Is Texas pool the equivalent of film in a brave digital world?
Y’gotta give it to the German inventors of Wavegarden. They don’t fuck around.
When Kelly Slater squashed the presumption that the burgeoning artificial wave market would be theirs, they spent two years building a pool that at least puts it in the same realm as Surf Ranch.
You might’ve heard about their new version of a wave-tank called Cove. All we got is PR propaganda and a handful of WCT surfers who rode it, but who signed non-disclosure agreements and therefore can’t offer an independently verified opinion, so who knows how good it is?
But how do we know if the KS pool’s got legs? More NDAs etc.
Anyway, while all the confected hoo-ha about Cove was going on, poor little NLand Surf Park has finally re-opened. If you’ll remember, the tank was open for only one month before shutting its doors last November.
A bummer since nearly every session y’tried to squeeze into had been booked out, making a mockery of the naysayers who said they wouldn’t be able to find chumps willing to spend ninety bucks on a ten-wave session. Even Ozzie Wright was dying to gun his fist into it.
For some visitors, the experience was… divine!
Now that it’s open, and you can watch Wavegarden Mach 1 in action below if you want to form an opinion, do you think the owners are sad they poured millions into a pool that has been so roughly superseded by Cove?
Do you think the owner, in this case Mr Doug Coors from the fabulously wealthy beer family, wants to unscrew the fountain, unplug the plough and start again?
Do you think the vibration of a slamming door was heard all over Austin when Cove was loosed?
Or do you think nothing will matter when Kelly finally unveils to the world?
And then, of course, we have the mysterious Greg Webber who claims to hold the key to the greatest secret of them all.
Wavegarden, says Webber, will “end up being redundant. They’d be horrified at what Kelly did and and even more fucking horrified when I build my one. (But) only one is going to make money. My one. There’s only one design and it revolves around using the Kelvin wake. It allows us to do 500 waves an hour as a base rate. We can have a ride rate of 5000 rides per hour. That’s fucked up. That’s proper money. “
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
I wish that I was from a fabulously wealthy beer family.
This an Aussie reference?
Wavegarden are Basque Engineers, NOT German. One of the founders is German, thats the only link.
It’s the 2nd best wave in Texas. 1st is the oil tanker wave which is on my bucket list. To surf the tanker wake properly you have to wear cutoff jeans and be drinking a cheap beer. That’s a good time.
I accidentally drank a coors that was handed to me yesterday. It was fucking disgusting.
Coors is fucking badass, you shut your mouth.
Oh you’re such a man of the people!
I am literally a Certified Cicerone® (look it up) and was for a time paid more than you’d imagine to put together fancy beer lists for fancy restaurants. I can taste an IPA and tell you what hops were used, and probably when they were added to the boil. Yet most days, I will take an ice cold Coors over 90% of craft beers.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love you more.
But Coors is still gross!
http://www.9news.com.au/wor…
looks like the killer whales have been reading beachgrit!
Close the door behind you