Surfing
Surfing
Will wave pools save the soul of surfing – or crush it?
In the latest episode of Just Sayin', we dive into the long-simmering debate over artificial waves versus natural waves, and we bring in Mick Fanning and Jamie O'Brien to help us out.
It’s surfing’s greatest debate: wave pool or the real thing?
Since the 1980s, professional surfing has dabbled with artificial waves – the first pro event, the Inland Surfing Championships, was held in truly lacklustre conditions in a wave pool in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. And throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, various entrepreneurs and investors made noise about new 'ground-breaking' technology that ultimately amounted to yet another uninspiring artificial wave.
Michel Bourez tearing up the KS Wave Pool
© Kelly Cestari/World Surf League
Typhoon Lagoon, a 13.6m-litre (3m-gallon) wave pool located at Walt Disney World, Florida, USA, was a step in the right direction and for years it was a novelty destination for curious pros and average joe surfers alike. Various other pools popped up – from Malaysia to the United Arab Emirates to Tenerife – that offered glimpses of possibility, but still nothing that could come close to authentic ocean waves.
That all changed on December 18, 2015, when a video of a brown, perfectly barrelling, and absolutely mesmerising artificial wave unexpectedly dropped on social media. Disappearing inside tube after long tube was none other than 11-time WSL World Champion Kelly Slater.
I could just retire and surf a wave pool for the rest of my life.
Rumours had swirled for years about the 'Kelly Slater Wave Company,' but Slater and his team had remained tight-lipped the whole time, squeezing out to the press nothing more than vague statements of promise. Well, the Surf Ranch, as the wave pool was soon dubbed, delivered on its promise in spades, hosting the WSL Freshwater Pro in 2019. And the 21st Century wave pool technology rush was most certainly on.
It was at this point that the long-simmering but lukewarm debate about wave pools destroying the soul of surfing reached a boil. The arguments for and against came from surfers of all ages and abilities. In our latest episode of Just Sayin’, three-time WSL World Champion Mick Fanning explains that, for him, the ocean will always reign. “I get bored,” Fanning says of surfing in wave pools. “But it’s a great training tool.”
Pipe Master Jamie O’Brien is more excited. “I could just retire and surf a wave pool for the rest of my life,” he says.
In truth, when Slater revealed the Surf Ranch to the world, other promising technologies were well in the works. In Spain, Wave Garden was pumping out long, fun lines that behaved much like natural ocean waves. Wave Garden quickly opened two other locations in the United Kingdom, called Surf Snowdonia and The Wave.
Meanwhile, back in the US, Slater suddenly had stiff competition in…Texas. First, in the city of Austin, and then in the off-the-beaten-track town of Waco. The latter wave pool, called BSR, was a worthy rival to the Surf Ranch. Instead of offering long, pointbreak-esque waves like those that the Kelly Slater Wave Company had designed for Surf Ranch, BSR opted for beachbreak-style waves that offered much more variety and unpredictability. Soon, pro surfers were flocking to BSR to push the limits of aerial surfing.
“There’s a whole surf community in the middle of Texas,” O’Brien says in this episode of Just Sayin’. “You would never think in your right mind to build a wave pool in Waco!”
We might see some surfers from totally random spots
The fact that Texas – an American state nowhere near the ocean – had become home to a sought-after wave called up memories of the 1987 cult classic film North Shore, in which a landlocked surfer named Rick Kane wins a surf contest at a fictional Arizona wave pool, earning him a free trip to the mecca of surfing, the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. After a winter of training in the real thing, Kane goes on to win an event at the world’s most infamous wave, the Banzai Pipeline.
“We might see some surfers from totally random spots,” Fanning says, drawing comparisons to Kane.
Not surprisingly, in the last few years we’ve seen several high-quality wave pools pop up in the world’s most surf-crazed country, Australia. In the city of Melbourne, Wave Garden has opened their latest – and hands-down best – creation, URBN Surf, which offers multi-wave sets (unlike Surf Ranch) that break right and left. (Wave Garden’s latest pool in South Korea may prove even better.)
Aaron Trevis's wave generator promises up to 2,400 waves per hour.
© Surf Lakes
And for proof that wave pool technology is only just beginning to surge, look no further than 2,000 km up the Australian east coast, to Yeppoon, Queensland, where the weirdest, yet most mesmerising, wave pool lives – Surf Lakes. Using what amounts as a giant plunger to displace millions of gallons of water in a matter of a second or two, Surf Lakes produces a plethora of waves of various shapes and sizes.
The wave pool space race is undoubtedly hurdling towards the ultimate sporting event. Although the inaugural surfing event in Tokyo this year will be held in natural waves, at Shidashita Beach, you can bet that, in future games, wave pools will be churning out gold medals.
“The crazy thing is the technology,” O’Brien says. “They could build millions of different waves.”
For more insight on the wave pool debate from JOB and Fanning, and all the latest on wave pool technology around the world, hit play at the top of the page!
