First Look: The Next Man-Made Barrel

Nuclear weapons, drones and… human-made waves? URBNSURF released the first glimpse of the “new weapon in the wave pool arms race” on Instagram last night. Providing evidence that the Wavegarden may have produced a technology that’ll make the Kelly Slater Wave Company slam the control panels (where they already are). “The Cove” is said to be capable of producing 1,000 waves per hour. If Kelly’s wave is a long range missile (producing one wave every six to 12 minutes), The Cove is a sawed off shotgun spraying split peaks with each pump of the barrel.

The Wavegarden’s track record, however, is akin to the Volkswagen Jetta. Surf Snowdonia in Wales closed down twice within its first year due to a tear in the liner resulting in the draining of 12 million gallons in total. The Wavegarden’s NLand, in Austin, TX drained their lagoon at the end of October 2016 and closed for repairs. NLand is set to reopen this Spring.

Three months ago it was announced that The Cove’s original prototype in Spain would be brought to Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.

http://vimeo.com/180146914

“The Cove is unique from both a surfing and design perspective,” Andrew Ross, the Executive Chairman of URBNSURF told Stab. “At a maximum frequency of four seconds, the wave generator is capable of producing 1,000 advanced waves per hour, both lefts and rights which is an order of magnitude improvement over other technologies.”

“In terms of design, the Cove also occupies a much smaller footprint compared to existing Wavegarden lagoons, or the Kelly Slater Wave Co prototype, which is about 700 metres long and we understand generates only one wave every 6 to 12 minutes,” Andrew continued.

The new profile of wave machines supposedly produces a wave with interchanging sections comprised almond tubes, walls for turns and wraps back around as a point break would. The pulp of Wavegarden’s past has evolved into a similar entity that enabled the world to forget Adriano de Souza’s world title in less than 24 hours in 2015.

All proposed sites are reportedly on track to launch in 2018/2019.