Yes, thats right, another person writing about Kelly Slater. Why not, it seems like he has not been in the title race discussion this year so instead (seemingly like a upstaging sibling) he unveils one of the coolest looking and controversial ideas yet. His wave pool. This article is not about cool it is as soooo many people have written about it already. Instead I would like to focus on two points:
Point One
This has been done before and there are working examples in a few places in the world. The one that springs to mind is in Wales (UK) and is called Surf Snowdonia. It is broken at the moment but that is another story. (below is proof of something that worked for the whole summer of 2105)
Point Two
Without being all zen and hippy, am I the only person looking at this as a huge waste of energy? Waves are after all energy waves moving through liquid, it was not long ago that I was hearing talk of harnessing wave energy to help contribute to powering our lifestyle as humans?
This idea, whilst looking ,on video, like it produces an amazingly fun wave to surf is taking energy from un-sustainable sources like fossil fuels 67%, or nuclear 19% (in the US) and making it into waves which are something that occurs naturally and often in many places in the world.
Don't get me wrong, I am a surfer, my life is dedicated to surfing and this does look exciting especially if surfing can reach more people, but at what cost? Is it the old story of convenience again? Humans being too lazy to study the weather, learn about what makes waves, the fetch, the period, the wind, the tide? Nope, no need for any of that, just turn up at your latest KS wave centre, pay someone and they give you some waves.
As a surfer, the above sounds 10% like an amazing idea and 90% like another tragic chapter in the book of how to ruin something beautiful for the sake of convenience. Maybe just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Just saying...
kellyno2
kellyno