In five fundamental ways! Let's count…
Earlier today, this website posted a story with the title, Wavepools: “Investors Gonna Lose Their Asses!” It is an energetic piece that takes aim at a New York Times story on the on-again-off-again Wavegarden in Austin, Texas.
It’s author, the knuckle-duster-in-the-face Rory Parker, also recorded his doubts about the long-term viability of such operations.
I hear it. If you put a twenty-million dollar tank somewhere y’gonna need tens of thousands of pool jockeys, beginners, intermediates, studs, jamming this way and that, to cut any sort of profit.
A while back, I put the economic proposition of wavepools to Greg Webber, the shaper who’s been promising a pool that’ll shadow Kelly’s. And Greg says Wavegarden is doomed.
“They’re hamstrung by the dynamic of a low wave-rate, which makes it viable on a day-to-day basis,” he says. “An industry is on the cusp of happening. But it’s only going to happen if each of these pools makes a lot of money. Not just a little, tiny turnover. And that’s directly linked to the number of people going through the gates. One hundred and twenty waves an hour is 12 dudes getting 10 waves an hour. No one spends 30 million dollars or more building a pool on the hope that’s going to turn a profit. Because it can’t. You can’t change $10,000 per session. I wouldn’t go down that path, ever. And they’ll end up being redundant.”
So maybe Rory and Greg are right. Pools’ll appear and, eventually, crumble into their dirty brown water.
But what if, once we get a taste, we don’t want, or need, the ocean?
I’ve ridden a couple, one a piece of shit, and yeah if they were still like that, close the door. But the other was so sublime it still operates as a fulcrum for conversation between its participants. Therefore I believe that even a vaguely good pool is better than the ocean in five fundamental ways.
- You’ll never be dropped-in on again: You pay your five or ten bucks, and that wave is yours to destroy or to butcher. There’s no one to paddle up the face as you take aim at a lip. No one swinging around on the inside. You sit. You hear the whomp. The show’s yours.
- The concept of practice is real: We ran a little interview with our pals at What Youth a few weeks ago and there was a disappointment expressed at the lack of any sorta of surf-performance progression, at least in line with skate or snow. But, goddamn. How long does it take to get a cutback just right, or learn even the most basic process of an air? It’s such a battle to catch a wave and veer around the crowd to find that one inviting section, that most of the time we stick to what we know. Imagine a season pass at a pool, Wavegarden, American Wave Machines, KSWaveCo, whatever. Your world would…open.
- Disappointment isn’t even an option: In this big nasty world, we all gotta work. So most of us can only sling a few hours a week at the ocean. And if we get there and the tide’s wrong or Jesus ain’t delivering a promised swell? There’s not a damn thing you can do. Unless a pool breaks, and yeah they do (but you’ll know about breakdowns before you get into your car), you’re gonna get waves. You’re gonna surf not matter what.
- You’ll actually enjoy a pal’s surfing: Every bomb set your pal gets in the ocean is a wave you missed out on, especially if you’re sitting side-by-side in the lineup. And, so, it’s natural to harbour a little hatred in the darker side of your soul for your surf buddy. At a pool? Equal shares. It’s the bright side of communism mixed with the perfection of free enterprise.
- It sifts the mystical bullshit from surf: What is surfing but a game of balance and identification of shapes, mixed with a sort of elevated swimming cardio? There ain’t no mystery to it. Cancer isn’t being cured. Unicorns aren’t being ridden across the sky. Do you think we really commune with nature on our petrochemical boards? Pools show up surfing for what it actually is – a frustrating as hell, but boundlessly satisfying… sport. A sport.
In the next 50 years there will be no beaches and backwashed reefbreaks ! so yes its time to save surfing and start the Poolie movement , I am not sure if anyone has seen carl Ekstroms pool , which is a 5o acre pool , with 6 different breaks all different and a resort that services each break , palm trees and all…yes this the only hope for surfing , as in the next few years we will see the degradation in our surf breaks …..so I think everybody else should get on the poolie wagon!
Disappointment?
You mean dropping $120 up front for four waves at Kellys tub and blowing the first 3 of them?
Can I get a refund?
Anyone who thinks progression is going to happen with a pay per wave set-up doesn’t understand basic human psychology: thats’s a recipe for conservative risk free surfing unless Mom and Dad have deep pockets and rich kids won’t innovate shitt, they don’t have the heart for it.
Or sponsors.
Season passes. Winter. Mid-week. Ooowee, watch me fly!
My life wont be complete till I hear from the Inertia’s ultimate commentator Freerider and his take on this
Something about repenting,surfing saves,god all that,straw man arguments that are either trolling or absolute religious stupidity.
Oh man freerider is not gonna be happy with this! haha
I object! Such provocation!
