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Check out our feature on the Wave pool phenomena in Issue 589; It includes four very different stories testing the water on wave pools. Our new mag is on stands now, available for purchase online, or click here to subscribe and read all of Tracks premium content!
I caught up with Andrew Ross in a Fremantle café for a chat about how a Lorne born, Perth raised boy turned lawyer, investment banker, and corporate slave to the oil and gas industry, ended up being the driver behind the most innovative project Perth and Perth surf culture has seen since…ever.
Andrew had just returned from Sydney where the Aventuur team met as a group for the first time since the start of the company back in 2019. It’s a perfect example of how a remote digital team can get things going. Primarily due to COVID, then later because ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. A clearly relaxed Andrew elaborates, “We all got together for a few strategy meetings, a Christmas party and a few waves. It was great because it was the first time I got to surf with Ace (Adrian Buchan), he’s been injured the last couple of times we’ve been together.”
So, you’re a Perth boy?
I was actually born in Geelong… which was an advantage to claim that when I was setting up URBNSURF Melbourne. Mum’s side of the family are multi-generational Lorne people. So, I grew up in Perth, but spent every summer holidays in Lorne. The first wave I ever stood up on was at Lorne Point. I think I was 11, and my grandmother had organised a red single fin, pin tail gun from the 1970’s, and at the time, this was in the early 80s, I just thought it was the ugliest board, and I was so embarrassed to be seen on the beach with it. I’d been trying for almost a year to ride a board I’d bought in Perth – a Martin Potter quad with flyers (twin flyers), swallow tail, and channels, it was like a 5’6” or something and it was the biggest pig ever! Anyway, I got on to this seven-footer and literally paddled into my first wave and stood up and rode it all the way to the shoreline, but on the inside near the surf club there’s all these rocks, and I didn’t know how to kick out, so the skeg hit the rocks and I shot over the top. Scratched myself up a little bit, but it was incredible…that was the beginning of the journey.
What can you tell me about Andrew Ross the person? How did he transition from corporate cringe to corporate cool?
Hahaha! Not sure about that.
So, I went to Leeming Primary, Willetton High, and Murdoch Uni. I trained and worked as a lawyer in Perth for a while, then moved to London to work in investment banking. Then I was CEO of a couple of private and listed oil companies for a decade or so. By then I’d married a Perth girl and started a family. When I turned 40 I had a coming to Jesus moment and thought ‘what am I doing? Like, lawyer, investment banker, oil and gas CEO…I mean that’s the evil trinity of jobs. I’m going to hell if I don’t do something good with my life,’ so I took a year off to work out what to do next.
As soon as I made that decision, I came across an article where Kelly was having a patent dispute with Greg Webber about a circular wave pool design, and that piqued my interest. So, I contacted Kelly’s group and Greg to see what they were doing, and through that process I got in touch with the WaveGarden guys in Spain. Then I went to look at their facility. I went in cynical and sceptical and came away absolutely blown away. I remember surfing my first wave, did five or six turns, kicked out – and went, “Holy shit! This thing’s real!” It was only a prototype lagoon, but I could see the potential, and it was like that feeling I’d had when I stood up on my first wave in Lorne. It was just an epiphany moment…
So, even though the waves in Spain were only about thigh-high and kinda soft, I could see straight away where the technology could go, so I signed up the rights to the technology in Australia there and then in 2012, and formed URBNSURF and ran it through ‘til 2020.
We developed and opened Melbourne, and secured the next site in Sydney and got that through to DA. Then I was offered a partnership in Aventuur, and I’d always wanted to take what I’d learned over the previous eight years in the surf park space, which was really just a fledgling industry, and put it into a global context. I’d always wanted to do something in the US as the largest surf park market in the world, and Aventuur provided the opportunity to explore it further.
What about URBNSURF?
URBNSURF is still operating and running the Melbourne park and looking towards the opening of their Sydney development. I’m still a shareholder in URBN, but a new team is running things there now and doing a great job, the park team in particular are amazing.
Did you outgrow URBNSURF?
In a sense, I guess. It had been eight years, and the Sydney project would have required me to commute from Perth to Sydney regularly, just like I had been for the Melbourne project. That weekly cross-country travel routine was placing way too much pressure on the family, so I had already decided to step back and take more of a father-founder figure role in URBN before the Aventuur guys approached me.
What have you taken from your experience at URBNSURF Melbourne that you bring to Perth?
Well, I am stoked to hear that a bit of good-natured banter between the ‘coastals’ and the lagoon locals has developed in the lineup!. For me, the truest measure of success in Melbourne was when a whole bunch of surfers started referring to it as their local break. At the Melbourne park, people say it’s the friendliest lineup they’ve ever been in, and that’s because when you have abundance, you don’t need the agro. We were actually worried about how that would go when developing the idea, we even wondered if we’d need to police the lineup to stop people jumping the queue. Other than Tom Carroll (who’s a huge frother) no-one really drops in or jumps the queue – I almost had to kick TC out (laughing), he kept jumping in and going up the inside; I was like ‘TC, next time you do that, you’re out mate’. He’s a great bloke, I think he just got a little over excited, caught surf park fever! But it’s the abundance that usually creates a supportive environment in the lineup, especially for the groms and new surfers, and I’m confident we’ll achieve the same results in Perth.
One of the other things for me with surf parks is trying to create an environment and an experience for beginners to get that same feeling I can remember, from 40 years ago now, on that very first wave I stood up on. So how do you do that? The thing with surfing, particularly in Perth, is not the lack of interest, it’s the lack of access, so that’s what man-made parks provide…access and convenience. And safety. A lot of people I speak to, maybe more so with women and girls (although that might be because women and girls are more open about it), one of the things they’re most worried about is safety. I mean, surfing is a full contact sport, and it’s actually more that they’re worried about their boards flicking out and hitting other people. In a surf park environment they don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. Interestingly, during COVID lockdowns, I was so stoked to see that the greatest increase in sport participation in Australia was surfing being taken up by women and girls. So in Perth we will definitely be using our experience from Melbourne to encourage more women and girls to participate in surfing.
