What is Wave Pool Surfing?

Is there any fuss? Or is this just a click bait title… ? 

To be honest, there’s definitely a lot of energy around wave pools at the moment. A lot that is warranted, a lot that is not so much. I’ll try to break this post down into a quick run-through on the current wave pool tech out there. First up, some background on wave pools. A little history lesson of sorts, if I may.

The History of Surfing Wave Pools

My, and probably your, first experience with a wave pool was with Rick Kane winning the Arizona Wave Tank event in the movie ‘The North Shore’. Rick won the tank event and then realised surfing in the ocean is wildly different. The ironic thing with that is, surfing in a wave pool is quite a challenge after surfing in the ocean your entire surfing life. 

Moving forward there were some other wave pools that popped up, were almost fun but still not great to surf on (with the exception maybe being the Malaysia one that starred in a lot of surf editorial) and we as a collective never gave them much attention. That is until Slater came along with his Surf Ranch, quickly followed by the industry leader (IMO) Wave Garden tech. This led to surfers globally quickly changing their perception on what a wave pool could do. 

Today we’re quite familiar with wave pools and what they can do, from Waco to Wave Garden to Slater's tub, everyone wants a quick hit of either if offered. Although getting in at the Surf Ranch (Slater's pool) is probably the toughest (and most expensive) one to get a pass too. The others are much more affordable and accessible for everyone.

All these pools have different tech running them. So let's do a quick run through of what’s the cream right now, I’m not going to bother with you the older ones just the top four ones you’re seeing now.

When Slater released the initial footage of Surf Ranch, it left the majority of the surf world speechless and was the tip of the arrow (as far as we, the public, knew) for wave pool tech. 

The wave at Surf Ranch is possibly the most perfect wave (or close to) on the planet and while boring to watch a competition in, it looks amazing to surf. 20 second barrels, turn sections and wild leg burn. 

The waves in Surf Ranch are generated by a foil that is dragged through the water and creates a wake that spins off into a shallow bottom to create a wave. Think of it like a train coming down the tracks, but with a foil under water pushing water aside. The big win here is the energy created from this approach gives you a lot of push on the wave itself and feels similar to the ocean's push. 

The catch with this foil approach is if the foil breaks, your session is over until it’s fixed. Surf Ranch only seems to be able to create waves to a certain height and push (thing is, I’m saying all this without having actually surfed the joint - there’s a big difference when you get to surf in on vs reading/writing about one). And finally wave numbers are low, as you have to wait for the water to settle before pulling the foil the opposite way for another wave. 

Whereas Surf Ranch uses a foil, Surf Lakes uses a plunger. Yep, you read that correctly - a plunger. 

The tech here uses a big plunger in the middle of a pond to push waves outward. The plunger pumps up and down, much like you would use one when trying to unblock toilets. Instead of brown sticky stuff on your hands, you get some pretty fun waves getting pumped out. 

The wins here are the number of waves it pumps out. With Slaters foil you get one wave per ‘action’, with Surf Lakes you get up to 3-4 waves per location in the pond - which in Surf Lakes situation is around 25 waves per pump thereabouts as they have 5 spots in their testing pong. 

Each location in Surf Lakes testing pond is different, from a slab to a loggers paradise, all
created from the single plunge action (which if we’re being super honest, the single plunge goes up and down three or four times). 

The catch with the plunger is that the plunger can break, as we saw with Surf Lakes back in its early stages. Obviously, they fixed it, but it highlighted the challenges ahead for any other locations taking on the Surf Lakes technology. 

Wave Garden Cove tech is an evolution of their earlier Lagoon tech (you would have seen a fair few pros’, surfing it in Spain in the early 2010’s) which used foil tech not dis-similar to what Surf Ranch used. But they moved on from that and the Cove tech now uses a more modular based option that allows for a lot of wave variations. 

The huge win with the Wave Garden Cove tech is the use of pistons (which are modular). Each pool has a selected number of pistons (see below for breakdown) that are controlled by angle/power/speed. This means the system is less reliant on one big moving part (plunger or foil) and unless the power goes out you’re pretty sweet on getting waves all day. The other win is the variability of waves that Wave Garden Cove tech can product and the number of waves it can punch out.

Wave pools using this tech can be found in Bristol, Melbourne, South Korea and Switzerland. They all use varying modifications of the Wave Garden Cove tech with Bristol and Melbourne using 46 modules to pump out wave whereas South Korea uses 56 which means they can pump out bigger/longer waves. Interestingly, Switzerland also uses 46 modules but in a much smaller pool set up which basically cuts their wave options down for beginners/learn to surf (which is the reason Melbourne has that long shallow entry point (for beginners to log on super tiny dribbly waves)

URBNSURF Melbourne was my first experience surfing in a wave pool (and the only pool I’ve surfed). Was it fun? Yes. Was I rooted after? Also, yes. Stoke was high after my experience here and I loved every minute of it. Having said all that, I got special treatment of having Beast Mode on for about 4 hours and in between bouncing off the concrete and trying to film with my phone, I was thoroughly stoked and exhausted. It’s a very fun place.  

PerfectSwell tech is run of a pneumatic system, meaning air pumps into a chambers and then that air pushes water out in sequences with the other chambers to create a wave (and wave shape, along with the bottom contour).

The leading example has been Waco, Texas - home to early iterations of Stab High and other crazy moments (see Seth Moniz). It’s only now (mid to late 2021) that Waco has potentially been dethroned as the premier PerfectSwell example since Surf Stadium, Japan has opened.

Surf Stadium is a variation of the PerfectSwell tech and has been tweaked to offer up more options/variety then other PerfectSwell locations. The shining light in this statement is the air section that Surf Stadium serves up with Eric G throwing down perhaps one of the highest airs seen.

The big win with the PerfectSwell technology is the number of alterations you can make, and thus, number of different wave options you can cook up and deliver. The air into chamber into water displacement generally creates 3 wave sets that roll in around every 90 seconds. This means you are going to be dead after a session at one of these pools. 

Like Wave Garden Cove tech, PerfectSwell can offer up waves for advanced surfers all the wave through to beginner and learn to surf. For me, going off what the ‘net provides, this technology looks like the most fun out of all of them. 

Are Wave Pools Here to Stay?

And that, dear reader, is a wrap up on wave pools and their associated tech. Is the fuss warranted? In my eyes, yes. Wave pools will provide people an alternative option when planning when to surf - I have friends in Melbourne who are now surfing multiple times a week vs only surfing every other weekend, which is huge. 

These wave pools are upping your wave count, destroying your cardio and getting some stoke happening for all involved. And in general, isn’t that what we really chase when we’re surfing? Sure it’s not the ocean, but it’s damn near close and nice alternative if you can’t make it to the coast. 

The tech space for wave pools is still in its infancy so you can expect to see some wild advancements over the next decade or so. I’m still waiting for some crazy billionaire to come along and order a Wave Garden Cove system with 100 pistons and extra power giving us a look at a proper 8ft wave in a pool. Now that would be nuts.

Gearing up for your next session at a surfing wave pool? Check out Hurley Australia’s collection of boardshorts now.