ON THE UP AND UP : Parasailing, the Sport of Resorts, Now Chutes ‘Em Up at Dana Point

Skipper Guy Ciletti touched a lever on his powerboat and a yellow and blue parachute billowed into the air behind him.

Harnessed to the chute, passenger Jody Takeshita rose steadily above the ocean at Dana Point, climbing 25 feet, then 50 feet, then higher still until she was a small figure framed by cumulus clouds--a human kite launched 250 feet into the sky and towed at 25 m.p.h. behind Ciletti’s boat.

What Takeshita was doing is called parasailing.

Common for years at Mexican resorts such as Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta, it came to Dana Point for the first time in May, when the 34-year-old Ciletti, a tanned outdoorsman and entrepreneur, convinced skeptical Orange County officials that his parasailing craft was safe.

County officials had long considered Mexican-style parasail operations too dangerous to permit because passengers were launched from a beach or an offshore platform and risked being dragged along the sand or slammed into the platform as they landed.

But Ciletti and co-owner Glenn Norwood, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, got county approval for “Dana Point Parasailing” because their 28-foot boat carries an innovative hydraulic winch which slowly hoists passengers into the air for a thrilling 10-minute, $38 ride, then carefully lowers them into the boat--often without getting their feet wet.

Passengers such as Takeshita say they feel completely safe and at peace with the world as they fly far above the ocean--too far up to hear conversation from the boat or even the noise of its engine.

“I felt like I was floating up there,” said a beaming Takeshita moments after Ciletti reeled her in and she unstrapped herself from the harness. “It was so serene.”

Parasailing began in the 1940s when the Britain’s Royal Air Force, needing to train paratroopers but unable to send all of them up in planes, began “towing people behind cars,” said Ted Beck, a Honolulu insurance underwriter who is also president of the 3-year-old, 26-member trade group, the American Parasail Assn. During World War II, PT boats sometimes towed a paratrooper and chute in their wake in an effort to spot German submarines. In the late 1960s and ‘70s, a commercial variation of parasailing came to beach resorts in Mexico. A motorboat operator would attach a line to a parachute, strap a passenger to the chute and pull the chute aloft by speeding away from the shore. The passenger would have to “run like mad” across the sand until he too was airborne, Beck said.

Intrigued by what they saw in Acapulco, Americans brought the sport to Florida and Hawaii in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

But the Mexican experience gave parasailing a bad name, Beck said. “You had problems where all of a sudden a person who’s coming in for a landing on the beach is slammed into a palm tree--and in a couple of instances into the side of a hotel,” he said. There were broken bones and even some fatalities, he said.

In 1980, Ciletti, who was running a scuba-diving business at the time, started one of Hawaii’s first parasailing businesses off a platform he anchored half a mile from Maui’s Lahaina harbor.

It was an overnight success. “I put up a parasail with no advertising, no brochures and the next day, there was a line . . . of people who wanted to try it,” he recalled.

Ciletti ran Lahaina Parasail Inc. for five years, but after copycat businesses moved in and the ocean became crowded with chutes, Ciletti said he sold out and began a new parasail business, Island Cruzers, on Santa Catalina Island.

“It was a war,” Ciletti’s girlfriend and marketing director Carole Anderson said of their experience in Lahaina. “You would look across the water and see 12 chutes in the air.”

There are now five parasailing firms on Maui, some operating several boats at a time, as well as three on Oahu and one in Kona, said Dave Parsons, boating manager for the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

The result is congestion on the seas, Parsons said, noting, “The visual aspect of people hanging on parachutes zipping up and down the coast in front of hotels gives the area a sort of Coney Island atmosphere.”

Because of the crowding as well as complaints that parasail boats may be interfering with the migratory pattern of humpback whales, Parsons this October will be implementing regulations that for the first time will limit where parasailing boats may operate.

On Catalina, where Ciletti is starting his second season, he and Anderson operate the island’s first--and only--parasailing business.

Island officials say they like the new venture.

Parasailing has been a boon to the island’s tourist economy, said Wayne Griffin, executive director of the Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce. “Nobody comes to Catalina specifically to go parasailing . . . but it’s one more thing people can do when they’re here beside horseback riding, golf and tennis,” he said.

And officials from the Avalon Harbor Department said they were pleasantly surprised to discover Ciletti’s winching system was safe. “We had one incident last summer where the engine died on board and all (Ciletti and his crew) did was reel the person in like a kite on a string. The passenger didn’t even get wet,” harbor administrative officer Mary Salisbury said.

Impressed by Ciletti’s business, Avalon Harbor officials wrote him a letter of recommendation when, last winter, he sought permission to open in Dana Point Harbor.

Orange County officials had rejected parasailing proposals there for years. “It’s been proposed on the average of two or three times a year, and we’ve routinely turned it down,” said David Rosso, who supervises harbor leases for the county Environmental Management Agency. “It’s the type of activity that we generally would not find compatible with risk management.”

But county officials were impressed with Ciletti’s winch system and his track record at Catalina where the business has had no complaints--and no accidents. And when they learned that he also could obtain the $1-million liability insurance policy the county requires, they approved Dana Point Parasailing for a six-month trial run.

