Did you know that beach umbrellas send some 1,000 people to the hospital each year?
An astonishing number for any item, but especially for a humble piece of beach equipment.
I mistrust these parasols dug precariously into the loose sand, each one a potential missile. More so, I fear the spectacle of having to chase one down the beach, apologizing as I go.
Enter the Shibumi Shade, one of the simplest—and lightest—pieces of beach equipment I’ve ever seen (right up there with the beach towel). Weighing just 4 pounds and measuring 26 by 5 inches when bundled away, it’s small enough to pack in a suitcase and take on a vacation, and it’s lighter and more nimble than many beach chairs—all things never once said of a beach umbrella.
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With a beguiling, minimal design, this shade is easy and quick for one person to set up. As long as a steady wind blows, the fabric floats above you, providing enough sun coverage for six people without buckling or collapsing.
The Shibumi Shade’s entire design consists of two parts: a single arch of high-strength segmented aluminum rod, such as you’d find in the brace of a camping tent, and a large lightweight sail of paraglider fabric.
No knots of cotton string to untangle, no rusted hinges to snap into place, no heavy pole and heavy fabric ready to fly away at the slightest wind, no matter how firmly it is staked into the earth. It is everything the beach umbrella isn’t: immovable in the face of a hurricane. And it can all be set up by just one person in under a couple of minutes.
All the Shibumi Shade really needs is a light wind to lift its sail and create a cavern of shade above your head. It’s charming to lie under the canopy as it snaps in the wind suspended, somewhat magically, between you and the sun. If you ever ran under sheets drying on a line when you were young or hid under blankets thrown in the air by your parents, sitting beneath the Shibumi Shade is a lot like that. Watching the shade ripple beneath the wind is a feeling that’s whimsical and nostalgic and somehow rare and startling all at the same time.
That’s when it works, of course.
