils and make it easier on yourself. So he gave me a full setup of Armstrong foils and I was shocked. was like, I actually got blown up onto foil without even paddling one time. Yeah, the HA.
Daniel Paronetto (14:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, is that the the HA series? Yeah,
they have amazing bottom end. Absolutely. Yeah. And coming from Mike's lab, you would have been up in like three strokes. You'd be like, whoa.
Cynthia Brown (14:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was ridiculous. It made my life so much easier.
Daniel Paronetto (15:03)
So after all that, where did the pairwing come into play? I've seen your Instagram account and you have videos of you going downwind on a black parachute thing. What is that?
Cynthia Brown (15:17)
It's a hobby rocket parachute. So during this whole process of learning to sup downwind, another friend of mine, I saw her at the harbor and she had like a runner's drag parachute thing she was trying to get up in. And so I was like, there's gotta be something to make this easier. So I actually firstly developed, it didn't work. I developed like a little Hawaiian.
Daniel Paronetto (15:20)
Yep.
yeah.
Cynthia Brown (15:46)
sailing canoe sail on my paddle with carbon battens from windsurfers and an old wing I cut up and I tried that I mean even Jeremy Riggs was like, let me try it that looks cool, but it wasn't big enough and it didn't work so so then My girlfriend she really had the idea first and then I adopted it She told me about these hobby rocket parachutes
Daniel Paronetto (16:03)
Yep.
Cynthia Brown (16:15)
So I first started with like a 36 inch parachute and I was getting up on foil with it and it was the tiny orange one that's on my Instagram account. And then later I went and got a bigger one, a 48 inch one and with really high tech fabric and basically kite lines. So super tiny, packs down into my little PFD pocket. And not only was it
Daniel Paronetto (16:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Cynthia Brown (16:46)
helpful. It was a total rush too, like to be like to be able to fly inside with less bumps and throw it out and drag myself, you know, to like places I normally wouldn't because the bumps are so tiny you can't paddle up.
Daniel Paronetto (16:53)
Mmm.
So what gave you that idea? Because that's like pre parawing pre anything and you're paddling yourself up with the paddle and then once you're up, you deploy the parachute?
Cynthia Brown (17:14)
No, I do both. can I eventually got good enough that I could have it out. I had it tied to my PFD and I could paddle at the same time. But the thing is that it moves around with the wind. It's not controllable like a parawing. So it was like balance is pretty difficult. But on on places like Hood River or the south side here on Maui and Kihei where the water is really tame, was a no. It was easy as can be just.
Daniel Paronetto (17:34)
100%.
Cynthia Brown (17:44)
I would throw it out and I'd get enough momentum and start pumping my legs and a couple of flicks of the paddle and I'd be up on foil. But then other times like Maliko, it was harder to use because the water's really rough and comes from all different directions. But at the end of the Maliko run is the harbor and there's a gnarly flat section that the young kids just pump all the way into the boat ramp. I'm like, no, I'm
Daniel Paronetto (17:58)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (18:13)
I'm 63, I'm not pumping to the boat ramp. So I would throw out the parachute on foil at the end of the run and basically drag myself in to the boat ramp. it's like the para wing, you can't go straight downwinded it because you'll slack the lines. So I had to learn to edge and learn to read the bumps because just like the para wing, if you are being drug by the thing,
and you're downwinding and you go like in front of a bump, you slack the wing. gotta know how, you gotta read the bumps so can get on the backside of the bump or go into the front. It just depends on how much power you have in the wing.
Daniel Paronetto (18:44)
Hmm.
That is so cool. Because, and that idea came from a friend of yours that said, try this. And you're like, okay.
Cynthia Brown (18:57)
No, I actually
saw her one day. She went on a downwind run with us and I was paddling and I saw her with this parachute and no paddle. But she was struggling. But I just saw like, wait, there is potential here. Yeah. And so I ordered it and then I started using it. And then when I posted stuff, people were all asking like, where do I, cause they wanted a cheat code. wanted.
Daniel Paronetto (19:10)
Hmm.
There's something there.
Cynthia Brown (19:27)
help for down winning. So I told the Hobby Rocket company that they might be getting a bunch of orders and they did. And I sent them a video what I was doing with it so that they would understand why they weren't rocket geeks ordering these pair of shoes.
Daniel Paronetto (19:44)
Yep.
That's, love that story. And that's kind of like the essence of what we want to talk about in this podcast, those experiments. That's why we're called lab rat. It's all about those experiments and being that lab rat and just exposing yourself to those new experiments and experiences. So that's, that's really cool. mean, and then once you continue to use that parachute and that was kind of working, where did you see the power wing for the first time?
Cynthia Brown (19:57)
okay.
Well, obviously it didn't exist yet. And my friend Sam Reynolds, who I've done downwinders with, and you can see those videos on my Instagram as well, this whole crew of us at the beach, we were all kind of obsessing over this downwind thing and we'd talk about it. And I showed people my parachute and Sam said, I got this, I have this great idea for something.
but I haven't made it yet. And I was like, well, why don't you make it? Cause he said, I used parachutes a long time ago on the water, cause he's here on Maui. And I was like, well, you need to make this thing you're talking about. finally he got motivated. think it's kind of because of me with the parachute and he went home and he, it took him, he like sewed all night and sewed the bridles and everything and built his first pocket wing.
Daniel Paronetto (21:13)
love it.
Cynthia Brown (21:14)
And that was like a few months after I was parachuting. And so then we started doing downwind runs together, him with his pocket wing and me with my parachute. And then I rode his pocket wing a few times and I just, I wasn't sold on it because, well, for one, it had two handles and I knew I wanted my paddle because
Daniel Paronetto (21:38)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (21:42)
for me downwinding without a paddle was weird. Like that's what you do. You have a paddle and he was obsessed with these small boards and I didn't see the light yet because I wasn't good enough on his pocket wing. So I was riding like an old SUP and then I rode my Barracuda and I was like, I can't imagine myself being two miles offshore of Maui with a little board and this and no paddle. Like I just didn't see the light.
Daniel Paronetto (22:13)
Yep.
Cynthia Brown (22:13)
So.
that was his path and he actually gave me like as a team rider, he gave me one of his pocket wings and I just, never used it because I just, wasn't, my eyes weren't opened yet. And then like two weeks before, well, I watched Greg Drexler from a distance testing different things. and he at one point had like a, a, fly surfer,
peak with short lines he was foiling with and just didn't look cool. mean, and we're all watching with binoculars from another beach, you know, checking out what he's doing. And another time he had like a frame wing thing. So we didn't really see like anything too exciting. And then one day, like two weeks before BRM announced their, their para wing.
