not concerned. if they make the waves too big the beginners won't go and if too small good surfers won't go. in addition, very few people would be able to afford to hit a park like that with any kind of frequency.
i hope this succeeds and everyone goes to surf them then there will be way more waves for those of us left in the ocean
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/22/surf-parks-expand-sport/2851045/ good call! a lot of people that live in the midwest has been dreaming about this ever since flowriders has been popping up. i always wonder why they build wavehouses on coastal states... i say build a wavehouse or wavegarden, say, in ohio, and make it indoor. garuantee these places will be pack come fall, winter and early spring...
Eh. Not good. Affordability will be there, otherwise the places will go tits up. And the sport as an Olympic sport? Yo. Contracts with Hurley & Patagonia & Billabong will be the next goal for millions of kids & their crazed over-achieving helicopter parents. I can't see how wave pools will be good for the sport / art / culture of surfing in any way, shape or form. Well, perhaps in one way. You guys, all of us, can say we had it when it was relatively uncrowded, when we could still find open breaks and when we could just surf the day away & feel the stoke.
Well with the RADIOACTIVE Plume coming from Japan we all might be in wave pools on the west coast coming 2014 since the gage that reads the amount of radiation was out dated and the amount of radiation is 18 times worse than expected once they installed new updated gages that read the real amount of radiation being released. Get your lead WETSUITS OUT !
I wouldn't worry. Most of the US population lives near the ocean yet, only 40% of Americans claim they can swim 24 yards (pool not ocean). I have overheard this summer two adult "surfers" relieved that the lifeguards showed up so they can start surfing. People are terrified of the ocean, which they should be. If gaurded wave pools become a thing, I don't see it translating to ocean surfing for the non-surfer. I would assume the casual wave pool guy would wait for the wave and just jump off the bottom off he goes. Paddling against current, drifting, reading channels and rips, hitting rocks and reefs would be a nightmare for someone who's only been in a pool.
^^^this. i've seen it firsthand. a couple friends of mine who were phenomenal on the flowrider thought that it's just natural to try surfing. off to the outerbanks we went, and just i suspected, and had told them, it won't be as easy. needless to say, i've never seen anybody paddled that much in my life.
