Wavegarden R&D

History

In 2005, engineer Jose Odriozola and sports scientist Karin Frisch decided to direct their expertise in sport facilities (e.g. skate parks) toward their passion for surfing. Their goal was to try and reproduce the sensations and experiences of surfing an ocean wave under ideal conditions.

They explored every wave making strategy they could think of using boat wakes, underwater foils pulled by tractors, and rotating circular islands.

In 2009, they created the their first rideable waves on a demo model that was a very early iteration on the Wavegarden Lagoon technology. The technique, based on dragging a foil through the water, created 3 foot (1m) waves with an attractive open face for turns. In 2010 Wavegarden released footage of Fanning, Nic Von Rupp, Bobby Martinez, Owen Wright and others surfing the prototype and the internet blew up.

In 2012, Wavegarden released a larger, bi-directional version of their technology that created lefts and rights at the same time by dragging a foil under a pier that runs down the middle of a lagoon. The foil then gets dragged in the reverse direction to create another set of waves.

In 2013, after additional testing and tuning of their Lagoon technology, Wavegarden announced “Wavegarden 2.0” and demonstrated the improvements to the pool at their R&D center. The updated Lagoon was 220m long and at the time that was the longest in the world. It produced 120 waves per hour that were 1.2m (4.25 feet) high on the face of the wave. Generating waves consumed 270kW of power.

Their success resulted in their first customers and the Wavegarden Lagoon technology was put into commercial use at Snowdonia and NLand.

In 2016, Wavegarden rocked the world once again with a new wave pool technology called the Wavegarden Cove. The Cove prototype replaced the XX the Lagoon at the R&D facility and continues to be the centerpiece of the facility today.

Sources: Wavegarden, Magic Seaweed