Apart from the obvious, what is the main difference between ocean surfing and wave pool surfing?
The progression through a surf park can be quite ordered and structured if that’s what you need (or want) compared to the ocean, which is great to build confidence in people and take them forward very rapidly.
For instance, to go from an early-stage surfer to someone who’s upper intermediate might normally be a journey of five plus years (and that’s if you stick with it and you’re surfing every weekend), we can do that in five months. If you ask Robbo (Adam Robertson), the CEO of Surfing Victoria, (he’s one of the most core surfers you can find) he wasn’t initially sold on the whole surf park thing. He is now a massive advocate of what we’re trying to do because they say that even with their elite juniors, they can accomplish in three or four sessions in the lagoon what would take three or four months down at the beach.
At the Perth Surf Park we’re planning to develop a ‘Beginner to Barrels in Six Months’ program – participants will have to be committed, but it’s definitely doable.
I’m putting my hand up for a free spot in the first program under the guise of covering it for Tracks.
Absolutely! I started surfing in the early 80s just before the real corporatisation of surfing started to happen. And I have to say Tracks was my ultimate magazine I’d buy as a kid; I remember the newspaper issues and Captain Goodvibes, I mean, it was just so cool. Tracks epitomised Australian surfing culture and it had such an amazing impact.
And here you are 40 years later featuring in the very same mag, and the Captain is back too. You’re living proof that not all surfers of the day were destined for a life of unemployment and debauchery. A massive cultural misconception that’s been debunked over and over again. What’s a misconception about the pool?
One is that the lagoon is always repetitiously mechanical in the waves it produces. But it really does have its own personality. There’s actually a tide in the lagoon, if there’s a wind blowing you’ll find the pool is about five centimetres deeper at the far end. When we run sessions, (we generally run 55-minute sessions), within those sessions are two or three different wave settings, and the waves change depending on how the currents are moving. It definitely does seem to have a mind of its own. That said, if it’s perfectly still wind conditions, and you set the wave frequency relatively low, you can get that repetitious mechanical peeling perfection.
How much difference can a wave pool make to a surfer’s journey?
When there’s an absolute guarantee of sets and barrels all day, every day, experienced surfers soon learn that there’s enough for everyone, which straight away strips the agro from the lineup. To put it into context, until late 2019 I’d only surfed a handful of barrels in the 40 years that I’d been surfing. I had my first wave in the pool in October 2019. Between then and shutting for COVID in March 2020 I scored about 3,500 waves. I worked out that in those six months, I got about 12 years’ worth of surfing, and they were mostly left-hand barrels– it was surreal. So, a pool can definitely change your journey in surf.
So what’s in it for the community, newbies and groms?
In WA parents now worry about letting their kids go into the ocean because of the shark risk, so we’re at risk of losing a whole generation of kids to the ocean and learning ocean-based skills. Which is a shame because we actually have four generations of surfers in this state. There’s also countless adults who’ve always wanted to have a go but been put off by the hazards or inconvenience of ocean surfing. Parents can have comfort that their kids are being supervised by experienced lifeguards and surf guides and can even book a spot in the lineup themselves to join their kids in the water. Basically it all comes down to safety, accessibility, and opportunity. Also, when you’re in the pool you are forced to disconnect and experience the moment, which is something we could all do with in an increasingly digital age.
The park will have a dedicated community manager who will, among other things, manage the philanthropic elements of our Perth operations, including partnering with local charities like Ocean Heroes and the WA chapter of the Disabled Surfers Association. Community initiatives for the differently abled is an issue close to my heart, and I’ve seen first-hand how a lack of accessibility and opportunity can be a source of isolation for families.
We’re set to launch a consumer facing brand for our surf parks later this year (watch this space). In the meantime we’ll continue to undertake all the background grunt work (approvals, design, development) while the new brand will represent the fantastic experiences and amenities the park will offer.
Have you seen the recent WA Today story claiming that the project will be causing habitat destruction?
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by that story – it wasn’t factually correct and it went online without us being invited to comment. To claim the development is going to disturb threatened species was just plain wrong, and was potentially damaging to the future of the project. It also hit a real nerve with us, because sustainability runs at the core of everything we do. I mean, we’re surfers, so we have a deep green core anyway. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve done to step as lightly as possible on the earth – it’s such a key priority for our business. I’d be delighted to discuss the environmental merits of the project any day of the week.
We have been deeply engaged with the EPA for 11 months now, we’ve had five separate meetings with them and DWER and provided them with the same documentation (700 odd pages worth) as would be required for a full environmental review of the site – we did that voluntarily. Furthermore, we voluntarily referred the project last March to the Federal Department of Environment, the agency responsible for the management of endangered species including the black cockatoo.
The Federal Department reviewed the project and has already signed off on it, finding that it would not have a significant impact on cockatoo habitat – largely because it is a very small amount of clearing in an already highly disturbed and modified urban environment and there is no ability for Cockatoo roosting or breeding on the site. Banksias do provide a a food source for Cockatoos, however, no evidence of foraging was found on the site despite multiple site audits.
Notwithstanding this, we are applying industry leading best practice and are offering to offset the 3 hectares of vegetation we will need to clear by acquiring 18 hectares of Banksia woodland and vesting that in the State to be preserved as a bushland reserve. We are also salvaging over 200 grass trees that are currently on the site, are storing them, and will replant them into the landscaping on the park. In doing these things hopefully it show that environmental sustainability is a value that is front and centre for us.