Daniel Paronetto (22:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Converted. Yep.
Cynthia Brown (23:14)
My husband and I were driving back from a downwind run and we were driving past Huqipa and I saw two white objects out in the water and I was like, Steve, pull over. Like, I think that's Greg with the, with his wing thing. And so pulled out the binoculars and I watched him and I, I was in awe that he was going upwind. Like his brother Scott was on a wing and Greg was on his para wing and they were going upwind at the same angle. And I was just like,
my God, the tables, like this tables have turned. This is cool. So I videoed them and I sent it to Sam and I go, Sam, you got to start going up one with your pocket when, cause this is, they're going up when like, this is crazy. And my parachute wouldn't go up when the pocket wing wouldn't, I mean, Sam could maintain ground with his, but it basically was just yanking you down when.
Daniel Paronetto (23:44)
Mmm. Yep.
Yep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Now that's, I love that because I think that what, that moment where for me, I saw a similar thing, but it was in the videos when the BRM was launched, the upwind angles. And I was like, what on earth is that? Because like you, I've seen the pocket wing and I was like, that's interesting. And I had my son's little trainer kite. was a 2.5 meters trainer kite. So I just grabbed.
Cynthia Brown (24:10)
So that's.
Daniel Paronetto (24:36)
the kite by the bridles one day and I took it out of my downwind board. I'm like, there's enough power here to get up. Like coming from kiting, you know what you need to feel to get up. But it didn't interest me to the point where like I'm gonna go out and get it because of that upwind ability. But as soon as I saw Greg's version, the BRM, within five minutes of watching a couple of videos, I went on his website and bought one. Like immediately, immediately. But what do you think was...
Cynthia Brown (24:59)
I...
Daniel Paronetto (25:04)
so different, they're so close, it's like a 5 % difference in the equipment that made 100 % difference in what it became.
Cynthia Brown (25:14)
Do you mean difference between Sam's
Daniel Paronetto (25:17)
Yeah, yeah because
Sam was so close to what I think everybody wanted but it was...
Cynthia Brown (25:24)
It's the handles. That's what changed
it all. The two handles, the one thing I can say about Sam's two handle design, the wing, just when you want to put it away, you just go like twist your hand and the power's gone. It's insane. And it just packs away. But it's complicated. And I had other friends try and learn it. And the minute you let go of a handle, it went through all the lines of the other handles.
Daniel Paronetto (25:41)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (25:53)
And was really like they couldn't, I came from, you know, like Ram Air Kites, so tangles don't bother me, but other people, they were scared of it. And so they steered away. And Sam absolutely rips on his equipment. so though having the one handle, everything concise, that was, I think the game changer for BRM.
Daniel Paronetto (26:04)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah. It gave me something that was very close to kite foiling, which was my first type and discipline in foiling that I was like, my God, I can do so much with that. And yeah, look, we just have to thank everyone in Maui for putting themselves out there and putting money into it and developing and their time. And I know that's everyone's passion, but at the same time, it's, it's a lot of effort to get a product like that out there. So hats off to everyone out there for sure.
Cynthia Brown (26:47)
And it's amazing that Greg, I mean, he really hit it out of the park with the first version. Even today, I don't want to name brands, but a friend of mine here has ridden pretty much the three that are out that we could get hands on here. He still goes back to the BRM and he says, it frigging does, it does what we want it to do. You don't need all these fancy bells and whistles and pulleys and.
Daniel Paronetto (26:51)
Mm.
Yeah, and I'm, and I'm...
Mmm. Yeah, I think less is more when it comes to this kind of gear and I can see already a little bit of distinction between the brands on what they bring to the table and The BRM is so good to pack down. There's nothing easier to pack down It's amazing. And where did you get your pink one? What's up with that?
Cynthia Brown (27:27)
It's, yeah, so good. I wrote it.
I dyed it. I used fabric dye, tie dye, because I bought mine used, believe it or not. I wanted one so bad, but I couldn't validate the cost. And here I am on Maui and like I show up at the beach and five of my friends have them and they're learning and my...
Daniel Paronetto (27:39)
All right, right.
Cynthia Brown (27:55)
My husband was gone at the time and I was like, I can't go spend a thousand dollars. You know, like this is too frivolous. Um, but if a friend, um, a big Hawaiian guy had bought his, the two nine used on Facebook and it was, and he tried and he just, was too small for him. So he's like, well, you can try, you can ride my two nine and if you like it, you can buy it. And so, he bought it for $700. So I was able to get it for $700. Um,
Daniel Paronetto (28:10)
Mm-hmm.
perfect.
Cynthia Brown (28:25)
And I felt, you know what, that's reasonable. I deserve it. But it was can't.
Daniel Paronetto (28:29)
That is very reasonable. paid
full retail plus tax plus shipping and I don't regret it.
Cynthia Brown (28:37)
No,
and I tell all my friends to like just spend the money. It's so worth it. But I saw I was fortunate. got a deal and then our dirt is ours. Our beaches are like brown dirt from the Hawaiian dirt. And so my white two nine had so much use. It was looking dingy. And so my friend Elliott Lebeau did his first and I saw them and I was like, oh, I got to copy that. So I wasn't the first, but I'm the second. I tie dyed my wing.
Daniel Paronetto (29:06)
I
thought it was because you wanted to be safe out there and have... Because when you are out there, the white gets pretty camouflaged in the white caps and stuff. So I'm like, surely this is a safety thing.
Cynthia Brown (29:18)
No, was dirty. I also like being, you know, people know it's me because now, you know, there's a lot, it's gained in popularity. There's a lot of white wings out there today.
Daniel Paronetto (29:21)
No.
Yeah, yeah. So how do you use the power wing today? What are you primarily using it for? Is it wave riding or downwinding or just everything?
Cynthia Brown (29:42)
Wave ride, well right now it's wave season. And so it's wave riding and of course downwinding. So I think this summer when it's full on downwind season, I kind of get ADD and I'll get, I'll need to mix it up. So I'll paddle some days and parrowing other days. But right now it's wave season. And if the wind is light, like really light, I'll still wing because it's too.
Daniel Paronetto (30:00)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (30:10)
gnarly on a parowing and my biggest parowing is a 2.9 but if it's the winds on and there's waves I mean I'm into parowinging it it's pretty amazing.
Daniel Paronetto (30:12)
Yeah.
And what is light for Maui standards? Because light in Maui is pretty much blowing its tits off everywhere else.
Cynthia Brown (30:26)
Different,
I, when it's averaging 20, I can ride a two nine pair of wing. If it's averaging eight, 15, nah, I'm going to go on a 3.6 meter hand wing.
