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JUNE 2016 BUILDING THE PERFECT WAVE

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EJ174_000_cover.indd 001 13/05/2016 11:55 EDITOR’S THIS MONTH, LETTER WE’RE TALKING ABOU T…

We’re making waves this month. And not just in the fi gurative sense…

Take a look at the of island hopping (p48). Except for a DANCE-FLOOR HERO front of this magazine brief trip to see the colourful glassware Party season is under way you’re holding and of Murano, few tourists venture beyond in Ibiza and we’re very much you’ll see a rather the old town, but the fl oating city’s looking forward to Carl Craig’s fetching model of a lesser-known spots are ripe for new Detroit Love night, every crashing, miniature exploration right now, thanks to a wave Thursday at Sankeys. Expect a breaker that artist of new developments, including fab serious techno love-in. Kyle Bean built from scratch for us. Th e boutique hotels and Michelin-starred reason, if you hadn’t guessed, is because restaurants. Just be sure to get in quick… our June cover story is all about another And, fi nally, to football. Fans may be group of people actually making waves. aware that there’s a small tournament Right now, the race is on to create taking place in France this month, but I man-made surf pools that are good bet you couldn’t tell me much about the enough to replicate the conditions of very fi rst European Championships. It’s the ocean. A number of pioneering not often that a nine-goal thriller of a companies are claiming to have cracked semi-fi nal can be overshadowed by events the formula, with centres opening up off the pitch, but that’s what makes the across Europe this summer, and experts 1960 Euros the most exciting footie event reckon it could be the beginning of a new you’ve never heard of. Turn to page 70 to – and massively popular – sport craze. fi nd out more and I’ll see you next month. GOING NUTS We’ve got the lowdown on page 60. Just when you thought you’d heard Elsewhere, the watery theme Simon Kurs the last of the Cronut, Dominique continues, as we’re in Venice for a spot Editor Ansel, the French chef who began the craze in NYC, is opening in London later this summer. Queues are already forming in anticipation. THOMAS SCHAUER, GETTY SARA MORRIS PAGE THIS

ART ATTACK It takes a lot to get Paris’s art crowd talking, but François Pinault’s announcement of a Artist Kyle Bean literally making waves for new space to show his €1.2bn our cracking cover model collection of modern masters

COVER KYLE IMAGE BEAN PHOTO has done it.

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EJ174_003_EdsLetter lg.indd 003 13/05/2016 15:14 060

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 060 13/05/2016 09:17 Th e race is on across Europe to create artifi cial surf pools that are as good as the real thing.

Not only will it change the sport forever,

but it could mean the birth of a new adrenaline craze

Words by Toby Skinner

061

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 061 13/05/2016 09:18 Lochtefeld’s fi rst brush with man- made waves came in 1983, at his Raging Waters in San Dimas,

waves in dedicated surf parks, not just in water-park wave pools. Players include Spanish company Southern Wavegarden, Scotland-based Murphys Waves, the current market leader, and the Kelly Slater Wave California Company, backed by the greatest competitive surfer of all time. Th e Prior to that he’d cut his teeth om Lochtefeld’s perfect wave isn’t big question is whether their dream surfi ng the Big Rock break at La Jolla, Pipeline, Jaws or Cloudbreak. It’s can be a viable business. north of San Diego and, after an early powered by computers and air Artifi cial waves are, of course, career at KPMG and then in real pressure, and its fi rst versions, set nothing new and Europe has always estate, he co-founded Raging Waters to open in Bristol and Rotterdam led developments. King Ludwig of in 1981. It was one of the fi rst modern over the next year or so, won’t Bavaria, the famous builder of water parks, with water slides and be anywhere near a beach. But fantasy castles, used electricity to tubing rivers. In 1983, it took delivery Lochtefeld, who has be en surfi ng create ripples in a lake back in the of its fi rst wave machine, one of only since the 1960s, insists his fi rm Wave 19th century. Th e fi rst ‘modern’ wave a handful in the country. “On the fi rst Loch’s technology is, “the real thing. pool was built in in 1927; day, I got my , all excited, It will be like surfi ng perfect ocean another opened in Wembley, London, thinking I could surf these waves,” waves and it could change the sport in 1934; but it wasn’t till 1966 when recalls Lochtefeld, “but it was total forever, eventually taking surfi ng the fi rst surfable wave appeared at crap – you just couldn’t. It soon to the Olympics.” Tokyo’s Summerland amusement became an obsession, despite Lochtefeld is just one of a new park, inspired by the British model. repeated threats to my sanity.” breed of visionaries who see a future But those waves were weak and Back in the 80s, the technology where surfers will ride artifi cial required lightweight boards. wasn’t there to create a surfable deep

