Summer Hours - consisting of Memorial Day Weekend (May 23, 24, 25) thru September 7, will find parasailing available from 11am TO dusk.
From September 8 thru September 30, parasailing is available through appointment only, doubtless because of the weather. And of course there's no parasailing between October thru April.
What is parasailing?
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 land vehicle, by the tow rope. The activity is primarily a fun ride, not to be confused with the sport of paragliding. There are commercial parasailing operations all over the world.
Land based parasailing has also been formed into competition sport in Europe. In land based competition parasailing, the parasail is towed to maximum height behind a 4 wheel drive vehicle and then releases the tow line and flies down to a target area in an accuracy competition. The sport was developed in the early 80's and has been very popular ever since. The first international competitions were held in the mid 80's and continue to run today
Here's the history from Wikipedia:
PARASAIL CANOPY INVENTIONS The first towed parachutes 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 that were derived from free fall parachutes. The date of the first towing of a parachute (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 license from Lemoigne to manufacture and sell the 24-gore parachute canopy he had developed for towing which was labelled as a "parasail".
In early 1974, Brian Gaskin designed, created and tested the first purpose made parasail which was a 16-gore canopy design which he named "Waterbird". The Waterbird was revolutionary in its canopy design, its unique tow yoke harness arrangement its construction and the use of zero perosity fabrics which allowed it to be used over water safely. The majority of commercial parasail operators utilise the 16-gore canopy design that was derived from Gaskin's original invention. In 1975 Gaskin founded his company Waterbird Parakites which is still in operation today, producing commercial and recreational 16-gore parasails worldwide.
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