The Gold Coast’s Plunge(r) Pool Is Still Rolling Ahead

Yeah yeah yeah, coronavirus, economic downturn/recession/depression, et cetera. Looks like us surfers, or at least those of us who like artificial waves, have something to look forward to on the horizon. Reported in Queensland’s shit rag Courier Mail today, the people of Surf Lakes have secured funding for a commercial version of their much lauded plunger pool we saw in Yeppoon a few years ago. 

Kelly Slater’s co. is reportedly constructing a pool on the Sunshine Coast, and while there’s been talk for a while, Surf Lakes has now secured builders in the form of Engenuity Solutions. With the pool being partially bankrolled by a currently undisclosed group, which the Courier Mail suggests to be the same group who owns Parkwood Village. 

Chris Hawley, the managing director of Engenuity Solutions said they’ve spent three years planning the facility which will become the commercial home of Surf Lakes technology. “We’re extremely proud of our achievement to help produce what is a world first and the only one of its kind in the artificial wave space.

“What we’ve designed produces waves from the centre of a body of water where they radiate outwards towards the shoreline, just like when you drop a rock in a pond.”

Regarding the licensing of the technology, there’s been over 300 enquiries, with the ‘profitability’ angle been driven towards theme park operators and property developers more broadly. At this stage however there have only been the “signing of multiple Heads of Agreement and first contracts.” Which in layman’s terms means nobody has the complete rights to the technology yet.

Construction is due to start in early 2021, with no opening dates being scheduled or rumoured yet. Chris Hawley however did close by postulating that the pool would be dishing out “hundred of millions of waves every year for decades.”

No mean feat for a pool which first bust it’s pistons after a few days of pushing out head-high rollers.