062

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 062 13/05/2016 09:19 ocean wave, so Lochtefeld turned his Clockwise from above a bodyboard or a short ‘fl owboard’. attention to a ‘sheet wave’ that fl owed For decades, surf By 1993, Lochtefeld had sold enthuiasts have been over a stationary padded surface and trying to replicate the a FlowBarrel, which produces a could fi t inside a space smaller than perfect wave; Tom larger, curling wave that uses the a tennis court. He sold his oceanfront Lochtefeld, founder of same technology, but with a steeper the WaveLoch artifi cial house in La Jolla (“My wife wasn’t wave-making company incline, to a waterpark in Norway. thrilled”) and, needing more funds, Th e FlowRider was an almost in 1987, sold his 25% stake in Raging instant success with 90s board-sports Waters for $2m (€1.75m). It took three legends, likelike surfer Kelly Slater and years of development, much of itt skateboarderskateboarder Tony Hawk, working on spent around a wave tank in the boardboard ddesignsesi and new techniques. hydraulics lab at UC San Diego, Today,Today, theret are hundreds of and more than a hundred models,s, FlowRidingFlowRi machines around but by 1988 he fi led for a patent tthehe woworld,r including 12 on Royal for “a wave-forming generator”, CaribbeanCaribbe cruise ships. Th ere paying more than $200,000 are WaveWave House surf parks – with to patent lawyers. It was 1990 tikitiki bars,bars, hammocks and food when, with barely any money left,ft, aroundaround thethe surf machines – from Lochtefeld sold plans and licensinging SanSan DiDiegoeg to Majorca. Th ere’s even for his new FlowRider machine an annannual World Flowboarding to the Schlitterbahn water park inin ChampionshipCham . Texas. Th e FlowRider blasts waterer up LocLochtefeld admits that he an incline made of a soft, trampoline-oline- pprobablyroba should have left it at style mat, creating a simulacrumm ooff ththat.at. HHe’d created a new sport a wave that can be ridden on eitherher aandnd a stable business that,

063

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 063 13/05/2016 12:11 Australian pro surfer Dion Agius taking on the UAE’s Wadi Adventure wave pool, featured in the short surfer fi lm Electric Blue Heaven

with FlowRiders selling from another facility in Austin, Texas. $450,000 (€390,000 to $2m (€1.75m) Th en, last December, a viral video each, had allowed him to buy back MEET THE was released of Kelly Slater, the his old house in La Jolla. “A saner WAVE-MAKERS greatest competitive surfer of all person would have quit, but the time, riding a beautiful, perfectly dream from the beginning had been #1 WAVEGARDEN barrelling wave in a top-secret to replicate the experience of real location 110 miles inland. “Th ere’s ocean waves. FlowRider was an Founded in 2005 by a lot of pressure when you’ve been analogue, not the real thing.” engineer Josema working on something for 10 years,” In 1997, he patented his fi rst design Odriozola and sports he says in the video, referring to the for a dedicated surfi ng wave pool and economist Karin Frisch, Kelly Slater Wave Company, the team the surfpreneur has been working on Spain’s Wavegarden is behind the prototype wave. After it ever since at Wave Loch. And now the only company to we see him surfi ng in the beautifully the time is right, with Europe’s have unveiled a surf-only clean barrel and jumping from the surfers set to benefi t as a result “My destination: Wales’s Surf lip of the wave, he declares his wave, wife isn’t thrilled – again,” he notes Snowdonia. The £12m “Th e best man-made wave ever dryly. “Luckily, she’s very supportive (€15m) project had good made”. Other companies, such of me.” early reviews, but has had as American Wave Machines and But Lochtefeld isn’t the only one mechanical problems and Australia’s Webber Wave Pools, have chasing this dream. Last summer, subsequent staff layoff s. also been working on new surf-pool Wavegarden, founded in Spain in Still, the company is technology, all of them claiming the 2005 by engineer Josema Odriozola planning a wave pool in best waves and specs. and sports economist Karin Frisch, Texas, opening this year. Th e problem is, according to opened the much-hyped Surf Lochtefeld, both the Wavegarden and Snowdonia in Wales and is planning Kelly Slater waves are doomed to fail.

