Two weeks ago (yeah, two weeks before I got the chance to sit down and write it up on my computer, what a slacker) I spent a few days with Ville from sunny Finland! He can only sail there for 6 months of the year, due to the ice and lack of sunlight, so he came over to our warmer climes to try and crack the vulcan and open the door to more freestyle moves. He has struggled with the manouevre for quite a while now so the challenge was to re-program him, get rid of his old (bad)habits, and send him on his way to vulcan-success!
He got better and better as the day went on until fatigue stopped play, and we headed home safe in the knowledge that he would be sailing out of his first vulcan the very next day........
.....unless, of course we arrived at Centre 2 and there were head-high waves rolling in along the entire length of the beach, which is (obviously) precisely what happened. Yep, conditions were totally un-ideal for vulcans, but, fortunately, they proved perfect for an introduction to wavesailing- perfect for learning to bottom turn and cutback, something which Ville admits he was leaving for the distant future. In the end, despite the disappointment of not finishing our vulcan project, he had a great sail as we blasted along waves together, and probably learnt as much on this day as any other. He was grinning like a cheshire cat when we finally trudged back to the centre to give his gear back after a four-hour waveathon!
As usual, the wind didn´t want to play along with our finely-laid plans and we ended up having only one real good vulcan-training session from the four days we had together (very atypical for the time of year, especially down in Sotavento). However, we made great progress in that one day and he gave it 110% all day so that, by twilight, his technique had changed drastically and he was starting to slide instead of the magnificent head-plants he was wooing us with earlier.
He got better and better as the day went on until fatigue stopped play, and we headed home safe in the knowledge that he would be sailing out of his first vulcan the very next day.............unless, of course we arrived at Centre 2 and there were head-high waves rolling in along the entire length of the beach, which is (obviously) precisely what happened. Yep, conditions were totally un-ideal for vulcans, but, fortunately, they proved perfect for an introduction to wavesailing- perfect for learning to bottom turn and cutback, something which Ville admits he was leaving for the distant future. In the end, despite the disappointment of not finishing our vulcan project, he had a great sail as we blasted along waves together, and probably learnt as much on this day as any other. He was grinning like a cheshire cat when we finally trudged back to the centre to give his gear back after a four-hour waveathon!He has since reported (from tropical Finland) that he is now right on the verge of sailing away from his first vulcan!
I managed to get a couple of stunts in myself on the last day, before my shoulder pain made sailing impossible again. I´m now planning to take a total break until my next classes in June to give the arm a chance to recover properly, instead of sailing around injured and under- achieving big-time. Hopefully, a few weeks of rest (and SUP) will sort it out and I may still be able to salvage something from this year freesailing-wise. Here are a couple of pics from the Sunday, taken by the lovely Kati... 
I just read this blog post and would like to thank you for the clinic in May! I did make a vulcan this summer pretty fast after the clinic and am now thinking about spocks :). I had read pretty much everything about the vulcan and had been to other clinics but Steve pointed out what I was doing wrong and after some devoted crashing that was it! He is also a super nice guy and I highly recommend his clinics!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to get into wave sailing more and to learn moves like spock, flaka and the loop of course.