Daniel Paronetto (30:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. And I also don't think the power wing, it comes alive in, in really strong wind because in light when, even if you have a five, like it doesn't want to fly well, you know, it's huge and the pack downs are just really, it's not meant for that kind of wind in my opinion, but I still have a 5.5 that I take out sometimes and play around with. and it's enormous. It's a truck, but like in those days that it is light, I just take it out and then I'm.
Cynthia Brown (31:04)
Shocking.
Daniel Paronetto (31:13)
practicing like tacks, I'm practicing things that when it comes to those 20 knot days, I'm comfortable to throw a tack into a wave or something like that. But that's what I try to do on my low wind days and if there's no waves to be had or anything like that. So do you do, yeah.
Cynthia Brown (31:28)
Our surf is pretty gnarly. if you go,
when you go down, it's, I mean, I've actually been afraid a couple of times with the, the parrowing just ups the level of fear because once it goes down, now you've got like three steps to get it up and you're, and you're getting pounded by surf. And one of my friends got hit a few times and his parrowing was driven down and he couldn't
Daniel Paronetto (31:46)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (31:57)
He could see it, but he couldn't pull it up because it's in the water. He had to swim underneath it and grab a wingtip to get it back up.
Daniel Paronetto (32:01)
Full of
Yeah, just to have it flow through the water and punch up. Yeah. I fell face first into mine once going, trying to pack it down in a downwind or I fell and it just wrapped around my face like an octopus. and that was the worst feeling ever. Like, my God, this is how I die with the pearling. But waves look waves. Go ahead.
Cynthia Brown (32:10)
huh.
But at least that's downwind or waves
are our next level. Dangerous.
Daniel Paronetto (32:31)
It is, it is.
like how it tell us a little bit about how you ride waves because the like going up wind, that's all fine. How do you navigate whitewash? How do you get out out of a bad situation? It's not like a hand wing that you just pop up after you fall and you're out quick. It's hard to get out of a, you know, of the brake line and, and get free from that.
Cynthia Brown (32:48)
Yeah.
I
just use common sense and I try not to put myself into risky of a position. mean recently a friend of mine just actually I've never seen a parowing get shredded but he just shredded it at Ka'a two days ago. But getting rolled in surf and the foil ripped through the whole parowing. I've had it wrap around my ankle and my leash and been like terrified. But at least where I...
Daniel Paronetto (33:08)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (33:22)
where we are, I the wave, it's not the most powerful wave in Hawaii, it's a mushy wave. But a lot of guys do wear kite knives because of it. And then I saw Alex Aguero one day, he's always in the biggest surf, he's always been like for windsurfing, kiting, everything. And so he's parowinging, he's a maniac, biggest set of the day, he's like the wings wadded.
Daniel Paronetto (33:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Cynthia Brown (33:49)
and he's riding and the white, the wave just came and was collapsing and chasing him. And he couldn't get away because you can't just throw it out and like a wing, you just go, my God, and foo foo and get some power and go with the pair wings. No. And he just got destroyed. He said like his head went through the lines. I mean, he had to basically swim in to get everything sorted, to get the thing relaunched. I mean, it was, it was gnarly.
Daniel Paronetto (33:59)
Hmm.
Yeah, but it's the best fun of your life at the same time.
Cynthia Brown (34:22)
yeah, no I mean... Yeah, it's...
Daniel Paronetto (34:24)
I could see
it in your face. You're enjoying yourself.
Cynthia Brown (34:28)
I love it. The parrowing, it's like, I say it's like base jumping because it's just like when you surf a wave or whatever and then you throw it back out and it just goes wha and it's like, it's so cool.
Daniel Paronetto (34:40)
Nothing like a good redeploy, but there's also those times where you redeploy and the thing is twisted 10 times around and you're like, God, here we go. But you get better as it goes. Do you guys do any upwind downwinds in Maui?
Cynthia Brown (34:53)
Mmm,
no, because we upwind for the surf break, I just find it too, too painful to really want to go up one down one. I would rather just go down one.
Daniel Paronetto (35:07)
Hmm.
Yeah. Yep.
Cynthia Brown (35:10)
I mean,
Sam was doing it to prove a point, think, I just, I don't know. just, no. Right now it's wave season, so we don't have to do that, but.
Daniel Paronetto (35:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's fair. think, and just because where I live here is a bay and we can pretty much downwind in any wind direction because we just go to different sides of the bay. And if there's no one around to take me a shuttle or something like that, I've just been doing upwind, downwinds or just going upwind and just doing like surfing a surf break, but a little bit of the bay that's, that is really like the bumps pick up a bit. But,
Everybody asks, how well does it go upwind? Does it go upwind as good as a wing? What are your thoughts on that?
Cynthia Brown (35:58)
I think it does as long as you're really powered. Like you need to be lit. Being underpowered is brutal for going up wind. There's just no margin on the pair of wing in my opinion. Like it's better to be overpowered than underpowered. And then I totally believe in a harness. I don't go out without a harness. Even down winding the other day we went out and it picked up so strong. I was on a two nine and
Daniel Paronetto (36:11)
Mm.
Really?
Cynthia Brown (36:28)
a Malika run and it started blowing like 40 and I couldn't even get to my feet because I was so overpowered. Like the wings, you know, pulling my arm up. Whereas usually I can hook in with a harness and control the power and like use two hands to get on the board. But yeah, so I always ride with a harness.
Daniel Paronetto (36:46)
Mm-hmm.
Interesting. I let go of the harness a little while ago. I just, it just became like a, another tangle spot for me. And I'm just trying to get rid of anything that the lines get caught in. And I just said, no, no hook anymore. I just go and hooked all the time. And even my Invisaliche I replaced by something that doesn't have a coil. Cause sometimes I still, yeah, it's a grabber. It's a grabber, but there will be leashes dedicated for parrowing coming out soon. think someone will do it.
Cynthia Brown (37:09)
Yeah, yeah, the coil is a grabber.
Daniel Paronetto (37:20)
So let's talk a little bit about technique. spoke about the hand wing and I think a lot of people coming into pair winging might know how to wing. And how do you feel it is to get up on a pair wing compared to a normal hand wing?
Cynthia Brown (37:35)
It's a lot harder.
Daniel Paronetto (37:38)
Yeah.
Cynthia Brown (37:40)
Especially, you I'm not a spring chicken, so it's definitely harder. It takes a lot more balance and muscle, and the parowing doesn't lift you up like a wing. It's, I mean, my husband's 75, and he's really intrigued by it, but I don't think, I don't know if he'll ever do it, because he sees how much effort it takes the rest of us how to get up with the parowing.
