Webber Wave Pool Could Actually Now Be A Thing

The three biggest teases in surfing are: Dane Reynolds’ possible return to tour, Alana Blanchard’s Instagram account, and the coming-to-fruition of technology that produces perfect waves of a decent size, aka a barreling, shoulder-high wavepool. There’s been plenty of decent attempts, the most noteworthy of which has been the Wavegarden, but the two chlorine waves to promise the most have been the Kelly Slater Wave Co, and Webber Wave Pools. A year ago, the company that was bank rolling Kelly’s Gold Coast wave pool site went into voluntary administration, following investigation for doing shady shit. Which left but one name in the race. Webber Wave Pools, captained by shaper-turned-manmade wave scientist, Greg Webber, just took another step towards actually producing the waves you used to draw on schoolbooks. The company has just signed a memorandum of understanding with surfer-entrepreneur David Baird for the construction of the first artificial wave pool in Australia. In short, Greg’s wave pool concept will now finally be developed into a commercial project. “We’ve been making this kind of tube in the lab and the river for years,” says Greg. “At last, we will be doing it at full scale. The location is somewhere in Southeast Queensland, but we can’t say exactly where just yet.” It’s been a long road for Greg to get bring his vision to fruition, driven by the fact that, among a great many other things, surfers are motivated to travel around the world and surf no more than 100 waves for three to five grand. So what’ll they spend on that many waves in a day trip to a water park? Then there’s the whole thing of introducing the gift of surfing good vibes into the lives of millions more… The wave itself breaks continuously and without end. It can accommodate multiple surfers at once. The wave height and shape can be altered within seconds in the oval water park. It breaks into a normal depth of water, exactly like an ocean wave, with a softer surface underneath, so if you do hit the bottom, it’ll be spongy. Greg believes that the gradient has been too gradual on wave pool attempts thus far, meaning development of perfect gradients for different wave stages has been a real area of focus within his project. And so, David Baird will be the first developer of an artificial wave pool in Australia. “David is a surfer-entrepreneur with a great business brain,” says Greg, “but still gets very excited about the thought of getting barreled on a head-high wave in a Webber pool.” Baird owns the site where it’ll be constructed, and the finance is already approved. Webber Wave Pools will open to the public in September 2015.