drained of water. Gradually, he began to 132
realise that it wouldn’t deliver his plan
for an egalitarian, relaxed space.
For one thing, he had already done
the maths that showed to make back
the £25m investment, he needed about
150,000 surfers through every year. To
pull that many people in, you would
somehow need to offer waves of sizes
and speeds that worked for beginners,
intermediates and experts; but if you
separated sessions for each ability-group,
it was unlikely all the sessions would be
filled. And there was a bigger issue: it
was crucial in Hounsfield’s vision that
every visitor felt unintimidated and of
equal value, so that they could relax and
feel a connection with the surroundings,
they way people did on those Mediter-
ranean beaches. If you in effect separated
the visitors based on surfing ability, that
wasn’t going to happen. “We wanted to
create a place where people can feel
they’re relaxed and supported, and can
fall over without being judged,” he says.
“If we just end up with lots of hyper-cool,
worthy surfers who can’t smile, then
we’ve failed miserably.”
The problem was, unsmiling and
hyper-cool people make up a sizeable
part of surfing’s image, and so it’s at this
point that the nature of the waves inter-
sects with the sport’s rather complex
sociology. The quest for “the perfect
wave” is surfing’s ultimate dream, but
surfers also have multiple categories of
waves, defined by either the obstruction
that causes waves to break, or the
force generating them.
Beginners like to ride on small,
humped waves at 180 degrees to
the direction the wave is coming in,
propelled along simply. Once they’re
competent, they look to ride waves that
are concave (or “open faced”) at right
angles to the direction of water. These
competent surfers differ in the extent
to which they believe surfing should be
about improvement and performance as
opposed to just having fun; and that belief
forms the basis of a strong tribalism.
Surfing has a long tradition of environ-
mental awareness and activism, and a
concern with social justice. Commen-
tators often make a case for it as a
spiritual, even quasi-religious experience;
for the psychologist, counter-cultural
figure and psychedelic-drug enthusiast
Timothy Leary, writing in the 1960s,
surfers were “futurists, leading the way
to where man ultimately wants to be...
The act of the ride is the epitome of ‘be
here now’.” In this “soul surfing” vision,
equality and connection with nature
are everything – and, as one frequent-
ly-quoted maxim has it, “the best surfer
is the one having the most fun”.However, riding the WSL-era growth
of the sport is a focus on the commercial
expressions of the “lifestyle”, and an
increasing visibility for the talented
and attractive. This has drawn in new
people – some claim in order to show
off a prowess they don’t possess –
which makes them a focal point for the
resentment of long-time surfers who
feel their physical and cultural territory
is being encroached on. And they can
be hostile in defending it. Some soul
surfers would say there’s a fourth tribe
of macho, highly competitive people who
see the sport as a sort of aquatic Formula
1, venerating the pros and champions,
and scorning those of lesser ability.
For some observers, this latter version
of surfing is epitomised by the highest-profile of the new wavemaking technol-
ogies, Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch. Slater
is arguably the greatest-ever surfer, an
11-time world champion with a social
cachet akin to that of basketball’s Michael
Jordan. In autumn 2018, he opened a
project he had been working on for many
years: a 600-metre long, 150-metre wide
artificial lake in central California, which
uses 100-tonne hydrofoils running down
one side to create a single, perfect wave.
The wave can be adjusted in size, but Surf
Ranch is all about spectacle and glamour.
It is hugely expensive – about $10,000 an
hour to ride – and the wave can only be
created once every four minutes (the water
must return to a calm state before the next
wave can be triggered), so it’s definitely not
a beginners’ zone. The World Surf League
has invested heavily because, accord-
ing to WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt,
it will “push elite performance”. 09-19-FTwave.indd 132 23/07/2019 16:39