065

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 065 13/05/2016 09:19 “Th e way they work is essentially by pulling a huge mechanical plow through the water,” he says. “You can create a great wave, but there are two main fundamental problems: one is that you’ve got this hulking piece of machinery underwater that is liable to break down; the second is that you can only get a wave every two minutes. Surf Snowdonia cost more than the largest waves at the back), with £12m (€15m) to build and received waves every 8-10 seconds. good reviews from surfers when it MEET THE “You’ll paddle out like in real waves, opened in August 2015, yet it has been WAVE-MAKERS though you can potentially catch 20 beset by regular mechanical issues, waves an hour rather than a handful.” closing early last summer and making #2 MURPHYS Th ough Lochtefeld admits it’s always eight full-time staff redundant. WAVES a work in progress. “It’s like a puzzle Lochtefeld’s answer, with the that you have to keep approaching SurfLoch SurfPool, is to use air The current market leader from 100 diff erent perspectives pressure, meaning no moving in artifi cial waves, the whether thats the materials or the machinery in the water. Instead, Scottish company computer chips for the air control.” a pneumatic air system creates the specialises in water-park Not everyone is convinced, though. wave energy and the shape of the pool wave pools that can double Scotland-based Murphys Waves is the fl oor turns that energy into a large up as surf pools. Since the current market leader, having made primary wave. A smaller secondary 1980s, they’ve overseen 500 regular wave pools and 14 surf wave then dissipates the energy more than 200 projects, pools over 22 years, with its surf pools without producing backwash. It’s due most notably surf pools at in water parks such as Tenerife’s Siam to be installed at Rotterdam’s RiF010, Tenerife’s Siam Park and Park and Wadi Adventure in the UAE. a publicly funded surf park on a the UAE’s Wadi Adventure. It diff ers from the likes of SurfLoch city-centre canal that’s being built According to managing and Wavegarden in that it doesn’t see this summer; and, next year, at Th e director Jim Stuart, surf-only pools as its main business Wave, a surf and health park near dedicated surf pools can and in the technology it uses, which Bristol. Both parks promise three only be economic failures. essentially allows tonnes of water to grades of wave in one body of water pour from a chamber over man-made (advanced surfers will paddle out to reefs to create waves.

066

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 066 13/05/2016 12:11

FIRSTUS WAVE POOL ARIZONA’S AT BIG SURF

FIRST INLAND SURF COMPETITION IN PENNSYLVANIA FIRST SURFABLE WAVE AT TOKYO’S SUMMERLAND TOKYO’S AT WAVE SURFABLE FIRST FIRST WAVE POOL BUILT IN BUDAPEST IN BUILT POOL WAVE FIRST GIANT WAVE POOL OPENS AT DISNEY’S TYPHOON LAGOON

THE FIRST FLOWRIDER AT SCHLITTERBAHN, TEXAS

THE FIRST FLOWBARREL OPENS AT SUMMERLAND, NORWAY

FIRST INTERNATIONAL FLOWBOARDING COMPETITION 1969

1966 1985

1927 1989 AMERICAN WAVE MACHINES FOUNDED BY BRUCE MCFARLAND 1991 1993 1995 WORLD’S FIRST WAVEHOUSE OPENS IN SOUTH AFRICA 2000 2001 WAVEGARDEN IS LAUNCHED IN SPAIN ARTIFICIAL 2005 WAVES 2006 FIRST FLOWRIDER IS INSTALLED ON A CRUISE SHIP A BRIEF 2006 HISTORY 2008 KELLY SLATER SAYS ARTIFICIAL WAVES ARE THE FUTURE 2008 2011 SIAM PARK WAVE POOL OPENS IN TENERIFE 2012

2014

2017 2015 2016 2015 2016 ORLANDO’S RON JON SURFPARK NEVER GETS GOING

ARTIFICIAL SURF REEF IN BOSCOMBE, DORSET, FAILS

WADI ADVENTURE’S SURF POOL OPENS IN THE UAE

WAVE LOCH’S SURFPOOL REVEALED AT A TRADE SHOW THE WAVE, BY WAVE LOCH, DUE TO OPEN IN BRISTOL BRISTOL IN OPEN TO DUE LOCH, WAVE BY WAVE, THE WAVEGARDEN’S SURF SNOWDONIA OPENS IN WALES

