There hasn’t been much Surf Lakes news since the crew teased their Yeppoon, Australia test facility back in 2018. At the time, the potential for the Mad Max-esque machine was exciting, but the wave generating plunger quickly malfunctioned, leaving much to be desired. Fast forward two years and Surf Lakes is back, this time with a working plunger and a legit looking wedge and slab.
From a post on stabmag.com yesterday:
“…The slab was re-cut primarily as a right, as its shape requires a backdoor takeoff and is thus not conducive to splitting peaks; however, as Coby Perkovich proved, the left remains plenty rideable.
“Everyone was going right, so I just sat wide off the end and picked off some corners,” Coby told us. “I actually realized that the left stays a bit bigger than the right—it’s less perfect, as it’s not designed with the same taper, but it’s super fun. Some even have a little ramp at the end.
They also made a wedging break with two waves that converge.
“It’s got a decent ramp,” Coby explained. “With an air section, you really want the wave to bend back toward you to create projection. With a little effort, I think they could get this wedge to a good place. Maybe even Stab High worthy.”
But most importantly, Surf Lakes is really starting to dial in the mechanics of its wave-producing system. When we originally visited Yeppoon, they broke the plunger in second gear. Now they’re in fourth, verging on fifth, and the machine is humming.
“We’re currently raising the plunger about 4.5 meters,” said Surf Lakes spokesperson Wayne Dart. “Ultimately, at a commercial-grade facility, we believe 6 meters is achievable. Which means we’re only at 75% capacity right now.”
Yeppoon, if you remember, has always been slated as a Surf Lakes R&D site. But like Slater’s pool in Lemoore, the Surf Lakes crew might not be able to pass up their test site’s commerciality.
“We’ve had two pools commissioned in the States, and we’re looking at potentially building a pool on the Gold Coast.” said Wayne Dart, “But we’ve found it’s difficult to secure the required land permits in certain regions around the world. That’s proven to take much longer than building an actual wave system.”
While their global propagation may be delayed, once these Surf Lakes pools are built, they’ll pump out waves like no other. Remember, there are five breaks total in the pool, each of which provides a right and left with every drop of the plunger. There are typically 3-4 waves per set. That means 30-40 people could ride a wave to themselves every 60 seconds...
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