"I can no longer stay quiet."
The surfing community has been left reeling today after Kalani Robb, Momentum-era surf star and the surfer widely considered to’ve completed the first-ever 540 or “Full-Rotor”, revealed that he’d been cut loose from the Palm Beach Surf Club, the wave pool he, along with Cheyne Magnusson, helped shape and popularise.
In a quasi and impromptu piece on Facebook, and in reply to one of his fourteen thousand fans there asking why he was not a part of the pool anymore, Kalani Robb wrote:
(The new owner) is Vinnie Smith. I don’t know anything about him except he came from the Tech world. I only met him once or twice. The reason why I’m out ?
When I was with Kelly doing his wave pool I saw many people trying to take his place and his pool so they could be/feel like him . After watching it happen to him from an outside perspective I could clearly identify it when it was happening to me.
What I experienced was somebody wanting what I had and took it and wanted me to have nothing to do with it.
The reason why I’m speaking out now is to make sure people understand that I had nothing to do with his decision-making since he has taken it over.
I’ve endured way too long trying to hope for the best for the new ownership, but their actions have left me no choice to announce publicly soon Consequences so that I am not liable with my reputation my brand and my name for their unprofessionalism any longer.
I can no longer stay quiet and take the brunt of their leadership shortcomings, not answering cries of the public and other members of their team like we don’t matter and we are below them.
I’ll talk about it in the mainstream media when the time comes.
And in another post,
When the new group came in I was out of my own creation. From 100% of running the pool with my team to absolutely not knowing a single thing. Unfortunately the new leadership of the pool reflects that decision to the detriment of all. The Positive ! , it makes me feel good knowing that I did a great job with my team until they got their hands on it and changed things . They bought my vision and tried to change it to theirs, plain and simple. Therefore, they don’t want me anywhere near their new plan so they can essentially be me and have all my relationships and connections cause they took over my pool.
Hasn’t worked from what I have seen by the performance of the pool since I have left. Super heartbreaking but I feel justified at the same time
One day, the real story of what went down here will be told, not today though. Despite that, I am still very proud of what we built. The real people who worked the day to day will always be the best thing I take from this experience.
Veering to the side of this drama slightly, three days back Kalani Robb revealed a visit to the pool by Kelly Slater.
The King , Kelly came and surfed the test pool I just never told anybody and kept it a secret as respect to him and his wave pool . I never ever want to use my big bro like most people do for their own come up. I just want to impress him and make him proud
Yes, I do have footage of him surfing the pool that no one has ever seen before. ’ll show everyone the footage one day.
On today’s post, Kalani left a little teaser of Kelly Slater deep in the folds. A pleasure to behold etc.
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The lead here may have been buried…. no matter if you love him or no, respect him completely or mock him for the love of turtles, constant shading, social media commenting/debating on the world’s many issues or delayed newborn naming, Kelly may be one of the very few/only in this thing we’re calling surfing that can save it financially and logistically from going the way of the way of the frisbee… we just may have to embrace the new sandals.
The little guy has been on a Facebook posting barrage about the pool. I thought he was promoting it, not whining because he’d been fired. I’ll buy him a HamSammish the next time I see him.
Stop crying get a real job. Lay some bricks see how you feel. Wanker..
I surfedd the test tank, it was bad. I surfed the finished product, also bad. We had a group that almost built one of these in the desert, I was finally able to talk them out of it. If you want to make money as a wavepool operator, install a wavegarden. Energy and capacity, its simple.
What mainstream media is he talking about ? Fox ?
Whew, thanks for not spilling the beans
I have never encountered a single person who handled getting fired with less grace than 99% of professional surfers.
considering some kooks in arizona can build one of these pools in their backyard in a month and get it dialed fairly quickly, kalani and cheyne are lucky they had jobs there for so long “fine tuning” the waves.
We need a Butlerian Jihad, but for wave pools.
Anyone who saw the original investor deck knows the previous ownership group may have had salt, but from a business model standpoint rather incompetent.
I’ve visited this place twice, first time about a year ago and again last month… The wave quality is terrible, really not worth the money once the novelty has worn off.
I have a feeling this place will go out of business once that Wave Garden pool they’re building out there is finished.
This was supposed to be Kalani’s pool for kids who don’t read good or do other stuff good too.
“I’ll talk about it in the mainstream media when the time comes.”
So never.
Do surfers’ believe in contracts anymore – handshakes don’t apply
This might be a warning sign that you are too online.
Kalani Robbed
I Kalani believe he fell for it, what a dumb cunt
My first surf boutique session was cancelled today due to the pool being broke. Probably the gayest moment of my life.
VB?
Could it get any gayer?
I knew it would eventually happen, just not this soon. If this pool craps out I am screwed, it’s keeping me sane.
Tech bro says it all. These kooks ruin everything.
So kalani surfed in the pool for advertising and now he can’t / won’t?
Better story would be what did Andy Irons walk in on kalani doing ? And with whom?
Tell me more!
spill the tea
Pools are for peeing