The Wavegarden’s Cove Vs Kelly’s Wave

Touché Wavegarden, you’ve found the perfect test pilot to validate your wavepool. If there’s one thing Filipe Toledo’s good for, it’s making any wave under chest high look better. They’ve just released this three-minute video also featuring Sebastian Zietz, Gabriel Medina, Matty Wilko, Josh Kerr (how good’s that acid drop at 1:27?), Alejo Muniz and more featuring their not quite as good as Kelly Slater’s Wave Company tech (if we are talking wave quality alone). Still, we’d be delighted to test the waters.

Once Kelly’s wave dropped following ADS world title in 2015, heads at Wavegarden HQ spun. They put their engineers to task and set out to create a wave that could rival Slater’s. With the man-made arms race at a tipping point, they released the Cove. 

http://vimeo.com/168364510

Let’s compare:
Kelly’s wave is superior in the sense it maintains power from start to finish. The Cove barrels from the takeoff and has a steep (almost difficult) drop but turns soft as the wave breaks further from the wall. The original claim of 1000 waves an hour seemed rather ambitious, however, they prove its merit in this clip. And such consistency is where The Cove shines. While Kelly’s wave, at this time, breaks once every ten minutes at best, The Cove has the ability to create a wave every eight seconds. For quality, Kelly is best, but the quantity award goes to the Cove. Would you rather catch 50 good-to-average waves in a session or four perfect ones? You can also go left at the Cove, which is rumoured for Kelly’s Wave 2.0 but is yet to be proven.

Furthermore, the Wavegarden’s Cove is ready to be implemented on a mass scale faster than KS Wave Co. They already have plans in place for three in Oz: Melbourne, Sydney and Perth; eight throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa: Barcelona, Madrid, Costa Del Sol, Edinburg, Bristol, London, Tel Aviv and Marrakesh; and four in the Americas: New York, Miami, Coachella Valley and Santiago. Meanwhile, Kelly’s struggling obtain the permits for his first public park in Florida.

All nit-picking aside, with this tech, wavepools have officially entered their brave new world. Which would you choose?