Daniel Paronetto (37:52)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (38:10)
takes a few more steps, it's harder.
Daniel Paronetto (38:13)
And once you go and you know, you go over that little bit of a hurdle at the start of understanding how it works, getting your balance on the board to the point where, you know, you can lean on the pair of wing, lean on the board and things are not going everywhere. Is your pumping technique to get up on the board similar to a hand wing or is a little bit different?
Cynthia Brown (38:34)
Well, with a hand wing, I can pump the hand wing and my legs and get up really fast. Or I can just pump the hand wing, but with a para wing, I find it's mostly in my legs. My wing is pumping just naturally, my hands, like downwind paddling, but it's my legs doing the work and like bearing off and feeling a swell under the foil. It's a lot like downwinding. But what amazed me recently was
Daniel Paronetto (38:49)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (39:04)
getting up, I get up switch stance going out, that even the power of a swell coming in, if it was under my foil at the right time and I pump, like it acts like downwinding, but the waves are coming the opposite direction and I can get up and it's the pumping of the, yeah, the foil.
Daniel Paronetto (39:16)
Mm-hmm.
I always ask myself who will have more advantage in learning how to parawing. Would it be a kiter, a kite foiler or a kite surfer, or is it someone coming from a hand wind background?
What are your thoughts on that?
Cynthia Brown (39:41)
That's interesting because I have friends that are parawinging that never kited and they're good but they're coming from wing foiling and sup foiling and downwind foiling.
Daniel Paronetto (39:55)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (40:00)
It's more of a, like if you have downwinding and that pumping, it's an easier sport. It's not, I mean, in some respects, like the edging and going up wind helps if you were a kiter and especially a kiter like from the two line era, like me, where you know that if you're overpowered, the only way to deal with it is to edge really hard and go up wind.
Daniel Paronetto (40:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, digging that rail and hold that power and yeah.
Cynthia Brown (40:28)
Yeah, which
is funny because we're not digging rail or digging foil, but it's the same principle.
Daniel Paronetto (40:33)
We're digging foil.
Yep. I, I, I initially thought that the wingers would have a little bit of an upper hand and because they do have that balance with the, you know, getting up on on a, on a hand wing is kind of similar. You being on your knees and then you pop up a knee and then you get up. And then I've seen people hold the pair of wing for the first time that are kite surfers or kite foilers. And it takes them 10 seconds to understand how that thing works.
Cynthia Brown (41:01)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (41:01)
because they have that instinct of where the pressure is on the bar. Okay, this goes up, this goes down. Okay, this is how you turn. And within 30 seconds, they have the kite control. And I think wingers take a little bit longer to understand that, but they have that initial benefit of having a little bit more of that balance in control compared to a kite surfer.
Cynthia Brown (41:08)
Right.
Yeah,
that's true.
Daniel Paronetto (41:24)
But everybody will have fun once they get out. They just have to get through that first little session.
Cynthia Brown (41:27)
I like
to figure out your first toe side jibe, if you're a kiter, it's more natural because a winger, they don't fly the wing through the wind. Whereas the para wing, like I noticed the heel side was really natural, but to go into a toe side jibe, lot of people forget to bring the para wing to drive it through the window like a kite, because it is a kite. You can't just leave it behind and then power it up.
Daniel Paronetto (41:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (41:58)
it'll rip you backwards.
Daniel Paronetto (42:00)
Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I've been exploring a little bit with kite loops and doing things like that to keep that power going. Um, and I, it does, it's just everything in the pair of wing happens in a split second. I think the kite, have so much time. If you're doing attack, you'll go, you'll throw the kite up to 12, then you look back and then you, know, you might loop it or not to generate that power. And it's, it's a lot of like, it's a much longer move in pair winging, you're turning, and then all of a sudden you kite loop and you know, you're
Cynthia Brown (42:06)
Does it work?
Daniel Paronetto (42:29)
Your back is in the water and you're gone because everything is so fast. It's so precise and you have to be so Yeah, you have to be pitch perfect with it for to ride out so it's not a hundred percent dialed in yet But I'm trying to do tax toe side tax coming out with a kite loop that I just twist the bar of my hand pretty quick in
Cynthia Brown (42:51)
So you,
cause see, I've tried the toe side. A friend of mine got the flow wing and his very first day, he was tacking both directions. And I've been trying on the BRM and I get like, some of the times like 50 % of time I go around, at 50 % of the time I get the wing ripped out of my hands. But I think cause it's just so windy here, but.
Daniel Paronetto (42:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it's so precise. You have to be so precise. And I think people, I think the flow gives you a little bit more. I think it's a little bit easier with the flow because you could just write it on the front lines and not care. And you kind of de-power it a little bit easier. think the BRM, have to be conscious of always having a little bit of the brake line on, so you can ride through it. And that makes it a little bit harder, but it's still not easy. It's not easy.
Cynthia Brown (43:42)
It's not easy. I'm looking
forward to Ozone sending me the pocket rocket. Hopefully I get it next week. And I'm hoping that that one I can tack because I feel really stunted not being able to tack. I just sort of, I've given up with the BRM because I, I mean, I'm seriously, the thing gets ripped out of my hands. Part of the time, a lot of the time.
Daniel Paronetto (44:04)
Hmm.
I'm
super excited about that ozone pocket rocket. think given just the history of the brand and where they come from and like all their R &D and paragliding, it, it sounds like they have the right pedigree to come up with something really, really interesting.
Cynthia Brown (44:25)
Yeah, and then I helped them with the pouch design, so it should be pretty epic.
Daniel Paronetto (44:30)
Ooh,
can you talk about that a little bit? Cause I hate all of the belts out there.
Cynthia Brown (44:34)
I get
Yeah, I'll just give it
a tidbit because I don't I mean I haven't seen it in person but we did video chats and things. It should be more streamlined and be able to fit bigger wings in because of the stretch. That's all I'm going say.
Daniel Paronetto (44:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, interesting.
love that. I think that is still a big area that has a lot of development to happen. And also depending on what kind of, parrowing you ride, think, you know, the flows are notoriously a little bit bigger. have more canvas in them, so it's a thicker material. So to pack that down takes an extra 10 seconds at least to get the air out. And then you need a bigger belt, but I'm still riding my BRM belt.
Cynthia Brown (45:09)
They're large.
Daniel Paronetto (45:22)
And putting the four to that's the biggest flow I can put in there and it's like About to explode but it takes time It takes time to pack it down and I don't even do that anymore if I'm not like going downwind if I'm just Doing upwind downwinds or wave riding. I never stow it like fully stone Yeah, it's not worth it. You like it That's it I think that's right
Cynthia Brown (45:35)
Right.
