What's it REALLY Like to Surf A Modern Wave Pool?
Right now there's three 'legit' wave pools running in the world. Can you name them? Of course you can. The Wave Garden in Wales, Kelly Slaters in California and NLand Surf Park in Texas. On the cards, are hundreds more, three of which planned for Australia in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. But what are they really like? Yadin Nichol and Mitch Crews are two Aussie's who have surfed both Kelly's pool, and NLand. They say there's three things you've gotta know about these holy grails in surfing.
1: 'They're both pretty incedible'. Yadin Yates is from the West, and while he's not surfing at world tour calibre, he's been spending some time in the pools. He scored that chance by being in the right place at the right time, while they were calibrating the wave strengths. Which leads us to important fact number 2.
2: 'The Austin one is slower than Kelly's'. Wave speed has always been the downside to man-made waves, but Kelly's wave pool on 100% is by far the fastest of them all. With wave speed comes power, barrels, aerials, you-name it. The downside?
3: 'Kelly's pool is twelve minutes between waves'. That's a sloooooooow day at the beach. And with one person per wave, you're really only going to get a couple of chances in an hour session. Miss it, and you're done.
So what does it compare to? Mitch Crews is a local from the Goldy, and he reckons it's just like surfing a chest high runner at Snapper or Greenmount. That's awfully relatable to a lot of surfers here in Oz, and chances are if you've ever caught a 'chest high runner at Snapper or Greenmount', then you're going to be pretty stoked on getting a ride at these wave pools…