Does the Pool Era fill you with joy or an existential terror that your entire surfing life is a house of cards?
A little turbulence a week or whatever it was ago when Surf Lakes presented a prone bodyboarder on a four-foot wave and claimed it as the world’s first artificially created eight-footer.
Watch, and read, about the Miracle of Yeppoon here.
Arguments for the validity of the size revolved around two positions: Surf Lakes’ transparency that it was the wave face being measured and therefore wasn’t beholden to archaic, culturally entrenched sizing, and it didn’t matter, anyway, ’cause the wave looked pretty wild.
That night I lay alone in the dark rear bedroom of my rental and my thoughts swung to the Pool Era, which we’ve just entered.
I doubt if many appreciate just how much surfing is going to change, and how quickly.
Already, little girls are doing airs beyond the capability of female world champions and ten-year-old boys with falsetto voices are mixing combos the sort only Reynolds or Not Deane might dream up.
The thing with pools is they’re pitched at VALs. Yeah, there’s an “expert” wave, but the money that keeps the pool alive comes from VALs on softboards and plastic double-enders.
And a VAL, if she reads the promotional literature and sees the advertised max size as four foot, why, she would fall on the floor laughing.
So small!
A wave barely the size of two toilet brushes stacked end to end!
Soon, with the creation of that new spawn, the Pool Surfer, there’ll grow a new language, new boards, new moves and new ways of measuring waves.
An Ocean Surfer will visit a tank and be schooled by the local hot-shot riding switch inside his eight-foot tube.
He’ll be hectored by a mom running up beside him in the lineup telling him it’s her kid’s turn on the next wave.
He’ll watch as every advantage he had, the ability to study rips, channels, time sets and so on, disappear; his once proud athletic stride a stooped shuffle.
Let me wonder aloud.
Do we need to adjust our concept of wave size?
Of what a surfer is?
And do you fear the Pool Era? Or do you believe that pools will set free your inner power and strength and let you achieve, finally, the glory of your surfing?
I’m the latter.
Glad to see the elitists in surfing are still here. Just because people can’t get to a beach doesn’t mean that they can’t enjoy surfing. The attitude I see here is the same attitudes that existed in the 80s when wave pools started becoming popular. The basic mechanics are the same so if someone learns in a pool in Kansas with some adjustments and practice they should be up and riding in the ocean fairly quickly.
Now for my elitist rant. I would like to see you attempt to surf the 3rd coast in the US (The Great Lakes) I have been out there with 15 foot waves and barrels that would make most envious. The problem is that when the lake is happening the waves will beat the snot out of you. The waves just keep coming and there is no break. I have broken toes just getting out to catch a wave. Not to mention that the best waves happen during the winter so you also have to deal with ice hitting you. I find that ocean surfing is easier than the lake. Dont do get about those that ride standing waves aswell.
In short there is room for everyone to enjoy the sport. Each surfer is going to have their strengths and weaknesses. It is not a bad thing to be different. That is what I always believed surfing was about. Being different.
I don’t care how hippy dippy this rant is I’ve said it before and ill say it again, the sole reason that wave pools are a crock of shit to me is that as surfers we should be the demographic that’s the most concerned about climate change and keeping our oceans clean and these wave pools are really just waste pools. Hypocritical as fuck all around. The amount of electric, probably gas too, water, space, all these resources taken from the surrounding communities and the wsl literally owns Kelly’s wave don’t they? They can shove glowing glowing gone up their ass I’m tired of the false claims of trying to help the environment they just want the good PR that comes with hashtags and fancy jerseys.
There’s indoor climbing walls and there’s going climbing. Look at the changes in climbing the proliferation of dedicated climbing walls has had. Great. But the alpinists are still alpinists and the hardcore trad boys and sport weirdos are still the same. There’s just somewhere to train when the weather isn’t on side. As climbers first started to train specifically standards exploded.
https://youtu.be/JVFd5xZDxlY
If you see the wavepool as a tool for improvement and use it as such….
Wavepools will be wavepools, surfing will be surfing. Kinda like Ebiking and cycling. No need to get scared
This whole thing needs to be branded and packaged appropriately or pool surfing will siphon the culture and fabric right out of surfing for good. I recommend 2 options: PURFING or PLURFING. No self-aggrandized pool warrior could ever take themselves too seriously if the activity they’ve quickly come to master is referred to as PURFING or PLURFING. It’s still the wild west and we have some level of control. Put it in its place for good. Warshaw can choose one of these terms and get it on record, then whoever on here has the widest social media reach should spread it like wildfire.
This all being said by someone who lives 1.5 hrs from Waco, 3+ hrs from the ocean and has clocked more time in the former than the latter in the past 2 years.
I’m a romantic and pool waves are the prostitutes of surfing.
I can get a blow job for $20. If pool waves are that cheap I will go every week.
Modern parenting raised a bunch of pussies. And we handed them a world so cynical and fucked up. Then we handed them phones at early ages so they wouldn’t be left behind and nothing about that is “natural”.
Either way, the zombie horde of pool surfers is not going to happen.
Great, thoughtful piece DR.
