By Phil Jarratt
It came as no surprise when the World Surf League announced last week that Kelly Slater’s prototype wave pool in Lemoore, Central California, will host a world tour event in September 2018, book-ended against the Hurley Pro at Trestles, which is held in real waves.
In making the announcement about what is now known as “the WSL Surf Ranch Facility”, new WSL boss Sophie Goldschmidt said: “We’re only scratching the surface of how this technology can be applied and it is completely game-changing for the sport.”
No question about that, although whether the changes are for better or for worse is a matter for conjecture. What is undeniable though, is that the Slater-driven technology has created the best quality man-made wave we’ve ever seen. It’s not quite two years since we saw the first footage of Slater shivering in the cool of a December morning as the first perfect wave rolled off the production line, then shaking with excitement as he rubbered up and got out there to tame a few.
Awesome stuff, except it looked like, well, this endless and perfect little wave, a bit like Johnno’s on a good day. Super fun, but it’s not going to bite you. Since then, the Kelly Slater Wave Company r and d team have been back to the drawing board, tweaking and experimenting, and developing a different-looking left down the other side of the pool. The honour of christening that baby was given to Pipe legend Gerry Lopez, now 68, and in the footage we saw, he looked as calm and self-assured as he always did at Pipe. What we didn’t see was the 20 or so of his failed attempts to paddle into the fast-moving machine, or getting in and getting pitched.
I’ve now spoken to about half a dozen people who have ridden the wave at different stages of its development, and they all agree on one thing: it is a serious wave, steep, fast and pitching out over a few inches of water above a rock-hard base. If you fall, you hurt.
Following a trial event in September, the WSL opened up the pool to a bunch of the legends of pro surfing. Our first world pro champion Peter Townend took one look at it and decided to watch proceedings from the back of Terry Ahue’s jet ski. Rabbit Bartholomew never got to his feet and got pitched so badly on one wave that he was visibly shaken. Ian Cairns jagged a few shoulders, but he was on a SUP so it doesn’t count.
The point is that Surf Ranch, unlike every other wave pool in development, is not a playground, and for now the WSL doesn’t want it to be one. They possibly don’t want the tour event to be for spectators either, which is sensible, given that Lemoore is an unremarkable rural town of about 25,000 people in California’s Central Valley, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and at an elevation of 70 metres, nippy in the mornings and stinking hot in the afternoon. If you’re looking for entertainment, there’s an 18-hole golf course (of course there is, we’re talking Kelly Slater) and the Sarah A. Mooney Memorial Museum set in a Victorian-era house. That’s about it.
Interestingly, just as the Surf Ranch event was being announced, so too was the location of the much-hyped Surf Lakes wave pool project, set to be Australia’s first.
In a case of parallel universes, Surf Lakes is also to be situated somewhere where hardly anything ever happens – halfway between Rockhampton and Yeppoon.
Six hours north of Noosa is a long way to drive to surf in a pool, and despite having a few natural waves – I’ve surfed Emu Park at shoulder height and even had good waves at Great Keppel off a cyclone swell – there’s not really a big enough local surf community to justify it. But Surf Lakes CEO Aaron Trevis told Rockhampton’s Morning Bulletin that the site was ideal for their needs.
“We needed a site that was flat and had ample water available so we could get underway quickly,” Mr Trevis said. “The added benefit of the site we chose was the weather is perfect for an all-year round community attraction.”
Well, good luck with that. But Surf Lakes has former Tracks editor Wayne Dart as its main booster, and Darty has already recruited Mark Occhilupo and Barton Lynch to talk it up. And unlike Surf Ranch, the multiple wave model is designed for harm-free family fun. And no doubt you’ll be able to get a decent steak sandwich when you’re done.
Meet our World Surfing Reserve Ambassadors
But in Noosa we don’t need a wave pool because we’ve got five perfect point breaks and some pretty handy beachies as well, which is why last Friday we were announced as the 10th World Surfing Reserve.
And who better to be our official ambassadors than World champion ironwoman and paddler Jordan Mercer and former world longboard champion Josh Constable. Mercer, 23, is six-times winner of the Molakai to Oahu Paddle Race, and the reigning world paddleboard champion following her victory at the International Surfing Association World Paddle Championships in Denmark earlier this year. Constable, a multiple Australian longboard champion, was world professional longboard champion in 2006.
As I noted on social media last week, I can’t think of two surfers more worthy of representing Noosa World Surfing Reserve, both humble and eloquent, which is a great package!