I stow in waves either. It's not worth it. I stow it in downwinds, but that's it.
Daniel Paronetto (45:49)
What are you currently working on Cynthia? What are you, like we spoke a little bit about tax.
Cynthia Brown (45:54)
Well, that's what I kind of stopped. I'm not really, I'm I'm working on being a better surfer right now, but.
Daniel Paronetto (46:03)
That's a lifelong project, isn't it? It's beautiful though.
Cynthia Brown (46:05)
I
I watch, okay, I could just, I just want to skip forward to this, like this surfing part. Like I watched a couple of days ago, I was driving home from a downwind and I saw a pair of BRM parrowing go into Hukipa. Like it was big. It was like seven foot swell and just shred it, you know, collapse it. No, it was Kane.
Daniel Paronetto (46:32)
Sakai.
Cynthia Brown (46:34)
came to wild and to see him, yeah, to see him surf a foil, like I don't care how big or how small the wave is, he just absolutely shreds. It's amazing. That's what I his style is so good. It's so casual. Yeah. So anyways, he, apparently he's, the word is he's pretty hooked because.
Daniel Paronetto (46:36)
Kanda Wilde. Another freak.
And his style is just unmatched. Yeah, just natural.
Cynthia Brown (47:01)
He did two runs and he did it on a small KT Super K like my board and he's like This mind's blown like to be doing Malika, you know two miles off shore Maui downwinders on a five nine seven pound board is It's insane. I mean you could go smaller, but I for safety. I don't go smaller In case something goes wrong. You got a paddle in
Daniel Paronetto (47:06)
Mm-hmm. Good board.
You got to paddle in any other, especially on a downwinder. It's yeah, I think there's, it's good that you bring that up because there is a level of safety that we have to remind us ourselves to keep to and adhere by because I can't even imagine a beginner parawinger with a limited downwind experience. They can get themselves in a really gnarly situation very quickly. Not, not being able to come back to shore paddling in on tiny board. That takes a lot of effort and a lot of physicality to.
Cynthia Brown (47:50)
Yeah.
Two,
like three days ago, surf was so big, I don't know how many days, the days are blending together, but the surf was so big that we opted not to do a downwinder because it's just kind of silly because if something goes wrong, you're dire straits. And a paddle crew did go out and they're all good, but it was light at the top and one guy couldn't get up.
Daniel Paronetto (48:14)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (48:24)
He couldn't get in because the whole coast is just 10 foot Hawaiian surf. And so he ended up, I think using his Apple watch and calling 911 and they like the lifeguards had to launch a jet ski and bring him in through the surf because he could not get in, couldn't get into shore.
Daniel Paronetto (48:37)
wow.
Yeah,
that is gnarly. Our surf coast is definitely not as gnarly as that, but we have a couple of downwind runs that after a certain point, there's no exit and you're committed to it. And if you're on a small board and the wind dies, I even take a bigger pair of wing with me sometimes, cause they are so small, you can just pack one in, but still, you know how it is. Sometimes even a bigger pair of wing won't do.
Cynthia Brown (49:06)
Yeah,
right.
Daniel Paronetto (49:10)
But while we're in the topic about safety, I do have some questions about safety and I think it's important for us to touch on it. What safety precautions do you take when you're parrowing? see you, you're always out with a helmet, a vest. What else you got going on?
Cynthia Brown (49:26)
I don't always do the helmet down-winding because I find it annoying when I have to paddle out of Malaco. My life vest hits me in the back. So lately I haven't been wearing the helmet down-winding, but I do wear a PFD and I bring a cell phone in a pouch. And I, from the Island Crossing events last year, I was required to have an EPIRB, a personal beacon.
Daniel Paronetto (49:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (49:53)
So I just happened
Daniel Paronetto (49:53)
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (49:54)
to have that on my PFD because I paid for it. I might as well use it. I've never used it, but it's on my PFD. And that's about it. won't. That's about it. Just PFD and bright colors.
Daniel Paronetto (49:58)
Yep.
Do you guys do location sharing?
Yeah, bright colors. Location sharing with anyone or anything like that?
Cynthia Brown (50:13)
No, but we all know each other's phone numbers. Like if I go with a crew of three people, four people, I know their number, they know mine. And if there's a problem, we communicate. So I only have sharing with my husband.
Daniel Paronetto (50:17)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, fair enough. Cool, let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned a word there a little while back that maybe not everyone knows, wadding. So there's some terms coming, cause this is all new, right? So we say stow or depower or there's a number of ways to talk about things, but what is wadding?
Cynthia Brown (50:44)
Yeah.
Wadding is when you collapse your wing and wad it up into a smaller package. And what's funny is because the BRM has really been the only one until recently, a lot of these terms came up like taking out the trash because it looks like you're carrying a white kitchen trash bag. So when it's kind of flapping, what? Yeah, it's...
Daniel Paronetto (51:19)
The trash bag session. That little trash Trash
bag session.
Cynthia Brown (51:23)
When it's flapping in the wind, it's like you're taking out the trash. And then another term someone else came up with was when you're throwing it out, it looks like we're making the bed because they're all white. Is there like throwing sheets out, making the bed? And then a lot of the terms that have come out, I can't share because they're kind of vulgar because it's all these guys and me.
Daniel Paronetto (51:50)
You
Cynthia Brown (51:52)
And I'm kind of, I like shock value, so I tend to bring it down a level. we like, we come up, everything turns out sexual. Like they've said about the whole pocket rocket and the Roger, the D-wing and stuff. So our terms, like, I don't even want to talk, because you're not going to edit it out. So I can't say it, what we came up with.
Daniel Paronetto (52:02)
Yeah.
No, we don't edit
anything in this podcast. Everything comes out. And however it comes out, it comes out.
Cynthia Brown (52:16)
Okay, about how
we collapsed the wing was pretty radical. I just can't share that, but...
Daniel Paronetto (52:24)
Well, I'll
ask you in some DMs after, I do want to know what they are.
Cynthia Brown (52:29)
Yeah. Okay.
Daniel Paronetto (52:32)
Let's talk a little bit about the gear that you're riding. So you mentioned the KT board. Is that a custom or is that just off the rack?
Cynthia Brown (52:40)
It's a custom because I'm 130 pounds and I like light. So I tried production boards, the same dimensions, and they were just too heavy with inserts and production quality. I want a custom. But the other thing is, like, parawinging, you can ride anything. And I rode my wing boards and I rode my downwind boards. But I really think parawinging, just like any other sport, it needs its own sport. Like, it has its own.
