Meanwhile, chaos, in Bristol, England: “VALS on mini-mals ruined my £40 surf at The Wave!”

"And getting stuck in the take-off area with their massive boards, then ten waves going unridden because people were in the way…"

Amid the beautifully honed press releases of recent pool reveals comes the reality of cold sauerkraut delivered to the average surfer.

Yesterday, a BeachGrit reader from London sent a message that reads,

“Surfed The Wave in Bristol last week. Wasn’t a cheap exercise. Sixty pounds in petrol from London, two x one-hour surf sessions at forty pounds a pop. I signed up for the ‘advanced’ session hoping that my twenty years of surfing experience would be enough for a tricky take-off in a pool. Turns out that everyone that also signed up for surf sessions so far at The Wave has done the same. Which results in VALs on mini-mals eating shit on the take-offs then getting stuck in the take-off area by their massive boards, then ten waves going unridden because people were in the way.

“When I arrived for my session, the Wave was on the ‘Malibu 3’ setting to help the VALs have a chance of getting lots of waves. This is the third setting in terms of power and height (out of fifteen potential settings) the machine can pump out.

“It has a fat, mellow take-off right next to the wall. Thirty percent of surfers in my sessions didn’t make the take-off . Then the wave has enough room for a turn back to the pocket to get over the fat section. A lot of people with normal shortboards struggle to link the wave and get through this fat section.

‘It walls up at waist height all at once and quickly peels down the line til the wave goes ankle high. Being a bigger boy it was tricky to do a turn around the lip and stay with the small wave, although you could easily pump through that section and do a cutback in the flat water at the end,

“The Wave pumps out exactly twenty waves in five minutes with up to fifteen people in the water. So if you’re at the front of the line you can get two waves. Most people paddle slowly so if you want two waves a set you can get it. You are definitely going to get twelve waves but you can get twenty-four if you wanted.

“Basically, it has mega potential although it’s annoying they are dialling it back so all levels can surf it. They need to break up the sessions, according to ability, more.”