The pool concept will be hard to monetize and become a novelty…. “yeah, I surfed a pool”…. and the inland hordes will give it a go if they live near one, like a water park type interest. Kids won’t be training in pools for the ocean and if the owners can’t offer the experience inexpensively, skating will still own the filled pools.
Though the scenario you paint would make a Twilight Zone episode great, helicopter parents already have too many “activities” budgeted to add another I suspect. Did you know that Colleges are now expecting a full quarter of incoming Freshman to require Emotional counseling? We’ve raised a generation of pussies addicted to phones, short attention spans and anxiety leaving home. No one should worry about this gen pulling a massive Rick Kane oddessey and surfing Pipe.
I get hectored all the time in Mexico.
Most would think a 2m wave at Forestry is a dream……until these new measurements came out ha ha ha
I think we will have made the transition when we buy our 188cm * 48cm * 6.4cm step up for our trip to Indo as the 183cm will just not be enough on those bigger days.
dudes on gumtree be like…
I think I’m just gonna sit back and laugh a little and enjoy the amusement (of the pool era) as people try and get the stoke and freedom you can only get from the Ocean– from an artificial wave and at artificially ‘high prices’.
Will the average Joe fork out a couple of hundred bucks each weekend for a few months just to learn to surf and get the basics down and then another 150 or 2 hundred a week afterwards to just keep it going……
Mate I get stoked just doin tiny reos off a boat wake.
And then get in actual ocean waves and realise they can’t surf at all…
1%ers will get to be really good, just now it will be inlanders, not just those that can afford the beach
You can have the stoke and freedom from the Ocean on the half foot screaming onshore days while I work on my tan tubside.
My once-stooped shuffle has already degenerated into a pitiful hobble. I’m aiming to reach Peak Postural Patheticness™ within 18-24 months.
whatcha been doing to yerself boyo?
06:00 Up and at ’em! Time to take on the world!
17:00 How did I just lose 11 productive hours to the beach grit again? Fuck my life.
No posture can survive that daily self-abuse.
It’s God’s work, us.
Since we are seemingly still stuck in imperial increments, let us go to inches!! Big numbers and more accurate. Ego’s engage!
Wave size, like truth, has always been relative, it just depends on who’s holding the megaphone. In 1990 Brock Little skipped out on a 35 footer at the Eddie, but does anyone really think Aaron Gold’s 2016 Jaws wave was twice as big as it?
And notice they rarely use the “only 20ft” line for the Eddie anymore, and never without some qualification.
Reckon it all changed after the K2 comp and Bill Sharp’s Odyssey. The search for a 100fter – three times Brock’s wave! – becomes more realistic if you find a 50fter and dress it up bigly.
Wave pool rules are only following the trend.
I look at pools as a giant audit of surfing. Gone forever is our wonderful world of bullshit. Alas.
I predict a crime wave in Sydney like the turn of century heroin epidemic provided
Just to get a wet fix
That’s if they build one here.
Fuken place ain’t even got a roller-coaster and I love roller coasters!
They’d go out west – way west.
Foot of the Blues west ? Or not that far ?
Fucken Sydney’s so huge now ….
Prolly go to Gosford just to piss everyone off …
Please not lakemba!!
Anywhere but not there.
Yeah hopefully somewhere nice like Merrylands/Granville?
Look on the bright side, at least women won’t be allowed
He’s laughing with another girl
And playing with another heart
Placing high stakes, making hearts ache
He’s loved in seven lane guages
Jukebox life, diamond nights and ruby lights, high in the sky
Heaven help him, when he falls
Diamond life, lover boy
He moves in space with minimum waste and maximum joy
City lights, business nights
When you require streetcar desire for higher heights
No place for beginners or sensitive hearts
When sentiment is left to chance
No place to be ending but somewhere to start
No need to ask, he’s a pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Coast to coast, LA to Chicago
Western male
Across the north and south to Key Largo
Love for sale
Face to face, each classic case
We shadow box and double cross, yet need the chase
A license to love, insurance to hold
Melts all your memories and change into gold
His eyes are like angels but his heart is cold
No need to ask, he’s a pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Coast to coast, LA to Chicago
Western male
Across the north and south to Key Largo
Love for sale
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Pool operator
Let me first say I’m glad to see you once again posting articles here Derek, not just videos coupled with snippets of what your writing talent brings to the table.
I don’t think it fair that the concept of what it means to be a “surfer” has to change on account of pool warriors. They need to be called something else besides “surfer”.
I’d suggest ” Stankfer”. VAL Wave Pool Warrior, only a Stankfer knows the feeling.
Suffer
I’m pretty sure I did two articles-worth of quotes about that recently, and got little or no love.
Same as you get laid more often if you lose the expectation.
I’m married. I don’t get laid anymore.
Yeah me neither
Isn’t it measured in the size of the flogging? A 2 meter wave at 13 second period out west will typically clean your clock.
Is a muriwai flogging recognized on an international scale? Please tell me it compares as I can find it terrifying
It’s been a fair while since I’ve had a good west coast NZ beating but from memory it stacks up well on an global scale.
Black sand and grey skies sure adds to the heavy vibe
I’m all for pools and the ensuing chaos when pool surfers who can’t paddle and duck dive have their first encounter with the ocean. The look of sheer terror when they have to deal with an overhead (4 foot pre-pool scale) will be joyous to behold.