A NEW WAVEGARDEN SURF PARK DUE TO OPEN IN TEXAS IN OPEN TO DUE PARK SURF WAVEGARDEN NEW A KELLY SLATER UNVEILS “BEST WAVE EVER” IN A VIDEO

WAVELOCH’S RIF010 DUE TO OPEN IN ROTTERDAM IN OPEN TO DUE RIF010 WAVELOCH’S

067

EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 067 13/05/2016 09:20 THE NEW WAVES

Clockwise from left Murphys Waves, Siam Park, Tenerife; The Wavegarden, Wales; Surfl och Wave Barrel, South Africa

According to managing director Wave in Bristol, which will be built package. “It was all about taking Jim Stuart, theirs is the most eff ective this summer to open next spring. this new technology and making technique. “We looked at using air A former osteopath who was a positive impact – not just for it in the 1990s. It sounded wonderful, concerned at how lifestyle choices to spring up in theme parks.” but we took it to experts at Edinburgh aff ected his patients, he had a He went to Sir Tim Smit, the University and they said, ‘It won’t revelation when his father was dying founder of England’s Eden Project, work’. Scaled up, air becomes very of cancer. “He inspired me to do a collection of giant domed unpredictable and if you get a something big, bold and crazy, and greenhouses in Cornwall, who vacuum it can be quite dangerous.” as a surfer, this came to me.” Th e told him, “It’s a ridiculous idea Lochtefeld refutes this. “Th e idea was a surf lake in a beautiful and you have to do it.” technology wasn’t there in 1990, but landscape, with gardens, swimming Th e project has grown from a 26 years on, with diligent testing and and a campsite, with yoga, triathlons, dream to a reality, with a succession advances in computer science, it is now healthy food and education about of crowdfunding campaigns and possible to create great waves safely marine conservation all part of the grants covering the projected cost and predictably using pneumatics.” of around €8.25m. Having originally Either way, Stuart is unconvinced planned to use Wavegarden’s that a surf-only park can be an technology, last year, after “months out-and-out success. “Even if the of sleepless nights”, Hounsfi eld technology’s right, the business MEET THE switched to Lochtefeld’s SurfPool model is fl awed. You’re not going WAVE-MAKERS tech. “We went to everyone,” says to get enough surfers to have it Hounsfi eld, “and Tom came to the top booked up every hour of every day.” #3 SURFLOCH of the pile. He’s been doing this such As a model of failure on both scores, a long time and he’s the real deal.” he points to the much-hyped Ron Jon The pioneering Californian Th ese ventures might be another Surfpark in Florida, which promised Tom Lochtefeld invented false dawn, but Lochtefeld believes ground-breaking technology, but was the game-changing it could be the start of something big: a disaster when it opened in 2008. Th e FlowRider static wave, “Facilities like this could be like golf Murphys model, he says, is epitomised unveiled in the early courses, bringing surfi ng to parts of by Siam Park in Tenerife, where the 1990s. Since 1997, he’s the world that have never had waves pool is a family wave pool by day and been working on surf before.” Surfi ng has been proposed after the main park closes, is dialled pools that he claims will as a new sport for the 2020 Olympics up for the surfers. “We’re in the revolutionise surfi ng. The in Tokyo, with the idea that events leisure industry rather than the surf evidence will come this will take place on artifi cial waves. industry,” says Stuart. “Th e people we year, with Rotterdam’s “It’s hugely exciting,” he says. deal with generally aren’t going for city center RiF010 “Th e Olympic offi cials want to see a pipe dream – they want a return surf-wave pool, and next surfi ng is a truly global sport. on their investment.” year with The Wave, a surf Artifi cial pools could be the push Th e dreamers, however, still and wellbeing camp near that give millions more people the believe in surf parks and not just in Bristol, England. chance to ride waves and get that GETTY STOCK, GALLERY GEOGRAPHIC, NATIONAL the idea, but in the business plan. indescribable feeling, which is

Nick Hounsfi eld is a cofounder of Th e really what all this is about.” PHOTOS

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EJ174_060_PerfectWave2lg.indd 068 13/05/2016 15:13