The new business is good for Dana Point’s image as a center for water sports, said Jody Tyson, general manager of Dana Wharf Sports Fishing. The sportfishing business has an operating agreement with Ciletti to moor his parasail boat at its dock along with a more traditional fleet of sportfishing and whale-watching boats.

Also impressed have been local hotels. The concierge at the Dana Point Resort will even book reservations for guests while both the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel and the Marina Inn in Dana Point now hand out parasailing brochures to guests along with information about horse racing in Del Mar, the arts festival in Laguna Beach and windsurfing in the harbor.

“I’m intrigued by it,” added Connie Castillo, who is in charge of group sales at Marina Inn. “It’s great that they’re offering it here, though I don’t know if I have enough guts to try it.”

Ciletti and other parasailing pioneers say their winch system--known as “controlled” parasailing or “direct parasailing”--has revolutionized the sport.

For the first time this year, Lloyd’s of London was willing to handle up to $1 million in liability insurance for their operations.

And because the winch system makes parasailing so safe, the U.S. parasail business--now estimated to include about 80 operators grossing about $10 million a year--is expected to attract new investors and triple within the year, said Mark McColloh, president of a Miami firm, Controlled Parasailing Corp. of America.

But competition among parasailing firms is keen--even “cutthroat,” Ciletti and others say. For instance, McColloh, who in 1976 got the first patent on a winch system, claims that Ciletti’s winch design and that of Lake Havasu parasail manufacturer Craig Reynolds infringe on his patent. Recently, with a warning letter from his attorneys, McColloh threatened to sue them both.

Reynolds currently is negotiating a partnership with McColloh. But Ciletti, who is now working with a Corona boat builder to manufacture parasail boats, claims that his design is “totally different” and has vowed to continue his rival business.

But cutthroat or not, the parasailing business can be immensely profitable, according to such pioneers as Ciletti who would like to expand operations soon to Newport Beach, Redondo Beach, Long Beach, San Diego and Twin Harbors on Catalina.

He and other industry leaders estimate that a typical parasailing operator will invest $63,000 in a boat; spend from $9,000 to $20,000 on insurance; buy a parachute, other equipment and advertising brochures for $5,000 and have to hire a two-man crew. But if he operates nine months of the year, taking out six passengers an hour for an average of about 40 rides a day, Ciletti said he can easily gross $250,000 a year.

“Relax,” Ciletti was saying as two passengers, 23-year-old Takeshita and her boyfriend Kevin Miyagishima, 26, strapped on life vests. “The worst that can happen is you’d float down and get wet.”

The couple admitted that they were a little nervous. But, they said, they had seen a news report about Ciletti’s business on television. “It looked kind of safe,” Takeshita said. “And we’re kind of adventurous. We like rock climbing, rappelling. . . . This just looked like fun.”

Wearing sunglasses, shorts and a sweat shirt, Ciletti stood at the helm of his powerboat. He steered slowly around the fishing boats and buoys of Dana Point Harbor, then picked up speed as he passed through the main channel to choppy, open water.

Under terms of his agreement with the county, he must operate at least a quarter mile from the congested entrance to the harbor. So after leaving the mouth of the harbor, he quickly turned his boat south toward San Clemente.

Takeshita went up first. Helped by crew member Cher Oakley, she stood on the aft end of the boat and slipped into a red, white and blue harness attached to the parachute.

When she was comfortably seated in the sling, Ciletti called out “Here we go!” Then he pressed a lever beside his steering wheel, slowly letting the silk canopy of the parachute play out behind his boat. Her legs swinging, a smiling Takeshita rose slowly toward the clouds.

After 10 minutes it was Miyagishima’s turn. This time Ciletti turned his boat north, past the steep, tawny bluffs of Dana Point Headlands toward Salt Creek Beach. Once Miyagishima was aloft, Ciletti increased speed, traveling downwind at about 25 m.p.h.

After an uneventful five-minute ride, Ciletti suddenly slowed the boat.

“We’re going to teach him to walk on water. I think he wants to get wet,” Ciletti said with a grin as Miyagishima’s parachute lost momentum and floated toward the waves.

“Look out for sharks!” Ciletti and his partner, Anderson, called out.

It was a private joke. Just as Miyagishima’s bare legs touched the water, Ciletti revved the engine again and the chute rose back up into the sky.

A few minutes later, Ciletti pressed a lever, activating the winch again and slowly lowering the chute and Miyagishima back to the stern of the boat.

“That was really fun,” Miyagishima said as he unstrapped himself. His legs and the edge of his shorts were wet. Otherwise he was dry--and clearly delighted with the experience.

‘It’s hard to explain what it’s like just floating up there--peaceful. And I loved being up that high,” he said.

Ciletti had heard it all before. Still, he was enjoying Miyagishima’s reaction. He shook hands with both passengers, congratulating them on a good trip and inviting them to tell their friends. “If you don’t know how to fly, try parasailing,” Ciletti said with a grin.