Daniel Paronetto (52:46)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Cynthia Brown (53:10)
needs. For instance, you need that kind of mid-length take off with a little surface speed, but if you have too long a board then it's a problem because you have too much speed and and you get out of control and then you run through the lines of the parawing. So this
Daniel Paronetto (53:19)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So
what size board is working for you at the moment?
Cynthia Brown (53:31)
Well, and I could go smaller, but I got this because I just wanted one for offshore and safety. have a five, nine by 19, 65 liter KT and it's seven pounds. It's really sweet. And KT is their whole new lineup of it's this, the super K that came to wild developed. just, they're amazing. They just.
Daniel Paronetto (53:40)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (53:59)
like leap off the water. I've never had a board like this.
Daniel Paronetto (54:03)
Yeah, I am actually trying considering what will be my next board. Um, I, I ride a five, 10 by 18, 85 liters. So that's a one to one weight to volume ratio for myself. And I love it. It's easy, but I want to go a little bit lower on the volume just to have a thinner board, possibly a touch wider to distribute that volume a little bit better.
Cynthia Brown (54:27)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (54:27)
Um,
so I'm thinking something, it could be even the same length at five, 10 or six. Oh, max. I wouldn't go over that. Um, by 19 and a half around 60 liters. That's what I have in my mind for my next one. Yeah.
Cynthia Brown (54:40)
Yeah, that sounds good. I could do less
liters. I wouldn't go narrower than 19. I just, where we are, I mean, it depends where you're riding. Like Hood River, you could get away with a 40 liter, anything, because it's safety on both sides. It's predictable. Everything's going the same direction. Maliko, it's just, sometimes it's like, I had a nine by 17 stand up Kalama.
Daniel Paronetto (54:53)
Anything. Yeah.
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (55:08)
That was amazing at the top, but if I went down off foil in the middle of a nine mile run, sometimes it took me half an hour to balance on my feet to paddle it up because the water's going all different directions and it's too chaotic. this five, nine by 19, 65 liter KT I have, I've been out there like even just three days ago, I had two downwind runs on a 1.8. I mean, that's windy. It was
Daniel Paronetto (55:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Cynthia Brown (55:37)
blowing up to 50. And so you can imagine when you come off oil, the ocean is just, it's a mess. It's not clean. Anything there, I wouldn't have been able to get up on anything there. I don't think it's just too hard.
Daniel Paronetto (55:39)
Jesus.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. I think in low wind you can get away with anything, the stronger the wind gets, the conditions out there get really gnarly just to even like kneel on the board.
Cynthia Brown (56:00)
Yeah,
exactly. And so that's, again, that's why I wear a harness. Cause when it was that windy on the 1.8, I could stabilize the board. I hook in, I mean, I posted a video on it on my Instagram, just at a car day. But why hook in and I let the wing make sure it's flying right. And I get enough time to use both hands. Cause it's just like out, it's victory at sea out there. mean, the swells are double overhead.
Daniel Paronetto (56:02)
Yeah, okay, that's cool to know because I'm trying to figure out.
Mmm
Cynthia Brown (56:30)
Plus all the little mini chops going from all the other directions. It's intense.
Daniel Paronetto (56:31)
Yep.
Yeah, I struggle sometimes on this mid-length that I have because it is 18 wide and if it's like 25, 30 knots, it's messy as well in the bay. It's not clean. Like 30 knots is strong anywhere and conditions get a little bit gnarly. So I'm thinking if a little wider would help me out a bit. And what size foils do you ride normally on?
Cynthia Brown (56:57)
I believe in that.
Daniel Paronetto (57:05)
like a wave riding day or something like that. Well, what's your quiver? Give us your full quiver. What do you have?
Cynthia Brown (57:09)
Well, I have a, I'm obsessed with my Mike's lab 825 and I call it, it's a chubby, like he made it, cause Mike, all those foils are handmade. He, it's a little bit thicker leading edge. So it's got a little more low end, but by industry standards, it has basically no low end. But, but I can pump that up. I've paddled it up and it, and it's
Daniel Paronetto (57:21)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (57:39)
a little above my pay grade. can get it up, but it's scary because I don't want to have to get it up more than once. But parawinging is another case so I can parawing it up easily and it's got the speed and glide. It's insane. But for like if I want easy, I ride the Armstrong 880. And that's what I was paddling up by the end of last year. That was that was my go to.
Daniel Paronetto (57:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Cynthia Brown (58:09)
paddle up downwind foil. When I was paddling it, I'd pair it with the 180 tail, because I find it just easier, it's got some low end. But then it didn't feel fast enough on parawinging it recently on the Liko runs. So I put the 140 tail on it and it sped it up and it was like amazing.
Daniel Paronetto (58:16)
Mm-hmm.
Nice. Yeah,
I would say I would think that the 180 tail would be a little draggy for those conditions in Maui where getting offshore and getting the.
Cynthia Brown (58:38)
It was, but
I got rusty at reading because we haven't downwinded in a while. So I feel rusty at reading the bumps and I wanted, cause I like to put my wing all the way away. And then to me, that's the ultimate commitment. Like you can't, there's no paddle cheat. There's no, you know, there's no like, you got to pump your way through. find it actually harder than downwind, sub foiling in that aspect. Like my pumping has gotten so much better now that I pair away.
Daniel Paronetto (58:43)
Hmm.
True.
Cynthia Brown (59:08)
versus something.
Daniel Paronetto (59:09)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think people don't think about that enough because they say, oh, it's easier to get up. And it is, but once you're up, you don't have the paddle for that. You could paddle pump for, you know, however long you want.
Cynthia Brown (59:22)
You could paddle pump
your way out of so many spots. And especially if you like decide to chase and you're, it's, it's, you're just like, I'm chasing, I'm chasing. I can't get it. can't get it. We'll use go and you can get it with a pair of wing. You like, I mean, I'm, I can't do it. I can't catch it. So I got to remember. was remembering like, my God, Cynthia, come on, turn, turn back. but so you're right. And I like, so I went to the one 40 tail and it's
Daniel Paronetto (59:25)
out of anything.
Yep.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Cynthia Brown (59:51)
Amazing. got like two miles an hour faster on my fastest time and it was still forgiving.
Daniel Paronetto (59:55)
Yeah.
What kind of
times are you doing on a, do you count by kilometer or by mile?
Cynthia Brown (1:00:05)
mile but I was just talking about my fastest speed. don't yeah top speed because to me I don't really care about getting to the end the fastest. I want to surf the most waves so I don't I don't I just care about how many times I come off foil as that's how I judge
Daniel Paronetto (1:00:10)
Mm-hmm our top speed
Mm-hmm.
