A paramotoring session at Aerosport, ECR
May isn’t just exciting from the po litical front, it’s getting thrilling in the great outdoors as well, say the city’s adrenaline junkies. From open-water swimming and windsurfing to rappelling and paramotoring, adventure sports operators say more people are signing up for outdoor experiences this summer, with beginners and families increasingly look ing beyond conventional sightseeing during holidays.At Covelong beach, surfer Moorthy Megavan says the number of surfers coming in from across the country has grown so much that last summer he set up rooms, a café and even a co-working space at his surf school. “We’ve had an entire team from Japan on a surf holiday here recently. They stayed and worked out of here for a week,” says Moorthy. The rooms are already getting booked for May. “We’ve got surfers living and working out of here now. So, we’ve made it an entire tourism package with surfing, wind-surfing, kayaking at dawn and campfires and thappattam per formances at dusk.”Just last week Decathlon India held a par agliding workshop at their T Nagar store in collaboration with paraglider Rajesh B. The workshop ran to a full house.Aerial adventure sports are booming, says Manikannan P, whose organisation has been conducting paramotoring activities in Tamil Nadu for the past 15 years. “About 90% of par ticipants are beginners trying the sport out of curiosity or for a new experience. Paramo toring offers a fully open-air flying experience where participants can feel the wind and changing temperatures mid-air,” he says. “When people stretch out their hands, it al most feels like flying like a bird. In the summer, evenings after 4pm offer the best flying condi tions, with calmer winds, clear panoramic sunset view of the coastline and beautiful landscapes.”Open-water swimming too is drawing crowds of late, despite being a niche sport. “Earlier, we’d get one or two people interested every month. Now we train around 40 par ticipants monthly, especially adults,” says Sharath Mukundan, an open-water swimming coach.He adds that open-water swimming also helps people confidently explore other water sports such as jetskiing, surfing and scuba diving. “We first introduce them to deep water in a pool to get them comfortable and integrate them in the sea to help them understand waves and currents. By the end of the pro gramme, they’re able to judge whether condi tions are safe or not and how to manoeuvre waves,” he says, adding that Jan to June is the best month to learn as the tides are usually calmer around this time.Windsurfing too is seeing larger crowds, not just in Chennai but in other places in Tamil Nadu as well. Jehan Hoshi Driver, founder of Quest Adventure Sports Academy in Rameswar am, says people aged between 10 and 80 come all the way from Chennai just to try it out. “We have seen a 50% rise in the number of participa tions from men and 60% for women over the past three years,” says Jehan. “Many people have even begun to train competitively and we have an intense programme for them,” he adds.Vikram Raymund, a pilot, who tried wind surfing for the first time recently, says seeing 90% of the participants who visit us are beginners trying This May, chill with thrill paramotoring out of curiosity or for a new experience — the coastline from the water was different from experiencing it from the skies above. “The sea stretches into shades of blue and green, you see fishing boats drift at a distance, flocks of birds skimming the surface, corals and jellyfish. At first, I kept losing balance because the wind changes suddenly. But once you understand how the wind and water work together, it feels like you’re floating and you begin to enjoy the sea.”
A tourist windusrfing and Jehan’s Quest Adventure Sports Academy in Rameswaram
Back on land, former army instructor Swaraj Robert Roy introduces first-timers, even those with disabilities, to rappelling at Adventure Zone in Madhurantakam. “Adven ture sports are increasingly becoming acces sible to everyone,” says Roy. Through modified harness systems and assisted support, wheel chair users have also participated in rappel ling activities organised by the team. “People think these activities are only for highly active individuals, but that’s not true. We’ve adapted the activities so even people with disabilities can experience rappelling safely. We regu larly at least twice a month host people with disabilities and have even quadriplegic chil dren try it out,” he says. Swaraj took the setup to the Purple Festival in Goa last year, a cul tural event for people with disabilities.
Ummul Khair, a person with disability, rappelling at Adventure Zone
Off-roading experiences too are drawing participants looking for unconventional week end activities. Terra Tigers, an off-road ad venture and experiential driving company that organises SUV trails, boot camps and off-roading events, says the 20th edition of the Palar Challenge, an annual 4×4 off-roading event held near the Palar River in Tamil Nadu is scheduled for May 27, offering multi-day, competitive and recreational off-road chal lenges for experienced drivers and beginners. “For our sessions, we get a lot of people who come to try off-roading, especially those who want to get into motorsports and even before planning to buy a new car. The only require ment to participate in our beginner-friendly sessions is knowing how to drive,” says Arka Datta, co-founder of Terra Tigers, adding that last year they had people more than 200 people sign up, featuring 100 cars. Their first edition had just 21 people featuring 14 cars.Abraham Samuel, who participated in one of Terra Tiger’s off-roading sessions, says the experience combined adventure and commu nity. “I loved the experience so much that I got myself a Gypsy to continue practising at off roading events across the city,” he says. Samuel will be taking part in the Palar Challenge for the 2nd time.SAFETY FIRST Adventure sports operators say safety protocols vary across activities, with most beginner-focused experiences relying on trained instructors, weather monitoring and safety equipmentAI AT AMUSEMENT PARKS Water amusement park Wonderla, which sees a surge in crowds in summer, uses AI-based systems to alert if crowd levels exceed safety thresholds. “The park also uses AI enabled tools to analyse electrical parameters such as voltage stability, frequency variations and harmonics to identify equipment irregularities early. Camera-based monitoring systems are deployed at entry and exit points to support crowd tracking and incident monitoring, while critical ride safety functions continue to operate independently through engineering controls,” says Dheeran Choudhary, COO at Wonderla.
