- It's been so hot that I want to spend as much time in the water as on the water. Freestyle is called for!
- The ABK camp in Hyannis is coming in less than 5 weeks! (You have registered to reserve your spot, right? It often sells out!)
- Rumors have it there may be an ECWF-style event in Hatteras in October. Unlike the ECWF Cape Cod on September 15-16, I should be able to compete in Hatteras.
- I've watched Nina for more than two years hacking away at the Flaka, with very slow progress. But she recently started to try Vulcans again, and progress seems a lot faster.
- I recently tried to try Grubbys again, and was quickly rewarded with a sail-damaging catapult. I learned what the dreaded "loop crash" in the Grubby is!
So, taking everything together, there was plenty of reason to look at the Vulcan again. The final straw was when I looked at some videos on Continent Seven to check on a question that had come up from Nina's Vulcan tries - especially Yentel Caers Spock into Culo.
Let me start with what I remember from previous lessons and videos about how to Vulcan:
- Twist your body and your feet.
- Move your hands into a rather uncomfortable position on the boom.
- Carve and S-turn, and pop the board out of the water, while at the same time flicking the boom, looking back over your shoulder, and letting go with the back hand.
- While most of the board is in the air, except maybe the nose, push down and pull on the boom, and move the rig around so you can grab the other side of the boom.
- Land sliding backwards, throwing your weight forward so you don't get ejected backwards.
- Sail away switch, or somehow change your feet and sail away.
All that sounds rather complicated - perhaps well suited for big-brained windsurfers, but too much to fit into my head. Then, there's the motivation issue: the Vulcan was the "must learn first" new school freestyle move, but in itself not much fun. It takes most freestylers between 200 and 1000 tries to learn; since I learn tricks a lot slower than others, my number would likely be in the several-thousands. Are we really surprised that I stopped after playing around with just popping the boards a bit? That I looked for alternative "first" moves like the Flaka and the Grubby? Even the loop has gotten more tries on the water, despite the fact that I try loops only once in a blue moon.
But now let's look at a screen shot from Yentel's Spock (for those not familiar with freestyle: the Vulcan is the first part of the Spock; you remember that Spock was half Vulcan, right?). Here it is:
This is just as Yentel takes off. Note that his front hand is close to the harness lines; his front arm is extended; and the sail is sheeted in (check the movie if you want to verify this). This is actually how most instructions for the Grubby start! Having the sail forward and powered after takeoff makes the nose of the board turn downwind, and starts the board rotation. Then, when the nose is in the water, it creates a rotation point, and the momentum of the board makes it turn around all the way to a backwards slide.
In contrast to what we see in the picture above, most Vulcan instructions focus on turning the board with the body. That includes pre-twisting feet and body; looking back; and pulling and kicking the board around with your feet. All that "active board movement" happens while you also switch hands on the boom, and move the rig around so you can grip the other side! Did I say "complicated"?
Part of the confusion comes from the fact that the Vulcan can be done in different ways. It is perfectly possible to rotate the board with your legs and body. It's also possible to start the board rotation by pulling the mast backwards, and pushing down on the boom; or with "sail forward" pressure, similar to the loop, like Yentel appears to be doing.
Let's look at Yentel half a second or so later:
The nose of the board has touched the water. The board has rotated about 45 degrees. Yentel is leaning to the inside (away from us), and the board is tilted so that the leeward edge is closer to the water. The front arm is still long, and the tip of the mast is over the nose of the board. At this point, the weight of the rig is pushing the nose of the board into the water, supported by Yentel pulling up with his back leg. One more picture a bit later:
At this point, the board has turned 180 degrees (which is as far as it needs to turn for the Vulcan). Yentel's head is over the mast foot, and all his weight is over his front foot and on his arms to keep the nose of the board in the water, allowing the board to slide backwards.
"So what?", you ask? Let me explain!
In the first picture, Yentel starts the board rotation with sail steering, similar to what many Grubby instructions suggest. I've tried that a bunch of times. Most of the time, I held back, and got just a little rotation, with the nose of the board under water for just a fraction of a second. But the one time I really committed, I got a lot of pull in the sail, and got catapulted very nicely. The sail hit the water so hard that a top panel ripped just from hitting the water. My neck was sore for a couple of days. So there's definitely enough power for a rotation that can be generated this way! I know at least 4 people who actually learned to loop while trying to do a Grubby this way. For me, though, the idea of letting go with the back hand to avoid the catapult seems like a great idea,
In the middle picture, Yentel uses the weight of the rig, pushed forward by his extended front arm, to get the nose of the board into the water. In many of Nina's Flaka tries, and in my few Grubby tries, getting the nose into the water briefly was easy, but keeping it in the water was very hard. The common advice is to "lean forward" or to use "more commitment", but that's very hard to do. Using the weight of the rig on an extended front arm seems a lot easier. It's even similar to what you can do in a jibe to keep the board from bouncing! But perhaps the more relevant tidbit is that Nina reports that she had her best Vulcan tries when she acted on a tip to keep her front arm long and forward during Vulcan attempts.
From all this, a simpler approach to the Vulcan emerges:
- Sail on a beam reach with decent speed and power
- Widen the grip a bit by moving both hands
- Pop the board while extending the sail arm forward and pulling in with the back arm
- Let go with the back hand, pull up with the back leg
- Keep the front arm long and lean "into the turn" as the board slides around
- Extend the back leg, bend the front leg to keep your weight forward for the backwards slide. Grab the mast (or go directly to the new side on the boom).
- Get both hands on the boom on the new side, pull down on the boom to stabilize, sheet in, and sail away switch (or switch your feet to sail away normally).
I don't have a clue if these instructions really work, but at the very least, they are simple enough to fit inside my head. I've done some similar things in the past, and the differences make complete sense ("let go with the back hand when the pressure gets too much") or are quite natural ("grab mast and boom so you can sail away"), so chances are pretty good that I'll actually try this. Maybe I'll just try a few until I have crashes that discourage me. Or maybe I'll have to try this a thousand times before I make a Vulcan, but as hot as temperatures are these days, crashing a thousand times seems like fun.