Do you
still care about that with the parrowing even? I stopped caring about that when I started parrowing with the paddle I did. When I aced to run with the paddle, I was like, yes, that's what I wanna do and carve and all that stuff. When I got the parrowing, I'm like, I don't care if I fall, because it's so easy to get up. I started not thinking too much about falling and I'm like, I'm just gonna rip terms here as hard as I can and fall because it's so easy to get up. And I kind of let go of that.
whole acing run mentality of downwinding a little bit.
Cynthia Brown (1:01:01)
I didn't, I can't, haven't, I'll be good. Well, also because Malika, like when you fall, like getting up, it's not that easy because it is chaotic. And I don't know, I just, I want to be able to do the whole run without, but it is kind of a contradiction. I don't want to have to get back up. I want to do like a clean dry run, but I want to carve a lot of turns. So it's the, I find when I'm on my downwind board,
Daniel Paronetto (1:01:10)
Mm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Cynthia Brown (1:01:31)
I'm running with inertia and going more downwind. When I'm on the small board with the para wing, I don't have that inertia. so I'm more of a surfer by virtue of the sport and the board. And I definitely am slower, but I don't care because it's about surfing and having the most fun.
Daniel Paronetto (1:01:34)
Mmm.
Yeah.
It's incredible what, how much difference it makes when you go from a downwind board to a mid length. Your mind just says, I have to turn this. It's almost rude not to turn this thing as hard as I can. and I remember I, I have, think like my couple of like 10 sessions or whatever, like my first session is all uploaded. Something that I wanted to do just like show the good, bad, and the ugly of just starting out and
Cynthia Brown (1:02:06)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (1:02:24)
first time that I was on that 85 liter board going downwind, I think I was on a 850 code foil DS series. So it's not even a high aspect wing. It's a 9.5 aspect ratio. It's kind of like an average one. And I just said, my God, here we go. This is what I always wanted to experience small board, small foil and surf. Cause we live in the Bay. So we don't have waves. This is our surf is doing.
Cynthia Brown (1:02:47)
Yeah.
Daniel Paronetto (1:02:52)
Whatever we can in the bumps in the Bay. So when I had that opportunity, I was like, yes, I need to just rip as hard as I can on this. And I feel like downwind into me now is more about turning and finding speed that way rather than going up and over or something like that. It's just really maintaining that flow and you get in sync with the ocean and the speed of the bumps and those 31st seconds. They're like, okay, I know where I'm at. And then you're off.
Cynthia Brown (1:03:09)
Right.
It's so cool. I wish everyone could experience it. It's friggin' insane. I can't even wait. I had a knee injury in July and I'm still handicapped a little, have a torn meniscus. And I was gonna have a procedure done on it and I was like, well what two months can I take off? And people were like, my God, take it off in the summer because there's no waves. And I was like, are you kidding? Summer's downwind season. Like to me, being out.
Daniel Paronetto (1:03:49)
Yep.
Cynthia Brown (1:03:52)
Two miles off the coast of Maui with your friends in 80 degree weather, like for nine miles of surf, I would rather do that than ride regular surf any day.
Daniel Paronetto (1:04:03)
Yeah, there's something so special about that. And I think having the parrowing also allowed at least my crew here to stick a little bit closer together. When you're in the paddle, sometimes you just, just go, you know, you get up and like you said, you don't want to try to get up again. So if you're going, you're going and you might see people for like a minute with the parrowing. We're riding together for the whole time.
Cynthia Brown (1:04:12)
mm-hmm.
It's so much more fun.
Daniel Paronetto (1:04:27)
It's playful. Yeah. So where do you see parowinging going like this year?
Cynthia Brown (1:04:34)
Well, I think first off, the Summer Hood River is going to explode. lot of my friends that come here and go there that had new downwind boards on order from my friend Frank, who lives right next door, they've all canceled their orders and he's making them parrowing boards, know, like 50, 60 liter mid-lengths instead of downwind boards.
Daniel Paronetto (1:04:57)
Beautiful.
Cynthia Brown (1:05:02)
Maui also there's a lot of people that wanted to downwind but knew they you know they weren't going to put the time in to learn to paddle. They're all going to be in on it and I just think it's it's going to be so cool. We have a whatsapp group now the Parawing Posse on Maui so for downwinding this summer you know and shuttling and stuff.
Daniel Paronetto (1:05:26)
You know,
you know it's on when a WhatsApp group is spun up by someone then it's a, it's a thing now. Are you going to hood river this year?
Cynthia Brown (1:05:29)
Yeah.
I think I, my husband are talking about going for like 10 days, maybe mid July for, my friend Kenny, like just to see friends and stuff. It's pretty hard to leave here though, cause it is really, it's just like game on every day here. But
Daniel Paronetto (1:05:41)
Mmm.
Yeah.
But I haven't been to Hood and I'm desperate to go to Hood River. been, I haven't, it's been two seasons that I've been like, oh, this is the year, this is the year because of family or whatever. Like I changed jobs as well. And I'm like, I can't do it now. I'm like, oh damn. But this year my leaf block is in July.
Cynthia Brown (1:05:56)
you haven't been there?
what, like when, July?
Daniel Paronetto (1:06:13)
the whole of July. I have the whole month off. So I have to go this year.
Cynthia Brown (1:06:14)
okay. That's
an excellent time to go because it's not cold and it's not like the heat waves can come in August and shut the wind down. So July is the best time in my opinion. I lived there for six years. So that's how I know it so well.
Daniel Paronetto (1:06:22)
Hmm.
This... Yeah.
Do you think it's worth going down for the AWSI and whenever it's going to be August, September?
Cynthia Brown (1:06:39)
It's
usually September, as you probably saw from last year, the wind can be non-existent. You just never know. But it was still fun because was glassies can be, and we were all like demoing the foil drives and stuff. AWS is just cool because everybody in the industry is there and it's a great party. It's a great vibe. It's worth going. I wouldn't go for conditions. I would go for the
Daniel Paronetto (1:06:54)
Hmm.
Cynthia Brown (1:07:09)
the Do you know what mean? The industry.
Daniel Paronetto (1:07:10)
Yeah, the people that
hang out, the social. And who are you looking up to in Parawinging today? Who do you love to watch ride in your local spot or anywhere really?
Cynthia Brown (1:07:23)
Well, Greg and Scott Drexler just killing it. mean, they've been doing it. and Sam Reynolds. They've been doing it the longest and they just, and they've all like been here on Maui forever. So they know the waves and they know how to ride. They're just beautiful to watch. and then when I saw Kane go into that parrowing at Ho‘okipa was just like, my mind was blown. I mean, I wouldn't have the nerve cause it was, it was big.
Daniel Paronetto (1:07:27)
Mm.
