Building T H E Perfect Wave

FREE TO TAKE HOME A MAGAZINE FOR THE GET-UP-AND-GO GENERATION JUNE 2016 BUILDING THE PERFECT WAVE WHY WE COULD ALL SOON BE SURFING ON DRY LAND ALSO TAKE THE PLUNGE WITH OUR GUIDE TO EUROPE’S FINEST LIDOS THE BEST VENETIAN ISLANDS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF EAT, SLEEP, RAVE, RETREAT – THE ULTIMATE IBIZA WEEKENDER 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 THIS PAGE THIS SARA MORRIS PHOTO ART ATTACK It takes a lot to get Paris’s art KYLE BEAN 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 IMAGE has done it. 003 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 water park 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 Budapest in 1927; day, I got my surfboard, 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 skskateboarderateboarder Tony Hawk, working on spent around a wave tank in the bboardoard ddesignsesi and new techniques. hydraulics lab at UC San Diego, ToToday,day, tthere are hundreds of and more than a hundred models,s, FFlowRidinglowRi machines around but by 1988 he fi led for a patent tthehe woworld,r including 12 on Royal for “a wave-forming generator”, CCaribbeanaribbe cruise ships. Th ere paying more than $200,000 are WaveWave House surf parks – with to patent lawyers. It was 1990 titikiki bbars,ars, hammocks and food when, with barely any money left,ft, arounaroundd thethe surf machines – from Lochtefeld sold plans and licensinging SSanan DiDiegoeg to Majorca. Th ere’s even for his new FlowRider machine an annannual World Flowboarding to the Schlitterbahn water park inin ChChampionshipam . 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.

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