Also, the funny thing about calling surfing a sport is that it’s true but not true – in its colloquial sense: when I walk out the door to go for a run, I wouldn’t consider that a sport but running is a sport. When I go for a bike, it’s just something fun to do; yet, cycling is a sport. I definitely don’t consider yoga a sport but there are worldwide yoga competitions. My point is that when I go for a surf it’s an exercise of life – I’m connecting with the world in the most incredible way; I’m soaking up the energy of the universe, connecting with the past, the future, everything. The experience is unexplainable and infinite. It’s magic. But yes, when Gabby and JJF are out there doing their things, it’s a competition, it’s a sport; but, at the same time, it will always be much more than a sport.
When I’m not surfing, I’m swimming or stretching. I’ve been surfing my whole life but I’ve always done other activities that compliment my surfing, i.e., Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Yoga, running, biking, weights, etc. Currently, I’ve found that swimming is the best exercise to improve/compliment my surfing (I have a swim coach, and after about a year of swimming, I paddle way faster using way less energy, my core is stronger, my legs are stronger, my balance is better, my body is more flexible and more connected, and my surfing took leaps and bounds); however, if there were a decent wave pool near me, I’m sure I’d be there a few times a week, working on technique, or whatever. For real surfers, the wave pools will be just another fun way to improve our surfing.
probs not, more likely an expensive indulgence for kooks.
Sure, there’ll be kooks, but kooks know no boundaries, i.e., Trump, that idiot with the surf hat last night, the bitchy lady at the hotel, etc. If there’s a rippable wave, for a relatively reasonable fee, I’ll definitely try it out. But if it’s a crowded kook fest, of course I’ll be swimming or doing something else instead.
I kid you not, in 10 years from now… inland kooks will be going dead straight at a wavepark near you. VR strapped on, programmed to Dorian Jnr at 25ft jaws. It will feel completely as if you were there, kooky bottom turn on a 1ft mush-burger will translate to just sneaking under a 5 ft thick lip and back-dooring the wave of the day. The crowd goes wild in the ear-piece as you get spat into the channel.
It gets worse, but better… in 20 years from now you will be able to sit in a floatation tank. Download the Slater vs JJF semi from Chopes 2014 from the AI files and get a direct feed from Slaters memory bank to yours. Sensory devices will trigger muscle and brain responses.
In illegal seedy backroom operations you will be able to pay extra to bone Kelly’s girlfriend after the win {sorry Kelly, but celebrity memory stealing will be rampant…}
Yeah you right if you can replicate the “buzz” and the feel good aspects all the sensory applications the endorphin rush etc then that is all it becomes – sad as it is!!
However I guess if I was in my 80s and I was plugging into that feel again it would be pretty cool
Hell yeah! I dunno tho back in the 50’s they thought we would have flying cars and be able to cook a turkey crispy in a microwave, not that it hasn’t happened but it didn’t really work out like the worlds fair expected.
The 50’s didn’t have the Internet…
This article format and writing style resembles an outline from a high school student. Please let Rory do the reporting.
Reducing surfing to the actual “surfing” – well, good luck with that.
So wavepools are Bernie Sanders? I gotta go punch a few numbers…
If necessity is the mother of invention…well I feel there is a current trend to invent a necessity. A need for something nobody knew we needed.
capitalists can’t stand that there’s too much ocean to charge admission for
Same problem with weed.
I just get the feeling Kelly’s pool is gonna be set at Outerknown alpaca beanie prices
Hope I’m wrong. Looks like a crazy fun alternative in off season
yeah, but nah
those of a historical bent will recall the proliferation of inland ski facilities in the US as the country tried to cash in on the post-war boom in skiing (tied, of course to the tremendous boom in middle class income)……in the end, who knew, people preferred real mountains and real snow…..even if it was expensive and a giant pain in the arse to get there.
If that analogy holds and humans have any residual connection with nature left before we all embrace our AI/post human future the ocean will prove even more fundamental to the little buzz we get from riding waves than mountains and snow were to skiing.
Yeah but here’s the thing, in snow you can always find a backbowl a tree run somewhere that isn’t crowded and is good, usually when I’m sitting at pipe and the crowd is on second reef,I don’t want to surf pupukea just cuz there’s less people out, because it sucks,lowers, Sebastian all have ONE real take off spot and if your not right on the money your not surfing said wave. Skiing who cares there is runs everywhere. Surfing just one peak. What I’m saying is there is reasoning for the bitter old man or over worked desk jockey to actually surf the wave he wants and not have to worry about a bunch of kolohe’s backpaddling them.
Thanks Mr Rielly for not getting on the easy “wave pools are lame” article formula that seems to be the de jure in surf media these days. Nice to read an article thats actually what we are all thinking.. Well me personally anyways.
Sure but…nobody thinks wave pools are better than the ocean.
real talk.
Mmmm. I do.
Sheeeeeeet. if you’d been writing about wave-pool surfing for the past 25 years i don’t think so many people would have been reading.
i want the Curren/Noll/Munoz take on this chlorinated crap.