How about we meet the intellectual muscle behind the tank? A Jamaican! Adam Fincham!
Earlier today, it was revealed the WSL had bitten off a majority slice of Kelly Slater Wave Co, something Chas Smith wrote about four months previously.
Bloomberg Businessweek, who have an inside track with Slater and the WSL (which knifes me to write ’cause Kelly and I’ve been on a similar trajectory in surf for the past twenty something years, although his forward, mine backward, and you’d think there was a little residual love there) announced the reveal with a history of the pool.
Who’s the brains behind the joint? A Jamaican!
Fincham had worked mostly in Europe and didn’t know who Slater was. But Fincham “pulled together a team of colleagues and undertook a pilot study in 2007. They decided that, yes, it was possible.”
Two years later, Fincham was director for science at KSWC, working out of a lab in Culver City, just of out of LA, and using a 1/15th model scale for testing.
In 2014, KSWC bought a hunk of land in dusty old Lemoore, a hundred miles or so inland, to test the concept. Why Lemoore? It’s cheap. Half-a-mill for twenty acres.
And, then, the testing, the visiting pros, the visit by the WSL’s Kieren Perrow who said, “I think every surfer at some point has probably dreamt of having a wave like this… People have been trying to achieve this for a long time. I wasn’t sure I would ever see it.”
In the Bloomberg story, its writer Josh Dean describes the pool in a way that’s not obvious from the clips we’ve been drip-fed.
“If you watch any of the videos, shot exclusively by KSWC-sanctiond personnel, they’re carefully cropped so as not to reveal much of a hulking, whirring ram as it’s dragged along a rail under the water. (The hydrofoil is separated from surfers by netting.)… (Kelly) slips into the water and paddles out to the middle of the lake as a cable that runs the length of the hydrofoil housing goes taut, sounding as if someone is whizzing along zipline. Then, in the distance, it begins. A head-high swell rises up suddenly and grows in size as the hydrofoil gains speed. Slater glances back over his shoulder and paddles fast, matching his speed to the wave’s and, as the swell hits the point which the lake’s bottom – by depth and contour – forces it to break, Slater is up, tucking into a barrel that curls perfectly and never breaks…
“The wave is more powerful in person than on film, without question. Slater makes it look easy, but even he wasn’t prepared for the speed; back in December, he missed his first puddle. Another pro, he says, fell on his first three attempts.”
A quote buried in the story is instructive about the WSL’s intentions, now that it owns the majority slice.
“We will always have a majority of the surf contests take place in the ocean,” says WSL CEO Paul Speaker.
A majority…
For another kick, watch as the Today show visits the pool! The shot of the reporter, Nat Morales, doing a piece to camera on a jetski while Kelly surfs in the background, gives the viewer a revealing view of the shape of the pool’s wave.
I know, it’s looking woeful.
big blocking high about to set up shop in the swell window.
say your prayers Speaker.
Prototype or no, Jordy ain’t getting 6 waves in those 15 minutes. Have you seen the chop this (sick as, admittedly) thing leaves behind? Think they’re at one wave every 8 or 9 minutes currently. You can fix up some of that in time obvs, but the mechanics will hit the wall sooner than late. Which also leads to the newTerror of Inland Super-Groms coming for everybody’s local. They’re not. Multiply the number of folks who can (eventually) afford this by the amount of down time at the lake plus learning curve. Divide by location and availability and again, cost. Subtract glamour and kick or variable or whatever. Equal out more or less to most rats hitting up the skate park or loading docks and leaving a chill, weird novelty wave for those with the itch for such. Bunch of ‘End Is Near’ sandwich board artists on this one, jeez.
re: comments about the quality of the wave
keep in mind that they can adjust it to barrel harder and faster or back it off so that it goes slower. each individual wave can be programmed differently, so that in theory, kelly could ride a wave at the highest level, and then the next wave could be half the speed/hollowness. so don’t assume that any wave you’re seeing in a clip is the only way it can be.
also, in this first version, it takes a few minutes for the water to settle before they run another wave, but i believe that future versions will include technology to settle the water a bit quicker.
The footage reminds me of tidal bore surfing.
If you check the jetski footage the swell is travelling way to fast in comparison to a normal head high wave. In reality its just like the wake of a large boat, with water on the face sucking to the lip and over the barrel.
Dirty water in Lemoore is better than dirty water in Rio.
I want more from these damn scientists? why aren’t they out there talking about their invention? Isn’t it solar powered?
I don’t really see the benefit of using it as a training wave if it’s so consistent. There are so many variables in an actual wave that all those hard earned hours in a wave pool will quickly go to shit when an unforeseen section comes up and fucks you.
But what about nailing the basics? Imagine going from novice to expert in a year?
I mean for pro surfers not for everyday surfers who would get instantly ejected out the back of the wave.
Well either way this brings practicing to an easier level. You don’t have to wait for good waves anymore
Screw you Slater.
Adriano’s sister is surfing well in that clip
Paul Speaker: ‘It’s a fabulous, powerful… errr… wave…’ He’s still yet to grasp the basics, then.
Kelly getting an eyeful of Natalie’s gooch was gold.
We all want to go there and surf it.
If you can’t admit that, you are not being honest with yourself
I’d love to surf it, but I have no interest in driving there.
yeah, but you can say that about Lowers and its free and 45 minutes away from 90% of mainlanders who would be the wavepool customers.
The fact that Kelly has to find speed out of nowhere to keep up with this thing means that for 99.9% of the rest of us it becomes a frustrating day out but with bloody nice latte’s.
i loooooove lattes. if they have lattes i’m going! a latte while surfing while riding a hypto krypto while wearing a hurley wetsuit = what dreams are made of.
And PURPS. Loads of fucking PURPS.
We’ll all be shitting chia seeds for months.
I say all this shit but I’d love to give it a crack on a twin fin smoking a cigarette.
wtf are ‘purps’?
are you sure you should know these things, badger? are you OK? i am concerned. my concern comes from a place of love of badgers.
if you are ever attacked by a honey badger and all you have to defend yourself is a bow and arrow then you are in big trouble because the badger has skin like kevlar. also, did you know badgers attack the dick and balls of other animals. true.
I’m well thankyou. And if I decide to go for another mans cock and balls during a scrap then I shall.
Come now, you know what PURPS is.
artist formally known as ‘slater’?
The lip seems to pick them up and place them down the bottom kind of like a floater, the Kanoa clip shows him try about 5 top turns in a row that don’t work. The Carissa clip shows her trying a bunch of cut backs that’s she gives sup on too. Has there been a backhander clip yet? Curious how someone like wilko will look?
seems like you have to be right next to the barrel to do a critical turn. In the view from the jet ski, once Kelly gets further down the line, looks like the lip disappears.
it would be easier to whip it up there backside, but goofy kooks will blow the drop anyway
events in the short term according to Speaker.
wow, the WSL is really depending on this to be a money maker.
…is it because it reveals a wave without trough, as is the criticism of Mr Greg Webber?
Looks like water pushes into the barrel. I haven’t seen a clip with a decent turn yet, top turns push them into the flats and when they pump onto the shoulder they seem to reach a point where the water is pushing them back to the pocket, it doesn’t look natural to me. Its like they start to push then feel like it wont work and abandon the turn.
cause it won’t work, there’s no push more than eight feet from the bowl