Success captain - my first vulcan?

Does it count as a vulcan if:

• You jump
• Turn the board 180 degrees in mid air
• Slide going backwards
• Get both hands to the other side of the boom 
• Stay in the footstraps the whole time 
• Fall in a bit (my butt got very wet) 
• Basically do a waterstart switchstance 
• Start sailing away switch 
• Switch your feet and start planing?

If this counts, I did a vulcan at attempt #155 at 46 years of age. What do you think of the video?


Success captain - my first vulcan? from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

I headed up to the new beach I found, hoping that the flatter water there would help me. My first try #135 was close, and the next 18 were all over the place. Finally the wind was dying and I was staying close to the launch, sailing very upright trying to stay upwind, I hit some chop, twisted and voila...

If my butt was that wet on a jump gybe I'd be fine with it.. However this didn't feel elegant, kind of like falling in on the other side when doing a shortboard tack but still getting away with it. I need to read up on how to "pre-load" my hips for the 180, I was trying twisting both ways.

Anyway, I hope that I'll get it looking better, and am already starting to read and am thinking about how to turn the Vulcan into a full spock 540 - I can dream. All of the comments from blogging friends (yes you Aaron) and the ABK facebook forum helped. Definitely doing 20 a session like I have the last few outings helps more than doing 2 or 3 like I was doing at the beginning of this quest. Maybe that is why it took me over 1.5 (correction 2.5) years to get one.


There wasn't anyone to actually see me and provide verification. In fact the beach was so deserted I took a picture of it before I left.

The shadowbox recording in the video reveals that I basically did an "in the straps rail ride" for a moment before getting the board flat again. Especially looking at the CGI graphics, since it just pastes a sail at right angles on the board, it seems kind of unreal that I sailed away from it.

Ok, on to the Star Trek bit for anyone who stumbled upon this thinking that it was a Trek post. Here is a "success captain" sound bite from Spock.






While we are on Star Trek, did you see this? The geek in me thinks it is brilliant.

I hope she said "make it so..."