While The WSL reflect on how to add a little more ‘Yeeeha!’ to their Surf Ranch Pro and the team at Waco Texas endeavour to determine if their pond cultivated the “brain eating amoeba”, which led to the tragic death of New Jersey surfer, Fabrizio O.Stabile, the next phase of the wave pool space race is set to unfold.
The Surf Lakes demonstration pool, located at Yeppoon just outside of Rockhampton, is currently being filled and if everything goes according to plan it will be unveiled by the end of the month.
Founder, Aaron Travis, apparently came up with the concept while observing the ripple effect as he skimmed stones with his son. On the official Surf Lakes site they now now boast that the pool with the giant plunger in the middle will be capable of producing up to 2,400 surfable waves per hour at a lower energy cost than any of its competitors in the market.
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While Mark Occhilupo will spearhead the media launch, the pool will be christened by a group of lucky shareholders. “They’re the ones that have backed it all the way,” suggested Wayne Dart, (former Tracks editor) the media director for the project. Early investors in Surf Lakes recently received an email, which stated the following.
“We expect the lake to be filled by Monday 15th. From there the commissioning process will begin. This can last anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks. Therefore the Shareholder Surf Day is likely to happen in the third or fourth week of October.”
Don’t start planning your next trip to Yeppoon just yet though. The Surf Lakes demo pool was never intended to be open to the public, it was only created to prove the idea works and convince investors to purchase a license and build their own. Dart suggests that several international investors will commence construction once they have seen the final proof of concept at the unveiling later this month.
Dart also suggested it shouldn’t be too long before Australian surfers are tearing apart an artificial lineup with over 2000 waves per minute. Apparently there are several parties vying for the rights to build a fully operational Surf Lake in Australia. However, according to Dart not every Australian bidder will get the green light. “It will depend on capability. We don’t want someone who will acquire a license and sit on it for five or six years. We want someone who can deliver something of good quality to the market sooner rather than later… There should be one in Australia within a couple of years. ”
Who will be awarded the license for the first Australian Surf Lake? Is Occy in training for the demo day? Can the shareholders surf? What kind of crowd can a Surf Lake handle if it produces 2400 waves per hour (40 waves a minute) Is it better, bigger or more powerful than the other pools? It seems some of these questions at least will soon be answered.
