Wave Pools
Watch Slater get a 17-second tube at man-made venue
Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 18 December, 2015 - So what do you do when the World Tour completes it’s most dramatic climax ever and it’s time to hang up singlet until the Tour returns to Snapper? Well, if you’re Kelly Slater you announce to the world that you’ve just built a kick-ass wave pool.
And in early December at dawn, about 110 miles from the coast Kelly Slater and crew watched as the first wave rolled through the completed project. And it was a good one.
“Now that the world title has been decided and events for the year have finished, I’m excited to show you what I’ve been sitting on for the past couple of weeks,” Kelly posted on his Facebook page.
For nearly ten years Kelly and his team have been working this man-made wave, a truly world-class, high-performance, human-made wave.
The wave itself looks like a cross between Surf Snowdonia's Wavegarden and Sandspit in Santa Barbara. Where the Wavegarden waves look rip-able, this one is truly barreling.
“Through rigorous science and technology, we’ve been able to design and build what some said was impossible, and many very understandably never thought would actually happen,” Slater said.
Kelly says he’ll be sharing more details in the coming weeks and months but can’t wait any longer to share a film of the experience. (below).
“It was an insane day,,” he said. “I’m still a little in disbelief, and trying to process how much fun this wave is, but it certainly feels like this is going to change a lot of perceptions about human-made waves
