Tell me you couldn't get whipped out on this thing!
Earlier in the week, it was announced the German wavepool company City Wave had hired Shane Beschen to help sell a bunch of pools in Florida.
A former world number two, you might remember Shane Beschen as the occasional foil to Kelly Slater in the nineties and as the only surfer to score three perfect tens in a heat. Lately, he’s been orbiting the globe with his two dazzling boys, Noah and Koda.
For the past three years, the gang have been hitting the Surf Style event in Munich, Germany, to ride that country’s own kinda wavepool, one that was built on the same principals that drives the Eisbach river wave in the same town.
Right now, there are lot of wave pool companies hawking their wares to investors and various governments. We got, Wavegarden. Kelly Slater Wave Co. Greg Webber Wave pools. American Wave Machines.
If you’re in Orlando, Florida, in September, and wavepools turn you on, visit the second annual Surf Summit. Listen to the president of the International Surfing Association Fernando Aguerre, the WSL’s Graham Stapelberg, former world number two Brad Gerlach and a dozen or so pivotal names in the pool game “discuss the opportunities and challenges related to the development of man-made surf destinations.”
Did you ever think, when all these tubs come to life, what’s the experience going to be like?
Are we going to be standing in lines of longboarders and pool jocks waiting for our one shot every twenty minutes, the idea of perfecting a manoeuvre on these identical waves moot as we strive to maximise our spend?
Will the surfer lose his sense of identity as suburban kids with season passes surf the pools with the slickness of eels, dropping multiples of shuv-its and whatever else?
I’ve ridden a few pools, and I like the pool here, the City Wave, for a few reasons.
One, it’s small so it ain’t a reach for a park to actually buy one, not just talk about it.
Two, it’s a stationary wave deep enough to ride boards with fins, unlike the classic Wave Lochs that demanded little finless discs.
Three? The intensity of the experience. Everything is right… there.
Tell me this wouldn’t be fun.
A little late discussion maybe? Only time will tell, I guess.
I was trying to make a point and you just had to try and rub the “I surf a proper surf location” assuming I’m 2400 kms from the ocean. If we’re arguing on that basis, let me know I’ve always lived less than 14 minutes drive from a world class wave at all times in my life, (3 different ones btw) I’ve made a point of making my life choices revolve around such basis.
I think we’ll see the paradigm of surfing change quite radically with the pools’ thing as much, if not more, than snow parks pushed the technical level of skiing and snowboarding, obvious advantage to who is able to combine both!
Still there were hardly any German surfers 15 years ago (bar a few expatriates living at surf spots) and now it’s not that uncommon, telling maybe?
Cheers
perfect overhead tubes at Lances right now sounds better than chasing the cheese on a german mouse wheel, even if the post surf beer would be superior.
Ok from a fun factor – tick
Repetition – x, gaining water skills, awareness, knowledge – x
A business model for a park – tick , and probably cheaper than wavegarden or Kelly model – run it on solar etc
What remains to be seen is what happens when all this tech produces “sterilised” kooks who end up in the ocean that have completely no idea what is going on. They are merely going to piss more people off, cause overall more drama!!
Some of those German river surfers also do regular stints across Europe to proper surf locations. Their surfing level has gotten better with the mixed experience. Case in point, they’re no kooks and the river experience allows them a lot of practise time and transfer of skill so I guess the artificial wave experience will actually become an (unfair?) advantage and even save a lot of learning time… Scary much?
I agree they different breed and no kooks – I was more thinking the “middle American”, or “suburban city” Oz dweller who through all these “parks” gets exposed and tries to translate that to oceans and then surf travel!!
Definitely though the paddle, surf fit and awareness factor will be lacking initially, unless like the german guys ( I know a few) they actually spend some ocean time.
Having said that I would love a set up like this in my backyard – needs couple more ramps to steepen it up for full top to bottom but reckon you could tweak it
In the 60s and 70s the surfers of the day developed a story of rebellion and fredom for the world to believe in which allowed a surf fashion industry to grow as the story was embraced by the 80,s 90 and 00’s kids until 5 or so years ago when the industry began a rapid downwards spiral. Today millions of kids and adults are spat out of surf schools daily with no surf etiquette, no idea of surfing heritage and no desire to continue surfing outside of school holidays and the occasional weekend of perfect weather. The majority of the these pools will be perfect for the gen y disposable surf school surfers and hopefully they will stay there and not the dirty ocean where you might have to develop skill to earn a position in the line up.
See reply above…
Looked like Beschen travelled to Munich via Amsterdam: so baked.
Wonder what Carson thinks about this. You there Davey?
Full popping forehead blood vessels on the cutbacks. Constipation roundhouses for days. Throw some fiber in with the sour kraut bro. Loosen it up a couple notches.
this is the surfing equivalent of fucking a silicon sex doll
This wave pool in Japan (Ocean Dome) was closed nearly a decade ago, and it’s still possibly the funnest artificial wave ever made. Watch pre-pubescent Julian, Owen and others get barreled and pop airs here: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
…and is that Mikey in this vid also?
This pool was epic – heard took crazy power to run hence not viable. but surely now they have the answers and just bring this back
Betamax was the better tape, yet we got VHS. The best technology is almost never what the masses get. I’d bet on these over a slew of Slater pools any day.