Tell me they host birthday parties!
Two days ago we showed you a first glimpse at Wavegarden’s “Cove”. It was an abstract look at revolutionary technology and, despite purposefully obscuring the wave’s size and length, the video showed promise.
Today, Wavegarden revealed an in-depth demonstration of The Cove’s potential. Watch!
First thoughts?
Looks damn fun, but nothing like Slater’s joint. The wave is smaller, shorter, and less perfect then Lemoore, but it can produce 1,000 waves per hour. Simple arithmetic calculates that at a wave every 3.6 seconds, which would clearly be awful, if it weren’t for a previously overlooked variable.
Unlike Slater’s pool, The Cove can operate simultaneously as a right and left-hander, bringing the true period to roughly seven seconds — a much more respectable range. Why they opted to disregard the left in this clip, I’m not sure. Maybe this is only a half-version of the pool?
On top of controlling wave speed, shape, and height (to a degree), The Cove can be scaled to any size, depending on how much money and energy a developer would want to invest.
The wave in the video comes from a prototype pool in the Basque region, used mostly for R&D. Because they received such outstanding feedback from pros and punters alike, Wavegarden has (apparently) sold pools to the following locations around the world:
Some noteworthy testimonials include:
Seabass – The short interval is better for beginners and really experienced surfers as well
Wilko – You get barreled then come out and do a few turns, then you look behind it and it’s just another one and another one and another one…
Filipe – Ees really good training
Josh Kerr – There was no shortage of waves, that’s for sure. There were almost too many [laughs]
Gab – My knees, they stiiiing
And the pros have it right. A perfect wave is nice, but in terms of profitability, wave quantity is king. Slater’s ten-wave-per-hour wonder is something I’d pay good money to ride, but that means nothing to a savvy businessman.
Money is in the masses, not the niche.
Another not quite good enough waste of enormous amounts of cash
Those boys were workin hard to keep momentum and they were all skinny liitle feckers
Is it though? What do these wave pool builders want? What’s the business model? As far as I can tell, no surf journalist has ever got as far as to ask anybody involved about just how they plan to go about turning their ideas into ongoing profitability. Is it even possible? There’s no proof in the affirmative, indeed there’s only the opposite; so far they’ve all either broken, gone broke, or survived only through tourism investment dollars.
Fuck! Don’t make me do this you cunts.
talk to me once vegas has one of these…I want naked strippers on the side line, wsl betting, and lots of beer. Rick Kane is very stoked.
where is the double overhead mode? i dont care about 2 foot waves i can surf those anytime
Wilko’s eyes looked like they were bleeding, either he was smoking some poison ivy laced ganja or that water is nasty.
Fully explained by all those grommets. No wetsuit can fully retain the amounts of waste those sea-urchins produce.
Did Dion and Chippa not look like they were having fun back in 2012? I’m calling the Wadi pool reigns supreme over all these other ones. Can you guys get onto Murphys Waves and see what he’s been up to?
As a frequenter of this pool in a previous life, it’s one of the few things I can knowledgeably comment on.
1/. It’s design means there is only one opportunity to do a real turn at the beginning because as soon as the wave passes into the bit where the pool flares out, it loses all power and goes very soft.
2/. While the waves come every 2 minutes or so, either you share the session with 5 others, or pay their share to surf with less. Plenty of cash there to do it, but it kills the vibe when you workout each wave costs $17.23.
3/. While the choice of shape of waves is impressive, (right, left, closeout and allegedly tubular), the limited time to actually surf said wave before it fats out is lesser than impressive. See 1/..
4/. When you go to maximum size wave at Al Ain, due to some cheapskating, the wash floods the viewing area and restaurants, so you can’t actually go full size.
While it does well in area with a large supply of cashed up expats with a desire to surf better waves than are generally available in the vicinity, I’m not sure it would be as successful with more natural competition.
