Parasailing, also known as parascending, is a recreational activity where a person is towed behind a vehicle (usually a boat) while attached to a specially designed parachute, known as a parasail. The boat then drives off, carrying the parascender into the air. If the boat is powerful enough, two or three people can parasail behind it at the same time. The parascender has little or no control over the parachute.
There are six parts of a parasail. The harness attaches the pilot to the parasail, which is connected to the boat, or other speeding vehicle, by the tow rope. The activity is primarily an amusement ride, not to be confused with the sport of paragliding. There are parasailing locations all over the world.
Land based parasailing has also been formed into competition sport in Northern Europe and especially in Finland. In land based parasailing, the parasail is towed behind a car or a snowmobile. In accuracy competitions the tow-vehicle controls the speed and height, and the parascender controls the lateral movement of the parasail. The competitions consist of two parts: dropping or throwing a streamer to a target, and accuracy landing. The sport was developed at the end of the 1990s in growing rapidly. The first international competitions were held in 2004.
History
The first Parasails were developed by Pierre-Marcel Lemoigne in 1961. Lemoigne is a well known developer of ParaCommander-type of parachutes known as "ParaCommander" or PC-canopies. The date of the first towing of a parasail is not known, but one of the first mentions is a flight by Colonel Michel Tournier from France flying behind a tractor in the same year - 1961. In 1963 Jacques-André Istel from Pioneer Parachute Company bought a licence from Lemoigne to manufacture and sell the invention with a name "parasail".
Mark McCulloh of Miami, Florida is the original inventor of modern day parasailing equipment.
In 1973, McCulloh introduced the world’s first Stationary Parasailing Platform. His continued innovations, inventions and accomplishments within the parasailing industry are broad in scope with a focus on improving the safety of parasailing.
His most successful invention was called the wangboat, which he patented in 1976 and made its commercial debut in the 1980s. Riding the wangboat is a lot more pleasurable than the normal winchboat. Today nearly all commercial operators use winchboats equipped with a PTO (power-take-off), which uses the boat's engine to drive a hydraulic winch. The combination of these two designs ushered in the era of widespread commercial parasailing.
Another highlight of McCulloh’s inventions, was the Aerial Recliner and the Rider Assembly strap design, which made its debut in the mid-eighties and inspired NASA’s new X-38 Crew Rescue Vehicle.
To date, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued McCulloh the only patents ever granted related to commercial parasailing methods and equipment.
Many of McCulloh’s accomplishments have been aired on worldwide Television & Print Media, such as Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Fox News NBC, LA Times, New York Times, and the Miami Herald.
Since the early 70's, McCulloh's innovations, inventions and operating techniques continue to advance safety within the parasailing industry and has set the standards by which responsible operators follow.
Brian Gaskin, the founder of Waterbird, created some of the first parasails after experimenting with ex-military parachutes. In 1974, he created and tested the first true parasail which he named "Waterbird". Nearly all commercial parasails canopies in operation today were derived from Gaskin's original "Waterbird" design. In 1975 Gaskin founded his company "Waterbird Parakites" which is still in operation today, producing commercial and recreational parasail’s in the UK.
Comments