"Kelly’s wave is End of Days. It's heartbreaking."
With its historic location, farms and casinos sticky with margarita mix, Lemoore, California, was the oddest place to find the greatest collection of professional surfers, past and present, ever.
But Kelly and the WSL did it.
All because…everyone… you, me, Rabbit Bartholomew, Filipe and so on, was dying to see, maybe even ride, Kelly’s secretive pool. The sorta-event, called The Test at Surf Ranch, ran behind closed doors, the WSL providing a live-ish blog.
Now that the pool has revealed itself a little more, let’s pan back and examine the ramifications. Are they good, are they bad, what thrills and what don’t? I asked the custodian of surf history, Mr Matt Warshaw for his learned opinion.
BeachGrit: First, are you excited by the pool event?
Warshaw: Only in that we’re getting a broader, less-filtered look at the place. “Excited” isn’t the word, though. I’ve got a dread obsession with Kelly’s wave. I can’t look away. I’m turned on and despondent at the same time. Mostly despondent. For the surfer in me, Kelly’s wave is End of Days. We’ve traded magic for perfection, and it’s heartbreaking.
BeachGrit: Do you think this is Kelly’s coup de grâce? Now that world titles are out of reach, he redefines what surfing and pro surfing is?
Warshaw: Yes. Despite what I’ve said above, Kelly hasn’t done anything wrong, or evil. Mechanical surf was always in our future. Kelly was smart enough, and had enough juice, to get it there faster that it might have done otherwise. And yes, like you say, he gets to further reshape the sport way beyond whatever he’s done as a wave-riding innovator and champion.
BeachGrit: Let’s do a little role call. He’s got John John, Filipe, Gabriel, Carissa, Steph, alongside Hemmings, MR, Shaun, Rabbit, himself. Have you ever heard of such a gathering? And to do it in a shitty town peppered with crummy motels and an Indian casino four hours from LA. It’s a masterclass in PR.
Warshaw: There you go. Only Kelly could do that.
BeachGrit: Tell me, gut instinct. Non surfing UFC guy and new non-surfing-former-tennis-pro CEO Sophie Goldschmidt running the show. Good, bad?
Warshaw: Gut instinct is, it has to be good, for no other reason than they know that WSL thus far has mostly failed, and needs a massive restructuring. But I’ll hedge my bet. If we’re looking at small events, some jet-setting when necessary, if we’re into a Mentawai playoff scenario — fantastic. But if wavepools are the end game, pro surfing is well and truly fucked.
BeachGrit: Read this quote from today’s event and tell me what you think: “Put simply: this is a research and development exercise that allows all the stakeholders involved in any future event to understand the wide array of opportunities available. Everyone from competitors, organizers, judges, broadcasters, sponsors and even a delegation of the sport’s founders are on hand to witness the technology that will have a dramatic effect on the future of surfing’s evolution”
Warshaw: Oh. I hadn’t seen that. I guess we’re 25 degrees closer to well and truly fucked.
BeachGrit: After Steph, Filipe and John, I felt like I saw all that was going to happen. Did you have a similar experience?
Warshaw: Every wave is a 10. You’re just ticking down point fractions. That, and as a viewer, you’ve already ridden each wave in your mind before it starts.
BeachGrit: In your opinion, as custodian of the sport’s history, what’s next?
Warshaw: As custodian of the sport’s history, I’ll remind people that, before automated surf shot it out from beneath us, we were riding the unicorn of sports.
Think of it this way: “Backcountry skiing” pre-ski lifts would have sounded as dumb as “ocean surfing” does today. Now backcountry skiing or snowboarding sounds so “adventurous”. Maybe surfing will get so retarded “ocean surfing” will become some sort of thing only for the hardcores. Especially when the pointers become overpopulated. They’ll be the avalanche danger
Best headline BG has ever dropped or maybe I’m an emotional wreck after ‘that WSL’ event.
This is not evolution this is devolution. Surfing isn’t evolving it’s mutating. A generation or two from now if the planet is still habitable wave pools will be the norm. And the monetizing of surfing not the advancement will be complete. Surfing was coopted a long time ago from the soul/lifestyle approach to the competitive money driven soulless approach. There isn’t much soul left. All the breaks are packed and the ones that aren’t are too far out in the boonies to be anything but an exotic locale but they are even being monetized. The feeling of freedom is but a distant memory. The new feeling in surfing is tense, aggressive and cutthroat. There aren’t enough waves to go around and the world is getting a lot smaller. Yeah this might be the future where kids ride waves in a pool but they all look the same and do the same moves. They are developing their styles to please judges and the parents are raising kids to become pros just like stage mothers. Even if there’s a “Jefferies” bay in a pool setting it’s going to be just that. There will always be waves in the ocean but it’s who is out in them, how they act towards each other and what’s on the beach that defines if it’s fun or not. That is where the devolution part comes in. You see surfing is a very personal and selfish activity at it’s heart. To surf is a completely different matter than what you surf on. It’s an expression of your soul in nature. That’s where peoples style come in. Individuality. Style. Grace. Your soul expressed physically in a natural environment. Those pools will suck what remaining soul there is in it out and leave a dry brittle shell in it’s place. It might look like surfing but it’s more like some sort of video game.
Would someone please do some investigative reporting? Let’s do some horse trading here: My contribution: A little bird confirmed that the waiting period between waves was 5 minutes! Yes, five (5) minutes. In today’s instant gratification media world 5 minutes means “forever”
So what I’m looking for in return? Someone out there knows exactly how many KiloWatt hours that crazy sled pulling “Hunger Games” train running down the tracks is pulling per wave. Somebody find out that NUMBER! It’s the key to it all. Once “We” know that number we’ll have a much better idea just how Elitist this thing really is. Until then were all just dancing/surfing in the dark!