I have to disagree. I’ve surfed this wave a few times and I find the left and right ramping waves to be surprisingly powerful and super fun. If you love trying airs and you come from a wave starved coastline you can have so much fun on this wave. I agree that this pool is not perfect and much could be done to improve it’s size and price point but considering this wave came out 5 years ago, I’m pretty bloody impressed with it’s performance. Every other pool builder seems to be aiming to create the perfect barrel instead of a true surfing experience and I find this bizarre. Fuck perfection, I’ll take fun little ramps any day over a knee high barrel. I’d love to see what changes Murphys waves has done to this model since 2012.
I guess it would take a couple of sessions in each pool to really get a perspective on things. I agree that the pool was fun and that the ramp to closeout setting was the most fun, but it wasn’t a very economic prospect if you had to share the water with 5 others. I worked with a bloke who would book is in when no one else had booked that hour which was good, but I saw some amazingly ignorant ‘surfing’ when there were 6 in the water. Interesting question re: 5 years of improvement. Would like to see if anything has been done.
Did you get to Oman at all?
Looks better than 90% of the waves on the QS. Wouldn’t be surprised if the WSL wiggles out of KS wave company in the next year or 2. There is no money in it commercially. Except maybe renting it out a few weeks of the year to wealthy/famous people that kelly personally selects through a rigorous application process involving blow jobs and sucking farts out of his ass.
Alex Grey is not on the invite list, I’m beginning to wonder who was behind his boards getting smashed by the airline!
It’s all our generations fault when we fuck over the next generation and turn them into wave pool rats that have no sense of etiquette when they get to a real beach.
Seabass – “The short interval is better for beginners and really experienced surfers as well.”
Makes me think there is a concerted effort to marginalize and systematically eliminate the in-betweener experienced surfer population. Time to cull in-betweener experienced surfers.
The middle class always perishes.
Sounds like the opening sentence of a Kurt Vonnegut novel.
Kelly and his merry band of bankers have failed to monetise anything he has stuck his name on. If The Cove can get a bit more grunt and size built in over the next two years, Kelly’s pool is fucked. Along with the WSL business model.
if you think Kelly’s plan to “monetise” the pool near fresno was by charging admission to the public you’ve got a pretty limited understanding of business.
dude, he already sold the wave pool company to the WSL! money done made.
whether the WSL can take figure out what to do with it next isn’t his problem.
No I didn’t think that…
When surfing in southern California I like to play wetsuit bingo. If there’s a guy in trunks, a springsuit, 3/2, 4/3… all the way up to a hooded fullsuit + booties & gloves, then I win! (The prize is my eyes rolling straight out of their sockets!)
Anyway, once the oceans vaporize in 2-3 years, it looks like I’ll still be able to play this wonderful game at my local Wavegarden Cove! So, that’s comforting.
I didn’t know it until just now, but I’ve been playing this game my whole life.
Where do you typically fall on the spectrum? I like to assert my dominance with a Speedo x boots combo.
I’m either a long sleeve springsuit-and-booties or a trunks plus rashie plus goggles & sunhat type of boy.
Nude with boots.
Speedo is lame without matching cape.
Hey Michael, do you add the webbed gloves? If not, that is a must add for you Speedo and booties combo….
Speaking of vaporized, caught Brant Bjork and his latest outfit the other night.
Fuck.
So next time you’re playing pianos in Indo hotels, you’ll be Beethoven-esque in your deafness?
Yep. Half way there from my own band anyway. Dwarves were on before them which was an experience.
What’s your instrument?
Guitar.
Kindred spirits, you and I. Guitars, surfing and stoner rock.
https://www.triplejunearthe…
A snippet.
Ooooh, fantastic!
So, you’re saying you don’t need a bass player?
If you need a bass player. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
How were the Dwarves? I missed them up here due to them not coming closer than Brisvegas and not having travelling cash on hand….
They were okay, honestly not my thing. I can see how Homme punched out Blag though.
Was flogging Kyuss in the car just this morning. Still so good!
this is a very good game, yes. and amazing how often it’s possible to win.