Cynthia Brown (1:07:52)
you know, windsurfers are doing back loops and front rolls and he just goes and just like it was big. It was way out of my pay grade.
Daniel Paronetto (1:08:01)
Are they doing anything that is exceptional like in terms of their technique in depowering, stowing, wadding? Are they doing anything different or is just their riding the wave and yeah.
Cynthia Brown (1:08:11)
No, it's just they're riding. Although,
like, Greg has a special flair about the way he... Well, I don't know if you watch JD, follow Cam, but there's a lot of videos on YouTube so you can see Greg ride. He just has this... He was like that kite foiling too. He just has a special flair about him and style and he's good to watch.
Daniel Paronetto (1:08:29)
Mm-hmm.
He has like an up writing. He's not like surf. He's just standing there effortlessly and.
Cynthia Brown (1:08:46)
Yeah, he's like a,
he's a dancer. He's not, he's not like a short border. He's just like, yeah, he's glider dancer. And his brother's the same way. They're just nice, styley and Kane too, styley, not all just killing it.
Daniel Paronetto (1:08:50)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I'm with you. I really enjoy people that just make it look easy. And then you try it. You're like, okay, it's not that easy. They know what they're doing. So we're almost wrapping up here,
Cynthia Brown (1:09:17)
and, and make flow, make
flowy of course. Walk, Walker Hendricks. Make flowy.
Daniel Paronetto (1:09:21)
Mick Flowy.
what is your favorite thing about the, the power wing? Like if you were to just say, this is why I like it. What is trying to sum up this, this power wing experience for people that are getting into the sport? What is so good about it? Why are you hooked on it?
Cynthia Brown (1:09:39)
It's
so minimal. It's just this tiny... Like if you looked in my van, my husband's still winging and I still wing in the light winds. It's just like walled, there's just wings lined up on and then they're all his and then me, I have these two little tiny bags. These two little bags. Like there's my quiver. Like I could pack it into my backpack. That and...
Daniel Paronetto (1:09:59)
You
Cynthia Brown (1:10:09)
It's just a rush, like the power that you have all of sudden, the immediate just, you put it out and you have power. And then when you don't want it, you just go, whew, and you have nothing. And it's just so cool. It's so minimalist. I just love it.
Daniel Paronetto (1:10:15)
Hmm.
I'm with you. think, it's hard. sold all my wings, my hand wings. And for me right now, if they, if it's winging conditions, I'll be parawinging and, then there's everything else. They're surfing and, you know, all of those are still relevant, but if it's winging conditions, I'll be parawinging. Absolutely.
Cynthia Brown (1:10:29)
Yeah.
I get it. just, like I said, some days we're at the beach and if it's, I just don't have a bigger pair of wing yet. I just, 2.9 is my biggest. So I have no choice. If I want to go in the water, have to take a hand wing if it's light.
Daniel Paronetto (1:10:57)
And look, I'm, I, I actually, I'm an advocate of just doing whatever's good for the day. So I'm pushing para winging now cause it's new and it's exciting, but I don't want to be writing a five five, you know, on a day like that, would much rather take the kite and do a kite foil and rip on that. but it's the novelty right now. It'll, it'll subside eventually. Maybe. Yeah, we don't know. So the last question here, and this is again for people starting out.
Cynthia Brown (1:11:19)
Maybe.
Daniel Paronetto (1:11:27)
And people that want to get into the sport, what's the one tip? It could be riding tip. could be gear tip. could be condition tip. What would you tell someone right now that wants to get into parawinging
Cynthia Brown (1:11:41)
Don't try and learn in light wind. You need wind, like 20 mile an hour, think. Maybe less if you have like a Barracuda board, but it's just too hard. Cause the wing, you you aim towards it and it falls in the water. And I just would, I say start in solid wind. And I guess,
Daniel Paronetto (1:12:05)
That's fair.
Cynthia Brown (1:12:08)
use a bigger board and foil to start maybe, but I only used a bigger board because it was so light and I only had 2.9.
when I learned it was like blowing, I don't know, 17 or 15 and I'll add a 2.9 so I used my Barracuda.
Daniel Paronetto (1:12:28)
Yeah, I think that's a great tip. think low wind power winging is the devil for someone.
Cynthia Brown (1:12:36)
It's extreme. Low wind in any sport
really separates the weak from the chaff in my opinion. So even like low wind kite foiling, I could go out in the day and kite foil in no wind when others couldn't because I'd been doing it so long. so I can pair a wing in lighter wind now than I used to be able to even on a 2.9 just because my skills gotten better. to learn in its light wind is the hardest thing to learn in.
Daniel Paronetto (1:12:43)
Yeah.
Yeah.
How are you jibing in light wind? I find it such a nightmare to jibe because you basically just run into your pair when there's nothing pushing it forward and you're just matching the speed of the wind when you're in the middle of the turn and the thing just falls on your head.
Cynthia Brown (1:13:14)
I'm sorry.
Well, speed and I don't bring it over. I drive it through like a kite. When I was kite surfing in light winds, I would drive the kite through in front, know, low and in the power zone and then carve hard. Like don't go towards it, but speed and carve, you know what I mean? Just make it faster to create apparent wind.
Daniel Paronetto (1:13:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, if you keep it at 12 or high, you're just gonna run into you, you're gonna wear it.
Cynthia Brown (1:13:51)
Well, I noticed the flow, it's easier to ride it to jibe it high. Whereas the BRM, it likes to be driven like through the front for me through the front of the window unless it's super windy.
Daniel Paronetto (1:14:07)
I love it. Those are great tips, Cynthia. Look, thank you so much for your time. It's been almost an hour and 15 minutes now, and it feels like 20 minutes chatting about foiling. We could just chat, chat, chat. But, look again, thank you for your time. It's so nice for you to make time for this and you know, your level of froth and your level of writing is just unreal. you know, studying for this interview, I was just going through your videos and like, my God, what happened?
Cynthia Brown (1:14:15)
Okay.
Daniel Paronetto (1:14:36)
You've done, you've done it all. and seeing you ride the parrowing now with so much Stokes says a lot about this discipline. So thank you again for joining us.
Cynthia Brown (1:14:45)
Thank you. Thanks
for, I mean, finding a female athlete worthy of your podcast. Because, okay.
Daniel Paronetto (1:14:51)
I have more on the list. I have more on the list. And
I think you will love to meet them eventually. And we're planning a trip to Hood. Maybe everybody goes in July. And if you're there, let's catch up. All right. Thank you again, Cynthia.
Cynthia Brown (1:15:03)
Okay. Thank you. Alright.
Okay, bye-bye.