This.
Typhoon Lagoon has to pump 80K gallons of water uphill into a huge tank for every wave every few minutes. That is a damn big wad of electricity. Waves are energy. There’s a big difference in what one of these facilities costs to operate if each waves costs $1 in KwH versus $100, or $15. I talked with Tom Lochtefeld about this awhile back and he said energy cost per wave is the holy grail of unicorn chasing. Well, that and mechanical and structural issues, which are constant when you have a machine that’s stirring up so many tons of water every few minutes. I read awhile back that KSWCo is powering this thing with the sun – or at least with sun bought from PG&E. So maybe they have it figured out already. But I’d welcome someone smarter than me to chime in.
Not sure how different this will ultimately be from XGames skateboard comps in the future. Which can surely be fun to watch, but it’s the same damn ramp all day long. The sucky thing to me too, is that pros who have the $$ resources and wherewithal to surf these artificial waves over and over and over will be given such a technical advantage over, say, the aspiring young pro from Kingston, Jamaica or Honolulu who has to surf – and practice in – real waves and will never be able to get the sort of wave count young Richie Rich or Veruca Saltwater from will have when mommy and daddy shuttle ’em up from Newps to Lemanure or the local Wavegarden to practice textbook schwacks for hours on end.
Support Hells Angels?
I’m just here to say, This wavepool is nothing. “Waterman” will see waves and fury like no other, and we’re gonna power that train by coal!
Japan did a weak version of this 25 years ago, complete with artificial environment and machines to purchase underwear among other things..
“Every wave is a 10. You’re just ticking down point fractions” – therein lies the rub. Slater’s pool will show how many errors a surfer makes on a perfect wave. The ocean – you score based on what you create out of chaos…..
Slater would do better to spend the money he likes to jack off with surrounding himself with rich white Republicans and put it where it would do *real* good. Donate some to locales that need wells constructed, medicine, sanitation (that wave *toilet* of his looks like a good beginning), housing… But then, that’s not very much *fun* is it, Kel. You just don’t have one ounce of soul.
Slater is only interested in sustainability that produces a profit and that distracts attention from* his other, emphatically non sustainable, endeavors that produce larger profits.
blumplin, (I read your comment three times to discern its meaning.) Did you mean to say: “…and that distracts attention *FROM* his other…”? I don’t mean to sway your denotation, I just wanted to be sure what you meant. Thanks.
From! Thank you for catching that.
I can only hope I’m in that good of shape when I’m Mr Hemmings age .
“I’ll remind people that, before automated surf shot it out from beneath us, we were riding the unicorn of sports.” That’s actually a brilliant line.
Oh I don’t think that’s going to happen.
WSL magically finds time to make up quotes, sources not quite determined and left to be described as “More than a few onlookers were caught saying, “I never thought each wave would actually look different, but they do.””
That’s sad. What was it WSL? 4?5? That’s more than a few. Maybe they’re quoting 10 onlookers. More than a few? Huh?
Huh?
True that. Every time I see a perfect wave I think, “damn, that used to be magic.” Warshaw is a fucking kook that lives in Seattle and surfs twice a year. Never ran into you out in the straights or Westport. I declare that we should not listen to your behind a paywall history of surfing. Go eat a Dick.
Sincerely yours, surly Washington local high on meth and sick of kooks!!!
Not just high on meth and bragging about that, but an anonymous cowardly troll too!
If you never “ran into” Matt it’s probably because you don’t really surf and/or because you’re too young (Millennial) to know much about anything. It’s OK… When you come up from the basement you’re living in to distribute your RESUMES, maybe you’ll learn your sponge isn’t the greatest after all.
Someone needs to drop a few BluLoo tablets into that pond before I’d even piss in it. Has Kelly got people who can do that? Huh punk?
They should have collected some of the water from this “super session” and sold it on Ebay. I’m positive it would have at least covered next season’s broadcast pallets.
Scale it up twenty feet .
The new CEO of the WSL is now being called a steakholder! I’m guessing the requirement of holding KS’s meat has become more a part of the job description than ever before.
I know it takes away from the funny play on words, but i am pretty sure you mean “Stakeholder”
glad you’re trying to keep up Gary, proves the meds are starting to work
Stakeholder is a terrible corpo term than should never ever ever never ever be used in any sentence related to surfing
the sexual turn is due to the new “CEO” being a female
KS now being part owner of the WSL and patent holder of their future makes the WSL even more beholden than even when he was just a surf star.
You can purchase the Cliff Notes to my comments on Amazon or at Barne’s and Nobles.
I have never been good at interpreting irony when I read it.
Agree on all counts, including the meds. Not sure I need the summary notes of your comments, but will reconsider only if you get a cut of the Amazon / B&N cash.
Fred Hemmings nailing the current “tucked in shirt pants pulled high” fashion trend.
Symbolic, I think. The WSL is a high-pants sort of organisation, no?
As in a wedgie?
Although, in Fred’s defence, and I love Fred, the high-waist is back. https://www.gq.com/story/hi…
Throw on some Saint Laurent white glasses and Fred would fit right in at the next Wash gig.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Kelly needs a mullet in that pic.
MAGA: Mullet A GOAT Again.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Fred Hemmings rides for Supreme!
What u know bout tabasko sweet?
Hemmings’ Children attend Former parties… impending doom inches closer from all directions. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
I once walked into a room full of computer heads glued to their laptops working on the Volcom Pro webcast. If you replaced the board shorts with business suits you’d have a young republicans club! Conformity and Professional Surfing have been bed-fellows for over a half a century!