Paraboarding at the Dune du Pyla

Paragliding at the Dune du Pyla

Take two of my favourite sports, paragliding and kite surfing, put me on a beach with Fabrice Tripier Mandancin, the European free style snow kite champion, and you can be sure something silly will happen. By Matt Taggart. Published in Cross Country magazine in 2003

Following an invitation to a photo shoot with Fred Pattou, I duly arrived at the Dune du Pyla on the west coast of France – fully kitted out with both kites and paraglider. The combination of perfect location, good photographer and an interesting combination of toys meant a green light for us to try some new tricks, the latest and craziest of which is paraboarding.

Ever since Canadian pilot Chris Muller sent me a video clip of himself towing his buddy in a howling gale across the waves in Mexico on an Octane I’ve been dying to give paraboarding a go. I’d studied the video and got the lowdown from Chris. Armed with a glider, a rider and a kite-surfing board, we set off for the beach.

Clipped in to my harness in just a gentle breeze I selected my Ozone Vibe ML and a set of 30m lines for the occasion. Waiting for the right moment to launch I searched through the list of potential ’f**k ups’ that could happen here. The list was large: lines snapping, a water landing, even locking out and violently face-planting into the sea. Not to mention the huge surface area that could potentially overpower us both and send us sailing out to sea.

But memories of Chris’s excitement and infectious enthusiasm as he told us about the sensation of skimming the waves on a paraglider whilst powering your mate along at the same time, fired me up sufficiently to overcome my worries.

When the moment of truth finally arrived, Fabrice and Jean Luc launched me, then literally pumped me up to the top of the power window. We found that once up at the top of the window it took much less power to keep me there, so Fabrice hooked into bar and I sent the Vibe in to a steep dive. Together our combined craft roared into life and we literally shot off across the waves.

The sensation from the pilot’s point of view is not that different from towing except that the angle when you’re at the top of the window is more extreme. You would also obviously never dive yourself at the ground then scream along with your wingtip inches from the surface whilst under tow. If you did, you’d be dicing with disaster.

After half an hour of full-bore action I was steadily getting bolder and bolder with my low level swoops and big direction changes. I’d just begun to master the big airs needed to send Fabrice skywards to perform his usual freestyle tricks when the inevitable happened. I locked out.

Luckily, being an experienced pilot and instructor, Fabrice realised the danger and released the bar in time for me to scoot downwind and hook a turn onto the sand in the nick of time

Despite the risks of a dunking and ultimately drowning, I’m now hooked on paraboarding. I’m not sure if it’s the attraction of skimming the water on a paraglider or the team aspect of pulling your mate up on ’big air’ jumps.  Maybe it’s just looking down at your mate on the board grinning up at you like a lunatic that makes it so addictive. Either way I’m definitely up for more.

Despite the fun Matt and Fabrice had, Paraboarding falls firmly into the experimental category with very grave risks involved. Our advice: don’t try this at home – Ed

• Got news? Send it to us at news@xccontent.local