The Hovercraft

In Stefan's Janoski's recent interview with The Bunt, reference was made to a trick where a skater approaches an obstacle backside and slides their back wheels on top of the obstacle. Essentially, this is just a backside tailslide on your wheels instead of your tail. A possible name for this trick suggested by Mr. Janoski was 'Hoverslide', however the hosts and guest continued to fumble for a name for this maneuver, and no name was agreed upon.

We'd like to take this opportunity to propose naming this trick the 'Hovercraft'.

Why? Although 'Hoverslide' is a workable title for the trick (the skater is 'hovering' over the obstacle on their wheels), it needs a name that matches its distinctiveness. This is not a trick you see very often, and unless something big changes, this trick will remain rare. We'd like to stick the axiom that weird looking tricks (and this is one) should have weird names (See Kilty McBagpipe, Dolphin Flip, Benihana, etc.). Also, we've never been on one, but actual hovercrafts look fun as hell. 

Before raising a celebratory glass to christen this trick with its new name, we had the standard skate nerd conversation of 'who's done it'. Here's what we came up with:

Scott Johnston - 411 # 1, 1993

This one was obvious from the beginning, Stefan mentioned he and Brandon Biebel making a phone call to Scott about this trick in the aforementioned episode of The Bunt. Although Johnston claimed he grinded on this one, we'd beg to differ after repeated viewings of the footage. Besides, it'd be a lot cooler if he didn't, and we could credit him as the inventor of the trick. We know street skating was in a different place in 1993, but would a backside salad grind really be 411 opener material?

Darrell Stanton - Free Your Mind, 2001

This one is just gnarly. He's basically frontside bluntsliding the outside of the ledge, but visually it has the same effect. This is definitely the biggest and most impressive Hovercraft we know of. See, the name is starting to stick.

???? - Sour Files #15, 2016

The Sour boys bring us a more contemporary example of the Hovercraft. There are several shots of this in the episode, which means that they were trying to get a really good angle on this, or that it was really fun to do. Although this example was done in the middle of a manny pad, so it's technically more of a Booger Slide, but we're still counting it.

Stefan Janoski - Mosaic, 2003

Definitely intentional, definitely a classic. Stefan can make anything look good, and this weird ass trick is no exception.

Rob Welsh - Collage 2001

This one was unknown to us until it was posted on the @aestheticsskate Instagram a few days ago. This is possibly another attempt at a frontside bluntslide on the far side of the ledge, but from this angle and through the lens of history, this one is 100% Hovercraft. The video this clip is from is definitely worth a watch.